4 - Bahrain

Summary

This chapter explores efforts to shape Bahrain’s political field and the ways in which its politically charged geographical location as the ‘epicentre’ of the struggle for supremacy between Riyadh and Tehran shapes these efforts. It explores the struggle for Bahrain’s political field and its social reality which has allowed a range of domestic and regional actors to become involved in the contestation over principles of vision and division, deploying economic, political, and religious capital in the process. Central to this is a number of networks and relationships that shape perceptions and behaviour, along tribal, ethnic, and religious lines. As Saudi and Iranian efforts to impose order on the region focused on Bahrain, they intersected with a complex set of intersectional phenomena bringing together tensions between rulers and ruled over social, economic, and political issues, all of which play out in the context of the transnational field.