External Powers and the Gulf Monarchies

External Powers and the Gulf Monarchies PDF

Author: Jonathan Fulton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-08-23

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1351615920

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The Gulf monarchies have been generally perceived as status quo actors reliant on the USA for their security, but in response to regional events, particularly the Arab Spring of 2011, they are pursuing more activist foreign policies, which has allowed other international powers to play a larger role in regional affairs. This book analyses the changing dynamic in this region, with expert contributors providing original empirical case studies that examine the relations between the Gulf monarchies and extra-regional powers, including the USA, Russia, China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, France, and the United Kingdom. At the theoretical level, these case studies explore the extent to which different international relations and international political economy theories explain change in these relationships as the regional, political and security environment shifts. Focusing on how and why external powers approach their relationships with the Gulf monarchies, contributors ask what motivates external powers to pursue deeper involvement in an unstable region that has seen three major conflicts in the past 40 years. Addressing an under-analysed, yet important topic, the volume will appeal to scholars in the fields of international relations and international political economy as well as area specialists on the Gulf and those working on the foreign policy issues of the extra-regional powers studied.

The Gulf Monarchies and Climate Change

The Gulf Monarchies and Climate Change PDF

Author: Mari Luomi

Publisher: Hurst & Company

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781849042673

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At the heart of Mari Luomi's salutary book is whether oil- and gas-dependent authoritarian monarchies can keep their natural resource use and the environment in balance. She argues that the Gulf monarchies have already reached their limits of 'natural sustainability', given that several of them are dependent on natural gas imports. Water resources are dwindling, and food import dependence is high and rising. Qatar's per capita emission of CO2 is ten times the global average. As a result of their booming economies, the Gulf monarchies' surging electricity and water demand have exerted unexpected pressures on domestic energy supply. Simultaneously, the consolidation of climate change on the international agenda has created a new uncertainty for local rulers whose survival depends on sales of oil and gas. Meanwhile domestic resource consumption, together with climate change, are putting unprecedented stress on the region's fragile desert environment. The Gulf is under stress, but so too are its states' power, wealth and ecosystems. Luomi reveals how Abu Dhabi and Qatar have responded to these new natural re- source-related pressures, particularly climate change, and how their responses are inextricably linked with elite legitimacy strategies and the 'natural unsustainability' of their political economies.

Oil Monarchies

Oil Monarchies PDF

Author: F. Gregory Gause

Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 9780876091517

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This timely book demystifies the politics of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman, and focuses on the new pressures that have emerged since the Gulf War. Gause illuminates the foreign policy tightrope these states walk in the Middle East: self-defense is problematic, regional pressures translate directly into the domestic arena, and relations with the United States cause as well as solve many problems. Gause examines the interplay of Islamic fundamentalism, tribalism, and, most importantly, oil wealth that has determined the power structure of the Gulf monarchies. He shows what influences really drive politics in the Middle East as well as how U.S. foreign policy must respond to them in order to forge more meaningful ties with each country and preserve the stability of a fragile region that is vital to U.S. interests.

After the Sheikhs

After the Sheikhs PDF

Author: Christopher Davidson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 019024450X

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The Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia and its five smaller neighbours: the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain) have long been governed by highly autocratic and seemingly anachronistic regimes. Yet despite bloody conflicts on their doorsteps, fast-growing populations, and powerful modernising and globalising forces impacting on their largely conservative societies, they have demonstrated remarkable resilience. Obituaries for these traditional monarchies have frequently been penned, but even now these absolutist, almost medieval, entities still appear to pose the same conundrum as before: in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring and the fall of incumbent presidents in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, the apparently steadfast Gulf monarchies have, at first glance, re-affirmed their status as the Middle East s only real bastions of stability. In this book, however, noted Gulf expert Christopher Davidson contends that the collapse of these kings, emirs, and sultans is going to happen, and was always going to. While the revolutionary movements in North Africa, Syria, and Yemen will undeniably serve as important, if indirect, catalysts for the coming upheaval, many of the same socio-economic pressures that were building up in the Arab republics are now also very much present in the Gulf monarchies. It is now no longer a matter of if but when the West s steadfast allies fall. This is a bold claim to make but Davidson, who accurately forecast the economic turmoil that afflicted Dubai in 2009, has an enviable record in diagnosing social and political changes afoot in the region.

Fraternal Enemies

Fraternal Enemies PDF

Author: Clive Jones

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-02-01

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0197530923

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Relations between Israel and the Gulf states are not anything new. In the immediate aftermath of the 1993 Oslo Accords, both Qatar and Oman established low-level yet open diplomatic ties with Israel. In 2010, Ha'aretz reported that the former Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, was on friendly terms with Shaykh Abdullah Ibn Zayed, her counterpart from the UAE, despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties between the two states. The shared suspicion towards the regional designs of Iran that undoubtedly underpinned these ties even extended, it was alleged, to a secret dialogue between Israel and Saudi Arabia, led by the late Meir Dagan, the former head of Mossad. Cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia in thwarting Iran's regional ambitions also casts light on Washington's lack of strategic leadership, which had previously been the totem around which Israel and the Gulf states had based regional security strategies. Jones and Guzansky contend that, at the very least, ties between Israel and many of its Gulf counterparts are now more vibrant than hitherto realized. They constitute a tacit security regime which, while based on hard power interests, does not preclude competition in other areas. Ultimately, these relations are helping shape a new regional order in the Middle East.

Power and Politics in the Persian Gulf Monarchies

Power and Politics in the Persian Gulf Monarchies PDF

Author: Christopher Davidson

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2011-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780199327621

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In command of the world's largest hydrocarbon reserves and occupying a central role in both Middle Eastern and global politics, the six traditional monarchies--Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)--that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council are now among the most heavily researched yet most commonly misunderstood actors in the international system. Christopher Davidson, an acclaimed expert on the fast moving politics and economics of the Gulf, together with five other leading authorities on the region, has brought together a unique collection of comprehensive yet highly accessible analyses of these six states. Following a succinct theoretical overview of the various achievements, opportunities, and collective challenges faced by the monarchies, each chapter discusses their individual historical backgrounds, political structures, economic diversification efforts, and future prospects. Drawing on the latest research in the field, the most up-to-date statistics, and written in a frank and critical manner, this textbook is a valuable addition to university reading lists on Middle Eastern studies or political science, while also appealing to the general interest reader.

Energy Kingdoms

Energy Kingdoms PDF

Author: Jim Krane

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2019-01-08

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 0231548923

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After the discovery of oil in the 1930s, the Gulf monarchies—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Bahrain—went from being among the world’s poorest and most isolated places to some of its most ostentatiously wealthy. To maintain support, the ruling sheikhs provide their subjects with boundless cheap energy, unwittingly leading to some of the highest consumption rates on earth. Today, as summertime temperatures set new records, the Gulf’s rulers find themselves caught in a dilemma: can they curb their profligacy without jeopardizing the survival of some of the world’s last absolute monarchies? In Energy Kingdoms, Jim Krane takes readers inside these monarchies to consider their conundrum. He traces the history of the Gulf states’ energy use and policies, looking in particular at how energy subsidies have distorted demand. Oil exports are the lifeblood of their political-economic systems—and the basis of their strategic importance—but domestic consumption has begun eating into exports while climate change threatens to render their desert region uninhabitable. At risk are the sheikhdoms’ way of life, their relations with their Western protectors, and their political stability in a chaotic region. Backed by rich fieldwork and deep knowledge of the region, Krane expertly lays out the hard choices that Gulf leaders face to keep their states viable.

Money, Markets, and Monarchies

Money, Markets, and Monarchies PDF

Author: Adam Hanieh

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-09-13

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 1108429149

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An original and empirically grounded analysis of the Gulf monarchies and their role in shaping the political economy of the Middle East.

China's Relations with the Gulf Monarchies

China's Relations with the Gulf Monarchies PDF

Author: Jonathan Fulton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-08-06

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9781315142678

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As China's international political role grows, its relations with states outside of its traditional sphere of interests is evolving. This is certainly the case of the Gulf monarchies of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, which together comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). China's levels of interdependence with these states has increased dramatically in recent years, spanning a wide range of interests. What motivating factors explain the Chinese leadership's decision to forge closer ties to the GCC? Why have GCC leaders developed closer ties to China, and what kind of role can China be expected to play in the region as levels of interdependence intensify? This book uses neoclassical realism to analyse the evolution of Sino-GCC relations. Examining the pressures that shaped China's policy toward the Gulf monarchies, it demonstrates that systemic considerations have been predominant since 1949, yet domestic political considerations were also always an important consideration. Relations are examined across diplomatic and political interactions, trade and investment, infrastructure and construction projects, people-to-people exchanges, and military and security cooperation. This book will appeal to scholars in the fields of International Relations and International Political Economy, as well as area specialists on China, the Gulf, the Gulf Monarchies, and those working on foreign policy issues.

Armies of Arabia

Armies of Arabia PDF

Author: Zoltan Barany

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0190866209

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Armies of Arabia is the first book to comprehensively analyze the armed forces of the Gulf monarchies. Zoltan Barany explains the conspicuous ineffectiveness of Gulf militaries with a combination of political-structural and sociocultural factors. Following a brief exposition on their historical evolution, he explores the region's six armies of the region comparatively, through the lenses of military politics, sociology, economics, and diplomacy. The book'sthemes come together in the last chapter that critically evaluates the Saudi and Emirati armed forces' record in the on-going war in Yemen.