Qatar and the Arab Spring
Qatar and the Arab Spring

Author: Kristian Ulrichsen

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0190210974

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Qatar and the Arab Spring offers a frank examination of Qatar's startling rise to regional and international prominence, describing how its distinctive policy stance toward the Arab Spring emerged. In only a decade, Qatari policy-makers - led by the Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and his prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani - catapulted Qatar from a sleepy backwater to a regional power with truly international reach. In addition to pursuing an aggressive state-branding strategy with its successful bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar forged a reputation for diplomatic mediation that combined intensely personalized engagement with financial backing and favorable media coverage through the Al-Jazeera. These factors converged in early 2011 with the outbreak of the Arab Spring revolts in North Africa, Syria, and Yemen, which Qatari leaders saw as an opportunity to seal their regional and international influence, rather than as a challenge to their authority, and this guided their support of the rebellions against the Gaddafi and Assad regimes in Libya and Syria. From the high watermark of Qatari influence after the toppling of Gaddafi in 2011, that rapidly gave way to policy overreach in Syria in 2012, Coates Ulrichsen analyses Qatari ambition and capabilities as the tiny emirate sought to shape the transitions in the Arab world.

Rivals in the Gulf
Rivals in the Gulf

Author: David H. Warren

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-01-25

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 1000377741

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Rivals in the Gulf: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, and the Qatar-UAE Contest Over the Arab Spring and the Gulf Crisis details the relationships between the Egyptian Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the Al Thani royal family in Qatar, and between the Mauritanian Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah and the Al Nahyans, the rulers of Abu Dhabi and senior royal family in the United Arab Emirates. These relationships stretch back decades, to the early 1960s and 1970s respectively. Using this history as a foundation, the book examines the connections between Qaradawi’s and Bin Bayyah’s rival projects and the development of Qatar’s and the UAE’s competing state-brands and foreign policies. It raises questions about how to theorize the relationships between the Muslim scholarly-elite (the ulamā) and the nation-state. Over the course of the Arab Spring and the Gulf Crisis, Qaradawi and Bin Bayyah shaped the Al Thani’s and Al Nahyan’s competing ideologies in important ways. Offering new ways for academics to think about Doha and Abu Dhabi as hegemonic centers of Islamic scholarly authority alongside historical centers of learning such as Cairo, Medina, or Qom, this book will appeal to those with an interest in modern Islamic authority, the ulamā, Gulf politics, as well as the Arab Spring and its aftermath.

Turkey and Qatar in the Tangled Geopolitics of the Middle East
Turkey and Qatar in the Tangled Geopolitics of the Middle East

Author: Birol Başkan

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-05-11

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 1137517719

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This book narrates how Turkey and Qatar have come to forge a mutually special relationship. The book argues that throughout the 2000s Turkey and Qatar had pursued similar foreign policies and aligned their positions on many critical and controversial issues. By doing so, however, they increasingly isolated themselves in the Middle East as states challenging the status quo. The claim made here is that it is this isolation—which became acute in the summer of 2013—that led the two countries to forge much stronger relations.

The Fires of Spring
The Fires of Spring

Author: Shelly Culbertson

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2016-04-19

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1250067049

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"The "Arab Spring" all started when a young Tunisian fruit-seller set himself on fire in protest of a government official confiscating his apples without cause and slapping his face. The aftermath of that one personal protest grew to become the Middle East movement known as the Arab Spring -- a wave of disparate events that included revolutions, protests, government overthrows, hopeful reform movements, and bloody civil wars. This book will be the first to bring the post Arab Spring world to light in a holistic context. It is a narrative of the author Shelly Culbertson's journey through six countries of the Middle East, describing countries, historical perspective, and interviews with revolution and government figures. Culbertson, RAND Middle East analyst and former U.S. State Department officer who has been involved with the Middle East for two decades, is uniquely equipped to analyze the current social, political, economic, and cultural effects of the movement. With honesty, empathy, and expert historical accuracy, Culbertson strives to answer the questions "what led to the Arab Spring, " "what is it like there now, " and "what trends after the Arab Spring are shaping the future of the Middle East?" The Fires of Spring tells the story by weaving together a sense of place, history, insight about key issues of our time, and personal stories and adventures. It navigates street life and peers into ministries, mosques, and women's worlds. It delves into what Arab Spring optimism was about, and at the same time sheds light on the pain and dysfunction that continues to plague some parts of the region."--

Beyond the Arab Spring
Beyond the Arab Spring

Author: Mehran Kamrava

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13: 019938441X

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"Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Center for International and Regional Studies"--Title page.

Voices of the Arab Spring
Voices of the Arab Spring

Author: Asaad Alsaleh

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2015-03-03

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 0231538588

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Narrated by dozens of activists and everyday individuals, this book documents the unprecedented events that led to the collapse of dictatorial regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. Beginning in 2011, these stories offer unique access to the message that inspired citizens to act, their experiences during revolt, and the lessons they learned from some of the most dramatic changes and appalling events to occur in the history of the Arab world. The riveting, revealing, and sometimes heartbreaking stories in this volume also include voices from Syria. Featuring participants from a variety of social and educational backgrounds and political commitments, these personal stories of action represent the Arab Spring's united and broad social movements, collective identities, and youthful character. For years, the volume's participants lived under regimes that brutally suppressed free expression and protest. Their testimony speaks to the multifaceted emotional, psychological, and cultural factors that motivated citizens to join together to struggle against their oppressors.

Revisiting the Arab Uprisings
Revisiting the Arab Uprisings

Author: Stéphane Lacroix

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-12-15

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 0190057939

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Since 2013, the Middle East has experienced a double trend of chaos and civil war, on the one hand, and the return of authoritarianism, on the other. That convergence has eclipsed the political transitions that occurred in the countries whose regimes were toppled in 2011, as if they were merely footnotes to a narrative that naturally led from an "Arab Spring" to an "Arab Winter". This volume aims at rehabilitating those transitions, by considering them as expressions of a "revolutionary moment" whose outcome was never pre-determined, but depended on the choices of a large range of actors. It brings together leading scholars of Arab politics to adopt a comparative approach to a few crucial aspects of those transitions: constitutional debates, the question of transitional justice, the evolution of civil-military relations, and the role of specific actors, both domestic and international.

The Silent Revolution
The Silent Revolution

Author: May Seikaly

Publisher: Gerlach Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783940924346

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How immune is the Gulf region to the changes that have engulfed the Arab world since 2011? This volume responds to this question by examining the impact of the Arab Spring on Gulf regimes and societies and contributing to debates on political participation and citizenship; sectarianism, gender and identity formation; as well as the role of the media in exposing the paradoxes of the Gulf system and its relationship to international political actors.

Jordan and the Arab Uprisings
Jordan and the Arab Uprisings

Author: Curtis R. Ryan

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2018-06-26

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 0231546564

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In 2011, as the Arab uprisings spread across the Middle East, Jordan remained more stable than any of its neighbors. Despite strife at its borders and an influx of refugees connected to the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS, as well as its own version of the Arab Spring with protests and popular mobilization demanding change, Jordan managed to avoid political upheaval. How did the regime survive in the face of the pressures unleashed by the Arab uprisings? What does its resilience tell us about the prospects for reform or revolutionary change? In Jordan and the Arab Uprisings, Curtis R. Ryan explains how Jordan weathered the turmoil of the Arab Spring. Crossing divides between state and society, government and opposition, Ryan analyzes key features of Jordanian politics, including Islamist and leftist opposition parties, youth movements, and other forms of activism, as well as struggles over elections, reform, and identity. He details regime survival strategies, laying out how the monarchy has held out the possibility of reform while also seeking to coopt and contain its opponents. Ryan demonstrates how domestic politics were affected by both regional unrest and international support for the regime, and how regime survival and security concerns trumped hopes for greater change. While the Arab Spring may be over, Ryan shows that political activism in Jordan is not, and that struggles for reform and change will continue. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews with a vast range of people, from grassroots activists to King Abdullah II, Jordan and the Arab Uprisings is a definitive analysis of Jordanian politics before, during, and beyond the Arab uprisings.

The Small Gulf States
The Small Gulf States

Author: Khalid S. Almezaini

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-08

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 131721434X

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Small states are often believed to have been resigned to the margins of international politics. However, the recent increase in the number of small states has increased their influence and forced the international community to incorporate some of them into the global governance system. This is particularly evident in the Middle East where small Gulf states have played an important role in the changing dynamics of the region in the last decade. The Small Gulf States analyses the evolution of these states’ foreign and security policies since the Arab Spring. With particular focus on Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, it explores how these states have been successful in not only guaranteeing their survival, but also in increasing their influence in the region. It then discusses the security dilemmas small states face, and suggests a multitude of foreign and security policy options, ranging from autonomy to influence, in order to deal with this. The book also looks at the influence of regional and international actors on the policies of these countries. It concludes with a discussion of the peculiarities and contributions of the Gulf states for the study of small states’ foreign and security policies in general. Providing a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the unique foreign and security policies of the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) before and after the Arab Spring, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle East studies, foreign policy and international relations.