This paper examines the political resilience of two Arab monarchies (Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) through the lens of the aussenpolitik theoretical framework. Traditionally understood, “aussenpolitik” implies that external forces beyond the state dictate how it is structured internally. The concept is most closely associated with the work of Leopold von Ranke, a German historian who argued that a state’s internal composition derives from the international pressures that it experiences. Most often used to explain the emergence and development of European states, this paper applies aussenpolitik logic to the question of monarchy’s resilience in the Arab context. Drawing on primary source materials—newspapers, university magazines, and government pamphlets—this paper shows how regional rivalry between Arab monarchies is conducive to “monarchical branding” at home. Competition from abroad abets the construction of monarchical identity at home. Using the cases of Qatar and the UAE, the paper shows how regional competition drives monarchical identity formation in these states’ domestic contexts. Qatar and the UAE are chosen because they rank high on both the independent variable (regional pressure) and dependent variable (stable monarchical rule). By placing a greater analytical emphasis on the system-level pressures that the Qatari and Emirati states experience, the paper generates a new explanation of monarchy’s resilience in the Arab context. In doing so, the paper diverges from traditional studies of monarchy which emphasize subnational variables such as oil rents (Brownlee, Masoud, Reynolds 2013), coalition-building (Yom and Gause 2012), religious symbolism (Kostiner 2000), and myth-making (Anderson 2000) but largely neglect the effect of the international system.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a tenuous alliance fracturing under the weight of its members’ divergent interests. A key factor in the GCC’s tensions has been how its smallest members have approached their bilateral relationships with Saudi Arabia following the Arab Spring. Qatar has pursued cavalier defiance of Saudi leaderships’ hegemonic ambitions, Kuwait has opted for cautious and selective engagement with Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain has remained compliant to its crucial patron in both word and deed. Despite their similarities as Sunni monarchies with high non-citizen populations, sizable fossil fuel endowments, and significant dependence on United States (US) security patronage, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain have pursued drastically different alignments with Saudi Arabia. What are the factors which determine their diverse alignments? Drawing on the neoclassical realist paradigm, I postulate that each state’s alignment approach with Saudi Arabia stems from the composition of its domestic power assets; namely, its economic vitality, societal cohesion, and values projection. In this paper, I will use primary source government statements and assessments from both the Gulf and US, as well as secondary source economic data and policy reports, to analyze and describe each country’s resource holdings and trade capacity, governance structure and demographic makeup, and policy makers’ diplomatic and branding priorities. Using this evidence, I will argue that Qatar’s strong power assets allow it to hedge against Saudi Arabia, Kuwait’s moderate power assets cause it to ‘leash-slip’ from Saudi initiatives, and Bahrain’s weak power assets force it to bandwagon with Saudi Arabia. It is my aim that these findings will promote a better understanding of GCC alliance dynamics, demonstrate the influence of domestic variables on the foreign policies of small states, and offer a foundation for further study of the Gulf’s contentious political future.

Aljazeera and Alarabiya are two news media outlets based in the Arab Gulf states. These two media outlets are owned by nations that do not agree on a foreign policy when it comes to Syria. As a part of their larger regional ambitions, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have influenced the Syrian conflict. While Saudis supported a regime change, Qatari foreign policy supported the Assad regime. The current study examines the framing of the Syrian conflict on the Facebook pages of Aljazeera and Alarabiya. Facebook was chosen because it have been used by groups inside and outside Syria to communicate about the conflict. A frame refers to a fundamental organizing concept that links attributes to a media event. Through framing, it is possible to select specific facets of an event and highlight them in communications, which explains how frames play an essential role in stimulating opposition to an issue or event by underscoring a specific ideology. Three frames have been employed to study visual social media and Middle Eastern conflicts: overt/covert, analytical/emotional, and human-interest or non human-interest. A content analysis was employed to gather 200 observations from the Facebook pages of Aljazeera and Alarabiya. The sample was designed to include observations that contain a visual and which include content related to the Syrian conflict. An equal number of Aljazeera and Alarabiya posts were pulled from their Facebook pages before and after the diplomatic crisis between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Prior to the diplomatic crisis, the results demonstrate that there were statistically significant differences between the Aljazeera and Alarabiya Facebook posts when it comes to two of the three of the conflict frames: human interest (?2( df = 2) = 18.055, p< 0.001) and emotional/analytical (?2(df = 2) = 8.663, p = 0.013. After the Saudi-Qatari diplomatic crisis, there were no statistically significant differences in the frames on Aljazeera and Alarabiya’s Facebook pages. Implications of this study can add to our understanding of how the Arab media propagate foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly where visual communication is concerned.

Media laws in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are routinely criticized for serving as legal tools for subduing dissent (Duffy 2014). Ownership regulations as part of media law are also frequently considered in this light. Globally, the central issues in media ownership regulations are foreign ownership of media and regulations against cross-media ownership and concentration. On these issues media laws in the GCC take different stands: they contain provisions for restricting ownership of media outlets to citizens, while they fail to provide any provisions for cross-media ownership or concentration. The paper seeks to explain this phenomenon through a legal anthropological reading of GCC media laws. Moving beyond dichotomies of freedom versus suppression, it starts from the premise that law is a realm in which societies envision themselves and people’s connections to one another. Law both constitutes culture – understood as ideas, practices, and social relations – and is itself constituted by culture (Rosen 2006). Understanding media laws in the GCC is thus inseparable from understanding GCC cultures and societies. Based on publicly available information and background interviews with policymakers and experts, the paper explores how the ownership provisions of media laws are interpreted within GCC countries. GCC countries share a range of cultural features, including the understanding of the self in terms of the web of connections one builds with others based on mutual obligations. Nor do crosscutting ties in the community show signs of decrease over time, regardless of how extensively ‘modernity’ has transformed the public face of these societies since independence. Every facet of society, including the law, remains intensely personalized: knowing a person’s background and past associations, that is knowing how he forms ties to others, is vital information. Seen through this lens, legal restrictions on foreign ownership of media are logical measures, for it is impossible to gauge the background of aliens, or to establish ties with multinational media firms that are usually public limited companies. The dense personal ties underpinning GCC societies also explain why concentration of ownership has not been an issue in GCC media. Private media owners maintain an informal balance across the market that prevents any one group from dominating the media scene through aggressive expansion. Local practices, rather than laws and regulations, continue to ensure the plurality of media ownership.