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2017, New York Times
The Political Economy of Communication
A New Kind of Information Warfare? Cyber-conflict and the Gulf crisis 2010–20172018 •
This article analyses the current Gulf crisis that started in May 2017 by posing the following question. Did an information war unfold or did the crisis events that took place merely illustrate yet another round of propaganda and disinformation contests among Gulf participants and their backers? Accordingly, I will focus on five central themes. First, the theoretical underpinning and key concepts concerning Information Warfare (and related notions like Hacktivism and Cyber War) will be discussed in relation to information space and the media sphere. The second theme explores the historical, strategic, and geopolitical dynamics that led to the crisis and looks closely at the rivalries taking place in the region, with a particular focus on the proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Against a backdrop of geopolitical tensions and cyber threats, the third theme reviews some of the most notorious cyber attacks that occurred in the Gulf region up until the Trump Presidency. The fourth theme sheds some light on recent manifestations of the Gulf crisis and the anti-Qatar coalition’s modus operandi. Fifthly, Qatar’s response to the crisis will be reviewed and evaluated.
Qatar, a backwater state in regional and international politics until 1995, has in recent years pursued a high-profile foreign policy in the areas of dispute mediation, maintaining balanced relations with allies and adversaries alike, adept use of soft power tools, and even military interventions in fellow Arab states, Libya in particular, to aid the Arab pro-democracy forces. This high-profile foreign policy has aimed at strengthening Qatar’s national security in the Gulf neighborhood and playing a more pro-active role in the Arab world. This article examines Qatar’s activist foreign policy role in the Arab Spring and probes whether such a role is sustainable in the future in view of the constraints Qatar faces at home, in the Gulf neighborhood and beyond. It concludes that Qatar, as a tiny state, has little choice other than strike out a balance between its oversized foreign policy role and the imperatives of regional and international realities.
June marked the official re-ignition of the intra-Gulf Cooperation Council rift, centred once again on Qatari transgressions against the security of its neighbours. On the face of it, for Riyadh and friends to place a fellow member of the Gulf Cooperation Council under siege is odd if their real enemy is Iran. Nevertheless, Saudi anger, shared by the UAE, Jordan and Egypt, directs at Qatar's mercurial and independent foreign policy, which includes cordial relations with the Islamic republic of Iran. The three main axes in the region, led by Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are likely to express their goals and interests differently, leading to increased competition and dispute. The main goal of each of the axes is the containment of the others, including the more-or-less non-aligned states such as Iraq. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies may also have felt emboldened by Mr Trump's visit, which saw the new president clearly align US interests with Riyadh and lash out at Iran. In a tightening of the diplomatic row, Saudi Arabia bans Al Jazeera channels in hotels. Despite mediation efforts led by Kuwait, the standoff continues into the dispute between Saudi and its allies, and Qatar. Qatar is not completely isolated. Turkey has fast tracked a decision to approve the deployment of troops to Qatar-part of an existing bilateral agreement but widely interpreted as a show of support. The UNSG says he is ready to support diplomatic efforts to resolve tensions between Qatar and other Gulf Arab states if desired by all parties. In the battle for Middle East supremacy, Tehran and Riyadh are making every effort to impress, a rivalry that is consuming the Middle East in proxy conflicts from Yemen to Syria — and now in a diplomatic squabble with Qatar. However, their struggle is also one of narratives, a war of words that has reached the U.S. and is raging in the nation's capital i. Notwithstanding the necessity for dialogue, interface and partnership, specific features that are subject to limitations inherent in the model of the pious supremacy tradition of Sunni-Shia thought, discourse and practice mark the various aspects of their 'ideological' activities. These result in a habit of discourse whereby they exert 'ideological' effort in the making or remaking of the identities of the people; while at the same time taking them unproblematically as given in advance (whether historically, culturally or naturally) rather than produced in well thought out agency and ideology. Key words: Qatar, GCC, Saudi Arabia, terrorism, Sunni-Shia
The foreign policy literature on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is plentiful, and cer- tainly has a rich and volatile sample to consider. Foreign policy analysis of the Gulf, however, is often hindered by the ‘black box’ of leadership within the Gulf Arab states. Our theories, including rentierism, simplify rather than tease out the idiosyncrasies between Gulf states and their mechanisms of policy making. The purpose of this workshop1 and the papers presented here is to address drivers of foreign policy within GCC member-states, and sub- sequent interaction and effect of these policies in neighbouring countries. What we might also achieve is some shared conceptual clarity on frameworks for analysing foreign policy in the subregion, and to put forward some hypotheses about how the process of state-building in the region is changing both the agents and the practice of policy making.
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST, Routledge, London
"Old and new challenges for ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East"2019 •
This chapter argues that ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East are living a crucial juncture in this early twenty-first century that asks for a reassessment of their position. The ever-expanding process of globalization as well as the Arab revolts of 2010–11 have paved the way for an empowerment of certain ethnic and religious minorities, despite the fact that the latter have witnessed a dramatic decline from a numerical perspective. Today, like yesterday, diverse sectors from Middle Eastern societies, including minorities, are calling for new forms of governance beyond the “primitive” versions of nationalism and communitarianism. As in other regions across the world,63 minority groups seek to modify the content of their cause in ways that empower ordinary people to gain more control over the resources as well as the decision-making processes at all levels. As in the past, however, this capacity of “agency” provides at once new opportunities – publicity for their concerns and influence (and old challenges) – and a “visibility” that forces minority groups not only to respond to those challenges in order to maintain their place and even new relevance, but also to avoid being associated as allies of “fifth columns”. Finally, against this backdrop, the (re)examination of how “minorities” have shaped (and continue to shape) international relations in the Middle East asks for a less stato-centered vantage point in the IR field. The growing visibility (religious revivalism both in the Middle East and among the diaspora), social activism seeking to secure the “right to difference”, and the political empowerment (particularly the Amazigh movement in North Africa, as well as the Kurdish movement both in Syria and Iraq) need to be analyzed not as marginal dynamics, but as potential forces of transformation in the Middle East. After all, political claims on behalf of “minorities” have frequently been claims not for separation but for more liberal politics with implications for the majority as well.
Buried in the Gulf crisis is a major development likely to reshape international relations as well as power dynamics in the Middle East: the coming out of small states capable of punching far above their weight with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, a driver of the crisis, locked into an epic struggle to rewrite the region’s political map.
George Mason University Character Assassination and Reputational Politics Conference
Qatar's Use of Hacking and Mass Media To Assassinate Characters of Rivals and to Shut Down Criticism: Implications for Reputational Management2019 •
Akademik İncelemeler Dergisi
Beyond Sectarian Identity Politics within the Middle East: the Case of Rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia (Ortadoğu'da Mezhepsel Kimlik Politikalarının Ötesinde: İran-Suudi Arabistan'ın Rekabeti Örneği)2019 •
2016 •
The War for Syria. Regional and International Dimensions of the Syrian Uprising
The Regional Sectarian War and Syria2020 •
Gulf Monographic Series No. 4
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Gulf Crisis2018 •
Brussels, Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) and Rome, Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), June 2019, 145 p., ISBN 978-88-3365-221-4
Europe and Iran in a Fast-Changing Middle EastBrookings-Georgetown "Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power" Project
Islam as Statecraft: How Governments Use Religion in Foreign Policy2018 •
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
Cash is King: Financial Sponsorship and Changing Priorities in the Syrian Civil War2019 •
Korean Political Science Review
Compartmentalized Hedging in the Middle East : Turkey's Alternative Strategy towards Iran2017 •
2017 •