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2016 | Book

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The Gulf States in International Political Economy

Author: Kristian Coates Ulrichsen

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Book Series : International Political Economy Series

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" , Springer Professional "Technik"

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About this book

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen documents the startling rise of the Arab Gulf States as regional powers with international reach and provides a definitive account of how they have become embedded in the global system of power, politics, and policy-making.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Introduction

Introduction
Abstract
This book examines the changing position of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states within a global order which itself is in a state of flux. Against the backdrop of deep shifts in the structure and balance of geopolitical and geo-economic gravity, the Gulf States have become increasingly assertive centres of regional power and influence. Beginning in the 1990s, the GCC states became increasingly integrated with the world economy, gradually opened up to foreign direct investment, and eventually acceded to the World Trade Organization. Since the turn of the century, and backed by the world’s fastest-growing airlines and by governing methods that resemble a corporate structure grafted onto the principles of hereditary rule, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha have imprinted themselves on the global consciousness, their exposure magnified by the acquisition or sponsorship of landmark assets and prestige events across the world.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen

Globalisation and the Gulf

Frontmatter
1. The Gulf and the Global Economy
Abstract
The opening chapter in this book assesses the multifaceted reasons behind the Gulf States’ uneven record of integration into the global economy. It begins by documenting how the ties binding the Gulf States into the global economy are both deep-rooted and long predate the discovery and extraction of oil in the twentieth century. Rather, the opening section highlights the historical interconnectivity of the transnational flows that tied the region into a broader economic hinterland spanning the Indian Oceanic world. Nevertheless, these processes were patchy and subject to partial reversal during the early oil years. Thus, the second section in this chapter examines the entrenched dynamics that also served to limit the Gulf States’ relationships with the international system, both politically and economically. Such dynamics included the conservative leanings of many of the ‘post-traditional’ governing systems in the (Arabian) Gulf, and the Gulf States’ enmeshment in Western political and military spheres of influence, during the period of prolonged British protection and following the passage to independence.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
2. Small States in World Politics
Abstract
Building on the analysis of the Gulf States’ changing role in the world economy, this chapter examines the new possibilities for the exercise of power and influence by small states in the global era. Earlier assumptions of vulnerability and lack of resilience have been eroded as opportunities for small states to make their voice heard have proliferated in an intensely globalised environment in which leverage is projected through multiple channels and is less reliant than ever before on territorial size. This general trend has been magnified still further in the case of resource-rich small states possessing both the intent and the capability to shape globalising forces to their own advantage. Both Qatar and the UAE, led by the entrepreneurial leaderships of Doha, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi, have proven adept at delinking territory and power, and consequently have emerged as regional powers with international reach. This turns on its head much conventional thinking about the role of small states in world politics and international relations.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
3. State Capitalism and Strategic Niches
Abstract
This chapter builds upon the enabling factors identified in Chapter 2 to analyse in specific detail the mechanisms of the Gulf States’ projection of power and influence at a regional and global level. Officials in GCC states responded pragmatically to the evolving changes in the international system by adapting and implementing a Gulf-specific model of state capitalism and concentrating on developing expertise in clearly defined strategic niches. Underpinning the pursuit of state capitalism and strategic niches was a reliance on small circles of concentrated policymaking clustered around ruling elites. This was at its strongest in the smaller Gulf States of Qatar and the UAE, particularly Dubai and Abu Dhabi, where the younger generation of rulers who came to power in the 1990s and 2000s governed far more in the style of executive leaders than political rulers, and was harder in the larger states of Saudi Arabia and Oman and in the particular circumstances of Bahrain, where authority has been dispersed among several competing factions within the ruling family, to replicate the propitious conditions for successful state capitalism.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
4. Gulf Perspectives on the Global Rebalancing
Abstract
This chapter ends Part I of this book by mapping the motivations and policy objectives that underpin the qualitative change in global engagement evident in GCC capitals since the turn of the millennium. It begins with an evaluation of the impact of the processes of globalisation on the Gulf that argues that the economic dimensions have largely been embraced whereas the political and socio-cultural aspects of globalisation have been subject to pushback. Yet, official scepticism of theoretical or normative concepts such as ‘global governance’ has not distanced the GCC states from actively participating in the evolving structures of global power, politics, and policymaking. Hence, the second section of this chapter explores three instances where individual Gulf States have engaged pragmatically in attempts to reshape international governing structures. These are the attempts to leverage GCC states’ roles in recapitalising struggling Western institutions during the global financial crisis in 2007–2008 into greater representation in the architecture of international finance; the greater emphasis on positioning the Gulf States at the forefront of new frameworks of energy governance;
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen

Changing Patterns of Global Engagement

Frontmatter
5. The Internationalisation of Gulf Finance
Abstract
The second part of this book analyses the emergence of the Gulf States as pivotal actors in the broader rebalancing of global geo-economic and political power. The five chapters in this section examine the greater assertiveness of GCC states in debates over new frameworks of international governance, their rise as major global actors in Islamic finance and sovereign wealth funds, their enmeshment in shifting patterns of global trade, the role of aviation as a powerful case study of the Gulf States’ global repositioning, and the emergence of new security threats and challenges that may over time undermine the Gulf States’ global rise.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
6. Shifting Patterns of Global Trade
Abstract
This chapter develops the empirical evidence of the Gulf States’ greater role in patterns of global trade and production. It examines how the large-scale economic diversification programmes initiated in the 1990s and 2000s and described in previous chapters have created new integrative linkages with the global economy as the GCC states grew into world-leading centres of production for a variety of industries ranging from petrochemicals and aluminium to cement and the construction industry. Simultaneously, the direction of Gulf hydrocarbons and nonoil trade shifted to the East in response to the Asian economic boom in the 2000s. The result has been the creation of more complex industrial ties with emerging (as well as industrialised) economies, primarily at bilateral levels but also on a multilateral basis as well. These ties have contributed to the shifting patterns of international trade that cumulatively are reshaping the contours of the global economy. Set against this has been the far slower progress on global trade agreements such as the WTO’s Doha Development Round, which remained at an impasse in 2014, more than a decade after its launch in the Qatari capital in 2001.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
7. Global Aviation and the Gulf
Abstract
This chapter provides an empirical case study of one of the areas in which the Gulf States have been the most visible and dynamic generators of global change. The startling rise of Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways has reshaped global aviation markets around the three hubs of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha, as the Gulf airlines have developed into what the Economist magazine has labelled ‘global super-connectors’ capable of connecting any two points in the world with one stopover in the Gulf.1 This culminated in the January 2015 announcement that Dubai International Airport had overtaken London’s Heathrow Airport to become the world’s busiest airport for international passengers. Significantly, the 6 per cent annual rise in Dubai’s international passengers (to almost 70 million in 2014) contrasted with the far smaller rate of increase caused by Heathrow operating at near-peak capacity owing to space and regulatory constraints. Moreover, Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways have benefited further from the relative absence of political or legal constraints compared with European and North American ‘legacy carriers’ in addition to the ‘state capitalist’ development models described in Chapter Three.2
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
8. Migrant Labour in the Gulf
Abstract
This chapter explores how the Gulf States developed into the largest recipients of inward labour migration, primarily from the Global South, in the world. It examines how the rise of dual labour markets, split between public/private sectors and citizens/expatriates, is linked inextricably to the political economy of the redistributive welfare state models that developed with the oil era. This has created a segmented workforce with pronounced hierarchies among both the citizen population and the foreign communities that make up the contemporary demographic pyramid in the Gulf. Although the scale of the demographic imbalance varies considerably across the six Gulf States, with Oman and Saudi Arabia having the lowest proportion of non-nationals and Qatar and the UAE the highest, they share certain characteristics in common. These include the hard truth that many of the region’s ‘mega-projects’ and development plans would likely not have been possible without the ‘cheap and transitory labour power’ of migrant workers.1
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
9. The Illusion of Security?
Abstract
This final chapter starts by examining how the regional security landscape is changing in response to non-traditional and longer-term challenges to stability. The large themes explored in this book, such as the internationalisation of the Gulf, increasingly must coexist alongside potent sources of insecurity stemming from state failure in Yemen, ongoing state weaknesses in Iraq, and the ideational and material threat from Iran. Since late 2010, the Arab Spring has injected powerful new pressures and highlighted the weaknesses of authoritarian regimes in regulating or stemming the flows of new ideas, methods of communication, or patterns of mobilisation. Thus, the rapid technological advances in information and communications pose a qualitatively different threat to Gulf rulers, who have responded with a series of technocratic measures that largely ignored or downplayed the social dimension of the Arab Spring.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
Conclusion: The Gulf Paradox
Abstract
Over the decade and a half since the turn of the millennium, the Gulf States have evolved into regional powers with international reach. The chapters in this book have illustrated the scope and scale of the new linkages binding the GCC states to a global order that itself is in a state of flux following the world financial crisis of 2007–2008. Using their substantive energy resources and capital accumulation as leverage, Qatar, the UAE, and even Saudi Arabia became more active in global issues. The emergence of the Gulf States as visible global actors predated the Arab Spring, but accelerated and acquired a potent new dimension once the initial shock of the upheaval had subsided. As a result, the Gulf States led the regional response to the pressures triggered by the political upheaval in a display of ‘hard’ power that went far beyond the projection of ‘soft’ and ‘smart’ power prior to 2011.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
The Gulf States in International Political Economy
Author
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
Copyright Year
2016
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN
978-1-137-38561-1
Print ISBN
978-1-349-57576-3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137385611