Download or read book Qatar and the Arab Spring written by Kristian Ulrichsen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Qatar and the Arab Spring offers a frank examination of Qatar's startling rise to regional and international prominence, describing how its distinctive policy stance toward the Arab Spring emerged. In only a decade, Qatari policy-makers - led by the Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and his prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani - catapulted Qatar from a sleepy backwater to a regional power with truly international reach. In addition to pursuing an aggressive state-branding strategy with its successful bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar forged a reputation for diplomatic mediation that combined intensely personalized engagement with financial backing and favorable media coverage through the Al-Jazeera. These factors converged in early 2011 with the outbreak of the Arab Spring revolts in North Africa, Syria, and Yemen, which Qatari leaders saw as an opportunity to seal their regional and international influence, rather than as a challenge to their authority, and this guided their support of the rebellions against the Gaddafi and Assad regimes in Libya and Syria. From the high watermark of Qatari influence after the toppling of Gaddafi in 2011, that rapidly gave way to policy overreach in Syria in 2012, Coates Ulrichsen analyses Qatari ambition and capabilities as the tiny emirate sought to shape the transitions in the Arab world.

Download or read book Qatar and the Gulf Crisis written by Kristian Coates Ulrichsen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-01 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2017, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt severed diplomatic ties with Qatar, launching an economic blockade by land, air and sea. The self-proclaimed 'Anti-Terror Quartet' offered maximalist demands: thirteen 'conditions' recalling Austria-Hungary's 1914 ultimatum to Serbia. They may even have intended military action. Well into its second year, the standoff in the Gulf has no realistic end in sight. With the Bahraini and Emirati criminalisation of expressing support for Qatar, and the Saudi labelling of detainees as 'traitors' for their alleged Qatari links, bitterness has been stoked between deeply interconnected peoples. The adviser to the Saudi crown prince advocating a moat to physically separate Qatar from the Arabian Peninsula illustrates the ongoing intensity--and irrationality--of the crisis. Most reporting and analysis of these developments has focused on questions of regional geopolitics, and framed the standoff in terms of its impact on (largely) Western interests. Lost in this thicket of commentary is consideration of how the Qatari leadership and population have responded to the blockade. As the 2022 FIFA World Cup draws closer, the ongoing Qatar crisis becomes increasingly important to understand. Ulrichsen offers an authoritative study of this international standoff, from both sides.

Download or read book Qatar written by Mehran Kamrava and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Persian Gulf state of Qatar has fewer than 2 million inhabitants, virtually no potable water, and has been an independent nation only since 1971. Yet its enormous oil and gas wealth has permitted the ruling al Thani family to exert a disproportionately large influence on regional and even international politics. Qatar is, as Mehran Kamrava explains in this knowledgeable and incisive account of the emirate, a "tiny giant": although severely lacking in most measures of state power, it is highly influential in diplomatic, cultural, and economic spheres. Kamrava presents Qatar as an experimental country, building a new society while exerting what he calls "subtle power." It is both the headquarters of the global media network Al Jazeera and the site of the U.S. Central Command's Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center. Qatar has been a major player during the European financial crisis, it has become a showplace for renowned architects, several U.S. universities have established campuses there, and it will host the FIFA World Cup in 2022. Qatar's effective use of its subtle power, Kamrava argues, challenges how we understand the role of small states in the global system. Given the Gulf state's outsized influence on regional and international affairs, this book is a critical and timely account of contemporary Qatari politics and society.

Download or read book Qatar written by David B. Roberts and published by Hurst & Company. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rarely has a state changed its character so completely in so short a period of time. Previously content to play a role befitting its small size, Qatar was a traditional, risk-averse Gulf monarchy until the early 1990s. A bloodless coup in 1995 brought to power an emerging elite with a progressive vision for the future. Financed by gas exports and protected by a US security umbrella, Qatar diversified its foreign relations to include Iran and Israel, established the satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera, assumed a leading role in international mediation, and hosted a number of top-level sporting tournaments, culminating in the successful FIFA World Cup 2022 bid. Qatar's disparate, often misunderstood, policies coalesce to propagate a distinct brand. Whether to counter regional economic competitors or to further tie Qatar to the economies of the world's leading countries, this brand is de- signed innovatively to counter a range of security concerns; in short, Qatar is diversifying its dependencies. Qatar's prominent role in the Arab Spring follows a similar pattern, yet the gamble it is taking in supporting Islamists and ousting dictators is potentially dangerous: not only is it at risk from 'blowback' in dealing with such actors, but a lack of transparency means that clichés and assumptions threaten to derail "brand Qatar."

Download or read book Contemporary Qatar written by Mahjoob Zweiri and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-06-19 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses critical topics and unanswered questions on the contemporary state of Qatar. Drawing together a unique combination of authors that have researched the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in general, and the state of Qatar specifically, each author provides an in-depth empirical analysis of Qatar’s current social, political, and economic landscape against a historically informed backdrop. Cognizant of its rapid state of flux, the contributors collectively provide a comprehensive overview of the intersection of these respective areas, delving into the historical creation of Qatar as a state, its politics and systems of governance, its economic strata and reliance on natural resources, its society and national identity, its new and thriving sports culture, and, most topically, matters of diplomacy, the 2017 blockade, and its armed forces. Owing to the contributors’ invaluable firsthand experience and knowledge of Qatar, this book provides valuable insights into this nation, at once old and new, and its intertwined trajectories in its socio-political and economic positionality within the region. This book is an invaluable resource for students and scholars researching the Middle East generally, and the Gulf, specifically, with interests in topics such as politics and international relations, political economy and foreign policy, development, sources of social change, societal activism, popular culture, and the various elements of identity.

Download or read book The Foreign Policy of Smaller Gulf States written by Máté Szalai and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-27 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies how smaller Gulf states managed to increase their influence in the Middle East, oftentimes capitalising on their smallness as a foreign policy tool. By establishing a novel theoretical framework (the complex model of size), this study identifies specific ways in which material and perceptual smallness affect power, identity, regime stability, and leverage in international politics. The small states of the Gulf (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates) managed to build up considerable influence in regional politics over the last decade, although their size is still considered an essential, irresolvable weakness, which makes them secondary actors to great powers such as Saudi Arabia or Iran. Breaking down explicit and implicit biases towards largeness, the book examines specific case studies related to foreign and security policy behaviour, including the Gulf wars, the Arab Uprisings, the Gulf rift, and the Abraham Accords. Analysing the often-neglected small Gulf states, the volume is an important contribution to international relations theory, making it a key resource for students and academics interested in Small State Studies, Gulf studies, and the political science of the Middle East.

Download or read book Reflecting on the GCC Crisis written by David B. Roberts and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-03-16 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt (the quartet) enacted a diplomatic, economic, and physical blockade of Qatar. Gulf politics has always been fractious, but this stunning political gambit took everyone – Qatari leaders, scholars, the international community – entirely by surprise. The quartet assailed Qatar with a litany of charges mostly relating to its support of a motley array of sub-state actors across the Middle East. However, few out with the quartet thought that Qatar’s purported crimes warranted such a unique and all-encompassing punishment. The blockade ended in January 2021 just as it began – out of the blue – without any obvious instigating factors. The puzzle of the Gulf blockade and its myriad impacts are examined in this volume, which benefits from certain distance. It builds upon early analyses to offer a range of crisp, insightful reflections, many based on new primary sources. The chapters take a multidisciplinary and diverse theoretical approach to the crisis. In this way, the blockade is evaluated from multiple novel angles presenting the most rounded analysis of one of the most surprising and impactful events in the contemporary diplomatic history of one of the world’s key strategic crossroads. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of Arabian Studies.

Download or read book Qatar written by Diana Galeeva and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains the parameters of Qatar’s political growth by developing an alternative theory of power – ‘rented’ power. The author demonstrates how Qatar’s emergence as a regional power can be solely explained by its capacity as a gas-rich rentier state. By using Qatar as an empirical case study of the ‘rented’ power theory, readers will gain insight into Qatar’s engagement with non-state actors (political Islam, tribes, media, sports, and others) to wield its power, allowing Qatar to ‘rent’ the well-established influence of non-state actors due to their transnational nature. The Qatari case demonstrates a state’s ability to establish a patron-client relationship with non-state actors, overcoming limitations set by size or military strength to gain international influence. This book is accessible to a wide readership: it will be of interest of scholars, postgraduates, journalists, policy experts, and a general audience whose interests include the politics of the Middle East and the GCC states particularly

Download or read book Image Politics in the Middle East written by Lina Khatib and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-22 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Politics in the Middle East is now 'seen' and the image is playing a central part in processes of political struggle. This is the first book in the literature to engage directly with these changing ways of communicating politics in the region - and particularly with the politics of the image, its power as a political tool. Lina Khatib presents a cross-country examination of emerging trends in the use of visuals in political struggles in the Middle East, from the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon to the Green Movement in Iran, to the Arab Spring in Egypt, Syria and Libya. She demonstrates how states, activists, artists and people 'on the street' are making use of television, the social media and mobile phones, as well as non-electronic forms, including posters, cartoons, billboards and graffiti to convey and mediate political messages. She also draws attention to politics as a visual performance by leaders and citizens alike. With a particular focus on the visual dynamics of the Arab Spring, and based on case studies on the visual dimension of political protest as well as of political campaigning and image management by political parties and political leaders, Image Politics in the Middle East shows how visual expression is at the heart of political struggle in the Middle East today. It is a hard-hitting, enjoyable, groundbreaking book, challenging the traditional ways in which politics in the Middle East is conceived of and analysed.

Download or read book Russian Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East written by Nikolay Kozhanov and published by Hurst Publishers. This book was released on 2022-04-28 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sheds light on Russia’s motives in the Middle East, examining its growing role in the region and its efforts to defend its national interests. As one of the first volumes to address both domestic and external drivers, it provides a valuable multi-dimensional account of Moscow’s foreign policy. Russian Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East also traces the historical evolution of Russia’s presence in the region, comparing Moscow’s current vision of its diplomatic priorities with the strategic goals of the Soviet Union. Diverse case studies reveal areas of both divergence and convergence between Russia and various Middle Eastern players on a range of issues, including the Syrian Civil War, Iran’s regional activities and the Yemeni conflict. In an era of renewed global tensions, this volume provides an important corrective to the notion that Russia’s Cold War-era confrontation with ‘the West’ determines its contemporary approach to the Middle East. No less important are economic interests and domestic security considerations, which push Moscow towards greater interaction with the region. Only by examining both new trends and old traditions can we understand Russia’s significance as a global player today.

Download or read book Un Civil War of Words written by Mamoun Fandy and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-05-30 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the war on terror rages, another battleground has quickly taken shape and is being waged on daily newscasts around the world. In the Arab world, al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya are leading the fight. But do these news networks simply provide the news? Or, are they, as westerners suspect, tools used by governments and terrorists alike to relay their message to the man on the street as both Arab and Western leaders struggle to win the hearts and minds of millions of people? Fandy examines the impact that these and other news organizations have had on the war on terror, on the Arab world, and on the relationships that Arab nations share with each other, as well as those they share with the West. Focusing on al-Jazeera and other Arab networks, Fandy examines the battle between the Arab world and the West through the popular medium of television. He explores how autocratic governments control the media in order to preserve their own power while simultaneously engaging in a war of words, with their neighbors, the West, or many times, both.

Download or read book Qatar written by Christopher M. Blanchard and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05-13 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Qatar, a small peninsular country in the Persian Gulf, emerged as a partner of the U.S. in the mid-1990s and currently serves as host to major U.S. military facilities. Qatar holds the third largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, and its small population enjoys the world's highest per capita income. The emir of Qatar, Shaykh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, has managed a course of major economic growth and very limited political liberalization since replacing his father in a bloodless palace coup in 1995. Following joint military operations during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Qatar and the U.S. concluded a Defense Cooperation Agreement that has been subsequently expanded. Contents of this report: Country and Leadership Profile; Assertive Diplomacy and Economic Clout; Qatar's Foreign Policy and Economy; U.S.-Qatar Relations and Key Issues: U.S. Military Cooperation and Foreign Assistance; Counterterrorism; U.S.-Qatar Trade; Political Reform and Elections; Human Rights and Social Issues; Al Jazeera and the Qatari Media; Education; Appendixes: Qatar in Brief; Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Qatar. Map and table. This is a print on demand report.

Download or read book The Small Gulf States written by Khalid S. Almezaini and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Small states are often believed to have been resigned to the margins of international politics. However, the recent increase in the number of small states has increased their influence and forced the international community to incorporate some of them into the global governance system. This is particularly evident in the Middle East where small Gulf states have played an important role in the changing dynamics of the region in the last decade. The Small Gulf States analyses the evolution of these states’ foreign and security policies since the Arab Spring. With particular focus on Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, it explores how these states have been successful in not only guaranteeing their survival, but also in increasing their influence in the region. It then discusses the security dilemmas small states face, and suggests a multitude of foreign and security policy options, ranging from autonomy to influence, in order to deal with this. The book also looks at the influence of regional and international actors on the policies of these countries. It concludes with a discussion of the peculiarities and contributions of the Gulf states for the study of small states’ foreign and security policies in general. Providing a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the unique foreign and security policies of the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) before and after the Arab Spring, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle East studies, foreign policy and international relations.

Download or read book Policy Making in a Transformative State written by M. Evren Tok and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-08-10 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores, in a series of detailed case studies, how public policy is actually made in Qatar. While Qatar is a Gulf monarchy, its governance is complex. Other analysts have tried to come to grips with this complexity using qualified descriptions of the system such as 'late rentier,' 'pluralized autocracy,' 'tribal democracy,' or 'soft authoritarian.' The authors of the volume use the lens of a transformative state. Qatar is deliberately engaged in a rapid process of radical economic and societal transformation. That process has its contradictions and tensions, particularly with regards to achieving a balance between Islam, social traditions, and modernity. This book explores how it also has a specific policy dynamic of generating ideas and institutions, developing policy and program designs, implementation and coordination.

Download or read book Trials of Engagement written by Ali Fisher and published by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. This book was released on 2010-12-17 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public Diplomacy is now one of the most important concepts in the development and implementation of foreign policy. Trials of Engagement: The Future of US Diplomacy analyses the trials of contemporary practice and identifies factors which will shape a more collaborative future of public diplomacy.

Download or read book Israeli Foreign Policy since the End of the Cold War written by Amnon Aran and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first study of Israeli foreign policy towards the Middle East and selected world powers, since the end of the Cold War to the present.

Download or read book The 2017 Gulf Crisis written by Mahjoob Zweiri and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-11-09 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an overview of the origins, repercussions and projected future of the ongoing Gulf crisis, as well as an analysis of the major issues and debates relating to it. The Gulf region witnessed an extraordinary rift when, on 5 June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain cut all diplomatic ties and imposed a siege on the State of Qatar following the hacking of the Qatar News Agency website. This book approaches the Gulf crisis from an interdisciplinary perspective by bringing together a group of top scholars from a wide range of disciplines and areas of expertise to engage in a nuanced debate on the current crisis. With the pressing role of media in general and social media in particular, new political realities have been created in the region. The book addresses the role that cyber and information security play on politics, as well as the shift of alliances in the region as a result of the crisis. It scrutinizes the role of media and information technology in creating political cultures as well as conflicts. The book also explores the long-term economic implications of the siege imposed on Qatar and identifies how the country's economy is adjusting to the impact of the siege. Thus, the book considers the extent of social and economic changes that the crisis has brought to the region. This book invites in-depth understanding of the regional crisis and its implications on nation building and the reconfiguration of political and economic alliances across the region. It will appeal to a broad interdisciplinary readership in the area of Gulf studies.