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.     

US-Arab Gulf Relations amidst Regional and Global Changes

Abstract

The Arab Gulf has long enjoyed privileged relations with the United States. Being home to the world’s largest oil reserves, the US saw it in its strategic interest to keep Arab Gulf states in its camp during the Cold War. The relation developed over the years to include other areas of cooperation such as in the military, economic and even academic fields. However, many factors today challenge this relationship. In the face of the US’ evident retrenchment from the region, the Arab Gulf is showing more inter-GCC cooperation, and Saudi Arabia is trying to forge alliances independently from the US. At the same time, Arab Gulf countries are intensifying their lobbying efforts in the US.     

Russia as a Gravity Pole of the GCC’s New Foreign Policy Pragmatism

Abstract

Despite the obvious differences over the Syrian crisis and Iran, the GCC countries do not seem to be distancing themselves from Russia politically. To a large extent that is due to Russia’s growing military role (in Syria) and military cooperation (with Iran), as well as the diminishing role of the United States under Obama. Having accepted the situation in Syria (after the fall of Aleppo) as a fait accompli, the GCC’s elites seem to be looking at Russia as a powerful player able to reduce the scope of Iran’s expansion in the region. Their approach involves a carefully established mechanism of economic interaction exploiting Russia’s need for GCC finances and arms acquisitions.     

Judicial independence and state-business relations: the case of Taiwan’s ordinary courts

The question of how ordinary courts in new and emerging democracies may gain judicial independence remains an understudied subject compared to its constitutional court counterpart. Through a case study of Taiwan, this article adopts and expands upon the concept of power diffusion from the extant literature, arguing that the growing power of Taiwan’s private corporate sector led the dominant political party Kuomintang (KMT) to grant independence to the ordinary courts as a means to check against this threat, because the excessive rent-seeking and corruption brought about by these empowered corporations were threatening the nation’s successful economic model and its rule of law. Also, due to the corporate sector’s growing influence on the ruling party itself, the KMT leadership had to devise strategies that can credibly commit to ordinary court independence, which would otherwise be reversed thereafter. This unique implication guides a qualitative empirical analysis that reinterprets the historical events surrounding the judicial reforms that took place in the mid-1990s. The results yield strong evidence in support of the theory.     

东盟与亚太安全共同体建设的路径选择

地区安全共同体具有自身的社会学和政治学意涵,体现出地区各国在促进共同体建构的安全意识以及共同安全理念的进化历程和结果,表现为地区国家间对安全议题和环境上的高度认同感,并塑造了相互间友好和平的关系。东盟安全共同体建设是与政治共同体结合在一起的,是以一系列的政策文件为指导,建立了一系列的地区多边安全合作机制,对促进地区稳定与安全发挥了相当独特的作用。然而,东盟安全共同体建设的政策措施和原则的局限性影响了东亚和亚太安全共同体建设进程,使之仍停留在相当初级的建构阶段,未能对增进地区发展与繁荣提供足够有效的和平红利。中国要打造周边命运共同体,只有在继承和创新和平外交理念的过程中,在多方面采取理性而积极的外交政策和倡议,与包括东盟在内的其他行为体共同建构起亚太可持续安全共同体,才能塑造总体有利的周边安全环境。     

Peripheral modernity and anti-colonial nationalism in Java: economies of race and gender in the constitution of the Indonesian national teleology

This analysis investigates the limits of colonial modernity in the 20th century Dutch East Indies at a time that coincided with the building of the Indonesian national project. I am interested in the constitution of the national teleology as an inexorable socio-political project, deploying specific racial and gendered economies. As a locus of investigation I choose the literary narratives of two celebrated Indonesian intellectuals (and participants in the anti-colonial struggle), Pramoedya’s Buru Quartet and Mangunwijaya’s Durga/Umayi. Were the impulses of anti-colonial resistance intrinsically national in their orientation? Through what erasures and re-appropriations has the nationalism/modernity paradigm become the medium of decolonisation?     

Culturalism and the rise of the Islamic State: faith,sectarianism and violence

This paper looks at the ways in which culturalist discourses have influenced our understanding and representation of the rise of the so-called Islamic State. It argues that, in keeping with older narratives on the motives of ‘bad’ Muslims, its political and economic objectives have been overlooked and/or downplayed. Instead, I propose, there has been a strategically efficacious focus on its appeal to Islam, on its sectarian rhetoric and on its use of violence. By continuing to emphasise the ethical over the political in these ways, the culturalism that underpins the dominant representation of the Islamic State’s emergence has, I conclude, served three key purposes – the mobilisation of the ‘good’ Muslim, the exculpation of Western foreign policy and the legitimisation of force.     

Migration diplomacy in the Global South: cooperation,coercion and issue linkage in Gaddafi’s Libya

Despite a recent resurgence in research on the politics of migration, foreign policy analysts have yet to approach cross-border population mobility as a distinct field of inquiry. Particularly within the Global South, scant work has theorised the interplay between migration and interstate bargaining. This article proposes the framework of migration diplomacy to examine how mobility features in states’ issue-linkage strategies, in both cooperative and coercive contexts. Drawing on Arabic, French and English primary sources, it empirically demonstrates the salience of its framework through an analysis of Libya’s migration diplomacy towards its Arab, African and European neighbours under Muammar Gaddafi.     

Environmental advocacy: insights from East Asia

Environmental advocacy in East Asia takes place in a context where there are few well-funded professional advocacy organizations, no viable green parties, and governments that are highly pro-business. In this advocacy-hostile environment, what strategies are environmental organizations using to promote better environmental outcomes? Using an original database of environmental organizations and interviews with activists and officials throughout the region, this paper investigates which strategies are most common, and compares them to the advocacy strategies found in the United States. It finds, perhaps surprisingly, that (a) environmental organizations across East Asia employ similar advocacy strategies, even though they are operating in very different political conditions, and (b) the strategies most favoured in East Asia are also the strategies most often utilized in the United States. It then argues that new theories of advocacy should be developed to pay closer attention to certain actors (academics and artists), and particular processes (organizational networking, government collaboration, and culture-making), that appear to play important roles in advocacy in countries around the world, irrespective of political context.     

Power,politics and perception: the impact of foreign policy on civilian–peacekeeper relations

This article responds to a recent call for increased empirical evidence on the ‘local turn’ in the peacebuilding literature and discusses the impact of the international on local consent for peace operations. Using fresh empirical material this article examines the case of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). It shows how local perceptions of the foreign policies of peacekeeping contingents matter, and how this affects the functionality of the mission. This article highlights the heterogeneity of both United Nations peacekeeping missions and local populations, an issue that is insufficiently discussed in the literature on local engagement in peacebuilding/peacekeeping.