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Author: Eric Davis
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Published: 1991
Total Pages: 274
ISBN-13: 9780813010588
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTension in the Middle East is seldom examined outside a narrow political or economic perspective. Without underestimating the role of conflict in state formation in Arab oil countries, this work argues for an understanding of state formation - and its attendant friction - as an historical process.
Author: Imad Mansour
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-09-27
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 1786721414
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhat role do ideas play in state-building and state activity? Thisbook argues that government policies in both foreign relationsand domestic politics must always be situated within a broaderideational and societal context. Imad Mansour analyses how governments in thecontemporary Middle East have governed internally and acted externally basedon societal narratives, which bring together a variety of ideas about a society'shistory and place in the world. He argues that there is a dominant societalnarrative that acts as a primary building block of statecraft, where statecraftis understood as an ongoing set of local, regional and global state-buildingprocesses. Mansour investigates the ways in which statecraft in the Middle Easthas been guided by narratives through a close historical reading and comparativediscussion of the political activity of six states - Egypt, Israel, Syria, Turkey,Saudi Arabia and Iran - in the second half of the twentieth century and the earlytwenty-first century. His book demonstrates the analytical power of narrativesin understanding statecraft and explains why governments' decisions need to beunderstood in complex ways.
Author: Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2018-05-08
Total Pages: 395
ISBN-13: 0231545061
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince the 1979 revolution, scholars and policy makers alike have tended to see Iranian political actors as religiously driven—dedicated to overturning the international order in line with a theologically prescribed outlook. This provocative book argues that such views have the link between religious ideology and political order in Iran backwards. Religious Statecraft examines the politics of Islam, rather than political Islam, to achieve a new understanding of Iranian politics and its ideological contradictions. Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar traces half a century of shifting Islamist doctrines against the backdrop of Iran’s factional and international politics, demonstrating that religious narratives in Iran can change rapidly, frequently, and dramatically in accordance with elites’ threat perceptions. He argues that the Islamists’ gambit to capture the state depended on attaining a monopoly over the use of religious narratives. Tabaar explains how competing political actors strategically develop and deploy Shi’a-inspired ideologies to gain credibility, constrain political rivals, and raise mass support. He also challenges readers to rethink conventional wisdom regarding the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, the U.S. embassy hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq War, the Green Movement, nuclear politics, and U.S.–Iran relations. Based on a micro-level analysis of postrevolutionary Iranian media and recently declassified documents as well as theological journals and political memoirs, Religious Statecraft constructs a new picture of Iranian politics in which power drives Islamist ideology.
Author: Christopher M. Davidson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022-01-15
Total Pages: 451
ISBN-13: 0197650317
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMuhammad bin Salman Al-Saud and Muhammad bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the respective princely strongmen of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have torn up the old rules. They have spurred game-changing economic master plans, presided over vast anti-corruption crackdowns, tackled entrenched religious forces, and overseen the mass arrest of critics. In parallel, they also appear to have replaced the old 'sheikhly' consensus systems of their predecessors with something more autocratic, more personalistic, and perhaps even analytically distinct. These are the two wealthiest and most populous Gulf monarchies, and increasingly important global powers--Saudi Arabia is a G20 member, and the UAE will be the host of the World Expo in 2021-2022. Such sweeping changes to their statecraft and authority structures could well end up having a direct impact, for better or worse, on policies, economies and individual lives all around the world. Christopher M. Davidson tests the hypothesis that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are now effectively contemporary or even 'advanced' sultanates, and situates these influential states within an international model of autocratic authoritarianism. Drawing on a range of primary sources, including new interviews and surveys, From Sheikhs to Sultanism puts forward an original, empirically grounded interpretation of the rise of both MBS and MBZ.
Author: Karen E. Young
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2022-12-29
Total Pages: 193
ISBN-13: 0755646673
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book is a study of a shift in the politics and finance of development from one centered in the institutions and ideas of the post-World War II global political economy to the emergence of South-South economic ties and the rise of authoritarian or state capitalism as an alternative model of development. This is a study of the economic statecraft of the Gulf Arab states, specifically the deployment of aid, investment, and direct support from some of the wealthiest petrostates of the world to their surrounding sphere of influence within the Middle East, Horn of Africa, and West Asia. These new models of development finance, aid, and intervention include distinct institutional designs and ideological bases. For the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, the preference for state-led and often state-owned development is a strategic priority in the energy sector, a mechanism for domestic economic growth and consolidation of wealth among leadership and ruling families. Exporting that agenda as a foreign economic policy tool continues all of the domestic benefits, while also affirming broader regional political goals.
Author: Aharon Klieman
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-06-12
Total Pages: 179
ISBN-13: 1000313115
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCovert agreements and operations are a fact of world affairs. Secrecy in diplomacy remains as much a challenge for international politics as it is for national and foreign policy. This study undertakes to address aspects of clandestinely at both the domestic and external levels. Secret diplomacy's mixed fortunes in this century are first surveyed,
Author: Dennis Ross
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2007-06-12
Total Pages: 404
ISBN-13: 0374708320
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHow did it come to pass that, not so long after 9/11 brought the free world to our side, U.S. foreign policy is in a shambles? In this thought-provoking book, the renowned peace negotiator Dennis Ross argues that the Bush administration's problems stem from its inability to use the tools of statecraft—diplomatic, economic, and military—to advance our interests. Statecraft is as old as politics: Plato wrote about it, Machiavelli practiced it. After the demise of Communism, some predicted that statecraft would wither away. But Ross explains that in the globalized world—with its fluid borders, terrorist networks, and violent unrest—statecraft is necessary simply to keep the peace. In illuminating chapters, he outlines how statecraft helped shape a new world order after 1989. He shows how the failure of statecraft in Iraq and the Middle East has undercut the United States internationally, and makes clear that only statecraft can check the rise of China and the danger of a nuclear Iran. He draws on his expertise to reveal the art of successful negotiation. And he shows how the next president could resolve today's problems and define a realistic, ambitious foreign policy. Statecraft is essential reading for anyone interested in foreign policy—or concerned about America's place in the world.
Author: Steven B. Wagner
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2019-07-15
Total Pages: 290
ISBN-13: 1501736493
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBritain relied upon secret intelligence operations to rule Mandatory Palestine. Statecraft by Stealth sheds light on a time in history when the murky triad of intelligence, policy, and security supported colonial governance. It emphasizes the role of the Anglo-Zionist partnership, which began during World War I and ended in 1939, when Britain imposed severe limits on Jewish immigration and settlement in Palestine. Steven Wagner argues that although the British devoted considerable attention to intelligence gathering and analysis, they never managed to solve the basic contradiction of their rule: a dual commitment to democratic self-government and to the Jewish national home through immigration and settlement. As he deftly shows, Britain's experiment in Palestine shed all pretense of civic order during the Palestinian revolt of 1936–41, when the police authority collapsed and was replaced by a security state, created by army staff intelligence. That shift, Wagner concludes, was rooted in Britain's desire to foster closer ties with Saudi Arabia just before the start of World War II, and thus ended its support of Zionist policy. Statecraft by Stealth takes us behind the scenes of British rule, illuminating the success of the Zionist movement and the failure of the Palestinians to achieve independence. Wagner focuses on four key issues to stake his claim: an examination of the "intelligence state" (per Martin Thomas's classic, Empires of Intelligence), the Arab revolt, the role of the Mufti of Jerusalem, and the origins and consequences of Britain's decision to end its support of Zionism. Wagner crafts a superb story of espionage and clandestine policy-making, showing how the British pitted individual communities against each other at particular times, and why.
Author: Benn Steil
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2008-10-01
Total Pages: 220
ISBN-13: 0300128266
DOWNLOAD EBOOKdivAs trade flows expanded and trade agreements proliferated after World War II, governments—most notably the United States—came increasingly to use their power over imports and exports to influence the behavior of other countries. But trade is not the only way in which nations interact economically. Over the past two decades, another form of economic exchange has risen to a level of vastly greater significance and political concern: the purchase and sale of financial assets across borders. Nearly $2 trillion worth of currency now moves cross-border every day, roughly 90 percent of which is accounted for by financial flows unrelated to trade in goods and services—a stunning inversion of the figures in 1970. The time is ripe to ask fundamental questions about what Benn Steil and Robert Litan have coined as “financial statecraft,” or those aspects of economic statecraft directed at influencing international capital flows. How precisely has the American government practiced financial statecraft? How effective have these efforts been? And how can they be made more effective? The authors provide penetrating and incisive answers in this timely and stimulating book. /DIV
Author: Yehezkel Dror
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2011-05-10
Total Pages: 277
ISBN-13: 1136706372
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book offers a systematic examination, analysis and evaluation of Israeli national security statecraft in terms of challenges and responses. Providing an in-depth analysis of Israeli statecraft challenges and responses, this interdisciplinary book integrates social science and security studies with public policy approaches within a long-term historical perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict. These scholarly approaches are synthesized with extensive personal knowledge of the author based on involvement in Israeli political-security policy making. This book makes use of conceptualizations of statecraft such as 'fuzzy gambling' and interventions with critical mass in ultra-dynamic historical processes to help clarify Israel's main statecraft successes and failures, alongside the wider theoretical apparatuses these concepts represent. While focused on Israel, these theoretical frameworks have important implications for the academic study of statecraft and statecraft praxis worldwide. This book will be of much interest to both statecraft practitioners and to students of Israeli politics and security, the Middle Eastern conflict, strategic studies and IR/security studies in general.
