14. Conclusions

This book has argued that the scale of Qatar’s policy ambitions requires a fresh frame of reference as a “transformative state,” which we defined as a state that seeks to introduce and implement, over a comparatively short time, a radical re-configuration of social, economic, and political institutions in a country. This definition has three key dimensions: (1) time (short, compressed, and intense), (2) depth (radical, deep), and (3) scope (almost simultaneously, across all sectors, public and private). By calling attention to its transformative character, we are not denying other important characteristics of the Qatari state, for example, its geo-political location in the Gulf and the Middle East, its dependence on hydrocarbons, and its Arab and Islamic nature, to name only the key ones. Our argument is simply that these characteristics, as crucial as they are, need to be weighed with and against the state’s policy ambitions. Indeed, the ambition to transform Qatar into a modern state and society is one tempered by the exigencies of geography, culture, history, and religion. Does its transformative character make Qatar unique? In some ways it does, and we will discuss these below. A “unique case” is somewhat troubling from a social science perspective, since it explains nothing but itself; it is sui generis. However, understanding Qatar does cast some light on challenges in the Gulf and the Middle East, as well as broader issues of governance and the management of public policy dynamics. For example, Qatar’s challenges and opportunities are similar to those faced by some other Gulf states. In the field of foreign policy, as another example, it has been taken as an exemplar of “small state diplomacy” (Cooper and Momani 2011; Cooper and Shaw 2009).