Between Accommodation and Opportunism: Explaining the Growing Influence of Small Gulf States in the Middle East

Abstract

Smaller members of the Gulf Cooperation Council defied theoretical and practical expectations as they were able to enlarge their international influence during the years of the Arab Spring. They adopted markedly different foreign policy strategies, which can be seen as stances lying between accommodation and opportunism, depending on the extent to which they respected the security concerns of their geopolitical patron, Saudi Arabia. The mainstream schools of IR theory – neorealism, neoliberalism and constructivism – offer different explanations for these phenomena. Although none of the three schools can provide a completely exhaustive explanation, neoliberalism seems to offer the most comprehensive framework for analysis.     

Foreign Policy Activism in Saudi Arabia and Oman. Diverging Narratives and Stances towards the Syrian and Yemeni Conflicts

Abstract

Amid growing animosity and security concerns in the Middle East, the Gulf region appears to be on the way to becoming the new centre of gravity of regional equilibria. The increasingly active foreign policy postures of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is a key aspect of the new regional order in the making. Saudi Arabia and Oman are two examples of this trend. Their involvement in the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts reveals important differences regarding the aims, narratives, political and military postures, strategies and alliances pursued by Riyadh and Muscat and casts a shadow over the future of GCC cooperation and integration.     

International Recognition and Religion: A Quantitative Analysis of Kosovo’s Contested Status

Recognition from other recognized states is the key to becoming a fully fledged member state of the international system. Although many new states are quickly and universally recognized, the recognition of other aspiring states remains highly contested. In these cases of contested sovereignty, some countries but not others extend recognition. However, research on what shapes a country’s decision to recognize a claim to sovereign statehood remains relatively sparse. This article focuses on how religion shapes the incentives of states to extend or withhold recognition to aspiring states in cases of contested sovereignty. It posits two mechanisms, one at the domestic level through religious institutions and one at the international level through transnational religious affinities. The article uses new data on all state decisions regarding the international recognition of Kosovo to test these propositions. The results provide strong support for these two pathways through which religion shapes state decisions regarding international recognition.     

Renegotiating the empire,forging the nation(-state): the Bohemian/Czechoslovakian case through the political–economic thought of Thomas G. Masaryk and Karel Kramář, c. 1890–1920s

This article explores the dilemma of the small Bohemian Lands/Czechoslovak nation(-state) in staying “in” or “out” of the larger Habsburg supranational entity in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. It does so mainly through the language of political economy (on national wealth creation and redistribution) articulated in the opinions and political actions of Czechoslovakia’s two founding statesmen, the first president, Thomas G. Masaryk, and the first prime minister, Karel Krama?. The article argues that their choice of staying “in” the large imperial space was premised upon renegotiating a better political and political–economic deal for the Bohemian Lands, whereas the option of abandoning it and of forging the Czechoslovak nation-state was essentially based on political reasons. And while both advocated an interventionist role for the state in the economy during the imperial period, they considered such a prerogative even more essential for their new nation-state.     

Measuring state fragility: a review of the theoretical groundings of existing approaches

State fragility has become a resonant term in the development discourse over the past decade. In its early days it served as a catch-all phrase used by donor organisations to draw attention to the need to assist ‘fragile states’. In response to the call for a better understanding of how to deal with these countries, there was a surge in measures of fragility. However, it was not long before academics pointed to the murkiness and fuzziness of the term, and identified several caveats to most of the proposals for quantification. This paper reviews existing approaches to operationalise this concept, distinguishing between those that offer no ranking or only partial rankings of fragile states, and those providing ordinal lists of countries. The examination of their theoretical underpinnings lends support to the critical view that most existing approaches are undermined by a lack of solid theoretical foundations, which leads to confusion between causes, symptoms and outcomes of state fragility.     

Perception and Politics in Intelligence Assessment: U.S. Estimates of the Soviet and "Rogue-State" Nuclear Threats

United States estimates of Soviet nuclear goals and capabilities and the current "rogue-state" nuclear threat reflected prevailing beliefs about threat within the U.S. government and the relative influence of agencies charged with threat assessment. This article establishes that the patterns in formal Soviet threat assessment: (i) did not reflect a uniform response to "external threat," (ii) were inevitably tied to underlying assumptions about adversary intent, and (iii) were susceptible then to perceptual, organizational, and/or political influences within government. Thus, threat assessments reflected the optimism and pessimism—and political interests and ideologies—of those who participated in the estimating process. The article concludes by examining these lessons in light of the experiences and challenges of assessing threat from small states harboring nuclear ambitions.     

Lessons in successful Somali governance

‘Somalia’ is often portrayed as the quintessential ungovernable, failed state – with pirates, terrorists and humanitarian crises as a consequence. This article tells how Somalis in Somaliland and Puntland today have realised a degree of successful governance in the Horn of Africa.     

中小企业集群品牌建设问题探讨

当前,我国中小企业集群正蓬勃发展,但品牌建设却并没有引起足够的重视,其发展中还存在许多障碍。加强集群品牌建设对于提高集群企业的知名度,进而塑造企业集群优良的整体形象有着重要的意义。在打造集群品牌时首先应当强化中小企业集群品牌意识,并在此基础上做好中小企业集群品牌定位、集群品牌营销、集群品牌保护及集群品牌的系统化构建工作,从而全面提升中小企业集群竞争力。     

WTO体制中成员集团化趋向发展及中国的选择析论

多哈发展议程启动以来,成员集团化的趋向逐渐凸现并得到进一步强化,国家或地区的利益集团组合对多边贸易体制产生了深刻影响.主要谈判议题处于几大利益集团对峙的场域.国家利益集团化有利于集体优势的发挥,改变了谈判的传统格局,但同时也产生了新的问题.其生成机理是多层次的.中国的利益是多方面的,作为发展中国家,应当对此作出自己的战略选择及定位,进而更好地维护国家经济主权和经济权益.     

斯堪的纳维亚模式终结了吗？——论北欧国家的福利改革

福利社会的斯堪的纳维亚模式在许多年来被看成是"蒂特马斯典范"①,即对社会政策制度化再分配模式实施的范例.然而,最近的改革趋势对这一假设提出了挑战.除了诸如削减开支之类的规则变化外,其他的变化尽管很多,如1990年代制度设置和福利国家目标的改变等;尽管和十几年甚至二十多年前比,斯堪的纳维亚福利国家的特征弱化了,且该模式正在趋于欧洲化,但其主要变化仍只是对现有模式的局部修正,而不是完全趋同于欧洲社会模式,因而并不意味着这一福利模式的终结,它仍然还是独树一帜的.一些新因素的出现仅仅是欧盟内部福利模式发挥着作用的表征.