Traditional theoretical approaches (realism, liberalism and even constructivism) fail to grasp the dynamics and motivation of Qatar’s initiatives on the international arena. From the Emirate’s attitude towards (counter)-revolutions in Egypt and beyond, to their participation in conflict resolution processes (Syria, Darfur…), from their global investment appetite to their omnipresence in global diplomatic and sport events (COP 18, World Cup), the diplomatic hyperactivity developed by Doha is weakly apprehended by classical foreign policy analysis grids and their inherent biases. Using subaltern studies lenses and methodologies developed by Richard Stokes and Ranajit Guha to formulate a new narrative on international studies paradigms, this paper analyzes the foreign policy strategy implemented by the recently powerful microstate. This research also builds on the research carried on by Mehran Kamrava but also reaffirms the specific approach and cultural roots of Qatari foreign policy. The originality of the research process supporting this paper is the range of first hand sources used to conceptualize the determinants of Qatar’s foreign policy. The arguments defended throughout this research paper are the result of two dozen interviews with first level qatari officials, Ambassadors in Doha and key scholars in the Gulf region. Interviews were conducted following a very strict structure, addressing in a first part short term objectives in neighboring conflicts and instability (Syria, Egypt and beyond), followed by questions on the long term strategy implemented by Qatar (foreign investment, international cooperation, participation to international regimes) and finally the normative dimension of Qatari diplomacy and vision on globalization and diplomacy. The overall conclusion defended by this paper is that traditional American theoretical lenses are ill-adapt to comprehend Qatari foreign policy. Instead, Qatar has adopted a mix of European, Chinese and Russian foreign policy tools and perspectives including normative power, neighborhood policies, energy security negotiations and a mix of long term soft power and pragmatic objectives. This plurality explains the difficulties experienced by realist theoreticians towards what could seem at first a chaotic diplomatic activity. This paper aims at bridging this understanding gap by providing an accurate conceptualization of Qatari foreign policy determinants using both comparative lenses and first hand data.

This paper addresses the on-going state-building intervention in Yemen on two levels. First, the idea of building a state is critically examined from the starting point that much of the current literature on state building and fragile states focus solely on a specific type of state that emerged as the result of a specific historical process in Europe. Explicitly or implicitly, this literature assumes that over time all states will converge towards a model of Western liberal democracy which means that different types of empirical statehood are either ignored or dealt with as anomalies. The use of concepts such as failed and fragile states illustrates that the Western liberal state has become a benchmark against which all existing forms of statehood are evaluated. This paper argues that instead of framing variation as a failure that must be corrected though a top-down implementation of “more Western state”, a more empirically attuned approach would lead to more efficient interventions. The second part of the paper investigates how the idea of decentralization is framed as a way of accommodating local forms of governance within the overall framework of the judicial state in Yemen. Decentralization is verbalized as an integral part of Yemeni culture and history spanning from early informal structures of mutual assistance to a homegrown type of cooperatives, what has been called Local Development Associations (LDAs). The LDAs grew during the 1970s from local self-help initiatives and were pivotal in providing basic services at a time where the Yemeni state was almost non-existent. The Yemeni state remains absent in large parts of the country, where alternative actors hold more power. Based on fieldwork in Yemen in November/ December 2013, this paper investigates two aspects of the decentralization process in Yemen. First, how different political elites navigate to bolster their domestic positions in the context of an on-going state-building intervention and second and relatedly, how new and old lines of conflict are manipulated to influence the outcome of state-building processes. These aspects will be pivotal in deciding the future configuration of the Yemeni state.

Protesters were undoubtedly the protagonists of the 2011 Arab uprisings, yet presidents and monarchs’ political futures ultimately hung on whether their allies withdrew their support or instead hunkered down for battle. Although dictators sometimes face large-scale popular challenges to their rule, their fates are ultimately decided by actors closest to them, those who hold political and military office. Beyond their pivotal role during popular uprisings, officials of high rank have initiated the most successful challenges to a dictator’s survival in power. Archival records, memoirs, and novels (for the more creative autocrats like Saddam Hussein) reveal that dictators are acutely aware of this “internal” threat. Indeed, the paramount political conflict in dictatorships originates within the ruling coalition, or the set of political actors who coordinate their actions at the highest levels of political and military power towards the achievement of survival in power. How are ruling coalitions formed and how do they evolve? Why do some authoritarian regimes persist with relatively little internal dissent while others are perpetually mired in violent purges and coup attempts? When the threat is external—such as large-scale popular protest or foreign intervention—why do some coalitions break down while others avoid defection? I posit that authoritarian coalitions organize and function as strategic networks, defined as a collection of actors that pursue repeated exchange relations with one another and lack an organizational authority to arbitrate and resolve disputes that may arise during that exchange. These exchange relations can be channels for transmission of both material (for example, money and weapons) and non-material products (for example, information). I adapt insights from the sociology and management literature to develop a network theory of authoritarian power-sharing that firmly roots power in social structure. This paper reconstructs coalitional patterns in Syria, and employs comparative historical analysis to compare Syria’s trajectory to Iraq’s. This country comparison allows leverage on the question of coalitional stability because Iraq and Syria share features that the literature identifies as determinant of stability, yet experience profoundly different trajectories. Syria between 1970 and 2011 was much more stable than Iraq between 1979 and 2003. I demonstrate that my theory of network organization is better able to explain these differences than would be otherwise explained based on the strength of ruling party (Iraq’s Baath party was more robust than Syria’s).

How does ascription to an identity group shape individual willingness to join an anti-government rebellion? Prior work on explaining individual participation in violent collective action has either focused on economic and security incentives or a direct pull from local leaders or participants in the conflict, but has neglected the role that pre-war identity framing plays in directing individual support for conflict participation. I argue that while past government repression increases an individual's likelihood of supporting a rebellion, it does so only under the condition that identity leaders had indoctrinated past government repression into the collective consciousness of an identity group as a way of building a collective memory and increasing their influence. Absent an embedded collective perception of threat from the government, strongly identifying members of identity groups are unlikely to support engaging in a rebellion, regardless of either past repression or influence from group leaders, as blame had not been previously assigned to government actors. Conversely, individuals should be unlikely to join rebellions by other identity groups if their group's collective memories have singled out any of those groups for past violence. I test this assertion by carrying out a survey experiment in Lebanon that traces the mechanisms that shape individual preferences toward joining a conflict. I chose Lebanon because escalating tension between the country's confessional groups in light of the civil war in neighboring Syria makes the outbreak of conflict plausible among respondents, while uniquely maintaining an environment that is stable enough to conduct a survey. The design is tailored specifically to extracting accurate responses on sensitive issues through a list-experiment question that allows individuals to respond on their willingness to join a conflict indirectly, with responses only identifiable at the aggregate level. To capture the role of collective memory, I introduce several priming questions designed to capture negative emotion toward the government or specific identity groups and to relate that negative emotion to priming of collective memories by identity group leaders during peacetime. The results of the survey experiment not only supply evidence of the role that collective memory of violence plays in driving individual participation in civil conflict, but provide an assessment of the current propensity of Lebanon's major identity groups to rebel in the face of a political shock and the likely alignment that conflict actors will take immediately after such a rebellion.

Formation of Iraq’s non-governmental sector has been one of the most fundamental developments in the country’s social and political landscape. Little is known, however, of the thousands of Iraqi NGOs that emerged in the last decade. I argue that an analysis of the NGO sector will enable an understanding of state contestations at an everyday level since 2003 and highlight how NGO aid resources attempt to tie NGOs to specific relationships to the state system. I take Iraqi NGOs from one of Baghdad’s nine districts, Sadr City – a site of significant state contestation in the country, as a basis to analyse how local NGOs are attracted, in the absence of US-based assistance, to political, religious and regional funding. Attempts to shape the character of political society through the new space encompassed by the NGO sector has to account for the political economy of NGO aid and the way it shapes competing notions of the state.