Joseph A. Kéchichian
Joseph Albert Kéchichian (, born March 15, 1954) is a political scientist. Biography. Kéchichian received his doctorate in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia in 1985, where he also taught (1986-1988), and assumed the assistant deanship in international studies (1988-1989). In the summer of 1989, he was a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University (under the U.S. State Department Title VIII Program). Between 1990 and 1996, he labored at the Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation as an Associate Political Scientist, and was a lecturer at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). Between 1998 and  2001, Kéchichian was a fellow at UCLA’s Gustav E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, where he held a Smith Richardson Foundation grant (1998-1999) to compose "Succession in Saudi Arabia" (New York: Palgrave ) and Beirut and London: Dar Al Saqi, 2002, 2003 [2nd ed] (for the Arabic translation)]. He published "Political Participation and Stability in the Sultanate of Oman", Dubai: Gulf Research Center, 2005, "Oman and the World: The Emergence of an Independent Foreign Policy" (Santa Monica: RAND ), and edited "A Century in Thirty Years: Shaykh Zayed and the United Arab Emirates" (Washington, D.C.: The  Middle East Policy Council ), as well as "Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Gulf States" (New York: Palgrave ). In 2003, he co-authored, with R. Hrair Dekmejian at USC, "The Just Prince: A Manual of Leadership" (London: Saqi Books), which includes a full translation of the Sulwan al-Muta` by Muhammad Ibn Zafar al-Siqilli. In 2008, he published two studies, "Power and Succession in Arab Monarchies" (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, and Beirut: Riyad al-Rayyes Books, 2012—in 2 volumes for the Arabic translation]), and "Faysal: Saudi Arabia’s King for All Seasons" Gainesville, Florida: University  Press of Florida and Beirut: Dar al-‘Arabiyyah lil-Mawsu‘at, 2012]. His newest book is "Legal and Political Reforms in Sa‘udi Arabia", published by Routledge in December 2012. He published a companion volume to Faysal on "‘Iffat Al Thunayan: An Arabian Queen" (London: Sussex Academic Press, 2014). “The Enduring Saudi Oil Power,” in Robert E. Looney, ed, Handbook of Oil Politics, London and New York: Routledge, 2012, pp. 284–294.