Bedouins into Bourgeois Remaking Citizens for Globalization [Hardcover]

An examination of how state-led social engineering in the United Arab Emirates is reshaping citizens for globalization and a post-petroleum future.Bedouins into Bourgeois encompasses political science, sociology, and psychology, as well as state-led social engineering, citizenship studies, nationalism studies, comparative authoritarianism, political and economic socialization, human motivation, and comparative education reform. Of interest to policymakers and NGOs involved in social engineering efforts to influence citizen attitudes and behaviors, the findings will help readers understand how to avoid social engineering pitfalls.Bedouins into Bourgeois encompasses political science, sociology, and psychology, as well as state-led social engineering, citizenship studies, nationalism studies, comparative authoritarianism, political and economic socialization, human motivation, and comparative education reform. Of interest to policymakers and NGOs involved in social engineering efforts to influence citizen attitudes and behaviors, the findings will help readers understand how to avoid social engineering pitfalls.How are state leaders adapting their citizen-building strategies for globalization? What outcomes are they achieving, and why? Bedouins into Bourgeois investigates an ambitious state-led social engineering campaign in the United Arab Emirates, where leaders aimed to encourage more entrepreneurial, market-friendly, patriotic, and civic-minded citizens. Extensive ethnography - including interviews with a ruling monarch - reveals the rulers' reasoning and goals for social engineering. Through surveys and experiments, social engineering outcomes are examined, as well as the reasons for these outcomes, with surprising results. This fascinating study illustrates how social engineering strategies that use nationalism to motivate citizens can have paradoxical effects, increasing patriotism but unexpectedly discouraging or crowding out development-friendly mind-sets.Ilã7