The International Spectator, Vol. 56, No. 4, December 2021

Between the Domestic and the International: Ideational Factors, Peacebuilding and Foreign Policy in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf
Guest Editors: Olivia Glombitza and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen

Between the Domestic and the International: Ideational Factors, Peacebuilding and Foreign Policy in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf
Olivia Glombitza and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
This Special Issue examines post-2011 dynamics and the plethora of changes in the regional and domestic order in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. It argues that ideational factors are instrumental in both the building of peace and the construction of threats. Consequently, ideational factors are constitutive in inciting or pacifying cases of tension and conflict. Departing from the inherent connection between the domestic and the international, the Special Issue analyses the reconfiguration of the region through the lens of possibilities rather than impediments and centres on the role of ideational factors in foreign policy and their impact on peacebuilding in the region.
Keywords: environment; international negotiations; leadership; perceptions; roles
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The Islamic Republic’s Foreign Policy through the Iranian Lens: Initiatives of Engagement with the GCC
Olivia Glombitza and Luciano Zaccara
Despite the often perceived rigidity of its ideology and inflammatory rhetoric, Iran’s foreign policy is inherently pragmatic while nonetheless moving within the institutionalised frame of its revolutionary discourse. An alternative perspective on the Islamic Republic’s and Persian Gulf relations is offered by analysing Iran’s discursive and practical initiatives of constructive engagement with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries during Hassan Rouhani’s presidency through the Iranian lens. This includes strategies of discursive persuasion and initiatives such as “World Against Violence and Extremism” (WAVE) as well as the “Hormuz Peace Endeavor” (HOPE), both aimed at building confidence and improving Iran’s legitimacy in the region.
Keywords: Islamic Republic; constructive engagement; ideology; foreign policy; Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
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Dignity, Wisdom and Expediency: How Ideational Factors Shape Iran’s Foreign Policy
Hassan Ahmadian
The weight of ideational factors has always been felt in Iran’s foreign policy processes as it, often times, outweighs that of material factors in its strategic calculus. Since 1979, the revolutionary state identity has focused on keeping the country independent and shaped its foreign policy continuum of enmity and amity accordingly. As the centrepiece of Iran’s foreign policy enactment and framing, independence brought ideational factors into Iran’s foreign policy processes. A close look into the past four decades suggests that strategic proportionality – based on the three principles of dignity, wisdom and expediency – vis-à-vis rivals and foes directed much of Iran’s foreign policy conduct, connecting ideational and material factors.
Keywords: Iranian foreign policy; ideational factors; Iran’s Saudi policy; Iran-US relations; axis of resistance
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The New Saudi Leadership and Its Impact on Regional Policy
Fatiha Dazi-Héni
The radical transformation of the Saudi Kingdom underway since early 2015 raises the core issue of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman’s legitimacy. By balancing his defiance of the royal family through the popular support of Saudi youth, the Crown Prince seeks to consolidate his power, which reverberates in substantial changes in domestic governance and foreign policies. The assertive regional policy under King Salman and his heir also revealed tensions arising from their divergent world visions due to a generational gap. This has resulted in an incoherent and downgraded Saudi leadership in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This illustrates how domestic decision-making affects actors’ choices in foreign policy, contributing to the theoretical debate that integrates foreign policy analysis into International Relations (IR) theory.
Keywords: domestic-foreign policy nexus; dual leadership; populism; generational rift; MENA stability
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De-securitisation and Pragmatism in the Persian Gulf: The Future of Saudi-Iranian Relations
Simon Mabon, Samira Nasirzadeh and Eyad Alrefai
Since 1979, relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran have oscillated between periods of overt hostility and apparent rapprochement, yet since 2003 the two have engaged in a vitriolic competition that has spread across regional affairs, to devastating effect in Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, Iraq and Yemen. Central to much of this are efforts to securitise the other in the eyes of external audiences, discursively presenting the rivalry in the language of security. Yet despite their competing claims to Islamic legitimacy and leadership, there are strong pragmatic reasons related to political and economic concerns for the two states to engage with one another. Underpinning this, however, is a need for de-securitisation moves, reducing tensions between the two through framing relations in terms of ‘normal’ politics rather than the language of security.
Keywords: Saudi Arabia; Iran; de-securitisation; peacebuilding
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Between Human and State Security: Turkey’s Syria Policy under the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
Pinar Tank
Since 2011, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has sought to portray the country as an emerging humanitarian and peacebuilding power, mobilising the country’s diplomatic and foreign policy resources to project the AKP’s vision of Turkey’s Islamic identity through the lens of its duty to help. An analysis of the official narratives on the state’s humanitarian and peacebuilding policies as they have evolved in the Syrian conflict highlights the tensions between a human security approach aimed at projecting Turkey as a normative humanitarian power and a state security approach based on the AKP government’s perceived national security needs.
Keywords: Turkish humanitarian policy; Turkey; Syria; AKP
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Ideational Factors in Turkey’s Alignment with Qatar and Their Impact on Regional Security
Nesibe Hicret Battaloglu
Turkey and Qatar have developed exceptionally cordial relations and aligned their foreign policies on many regional issues. In the 2017 Gulf crisis, despite the risk of incurring material losses and sacrificing relations with blockading countries, Turkey quickly came to the support of Qatar alleviating Doha’s physical and political isolation. This highlights how ideational elements and norms play a crucial role in Turkey’s foreign policy towards Qatar, with wider implications for regional security and intra-Sunni disputes. The ideational dimensions of Turkey’s foreign policy towards Qatar are especially evident when looking at Turkish national role conceptions as reflected in Ankara’s official discourse under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Keywords: Turkey; Qatar; foreign policy; identity; regional security
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Kuwait as a Mediator in Regional Affairs: The Gulf Crises of 2014 and 2017
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
Kuwait has developed and earned a reputation as a mediator in regional affairs as leadership-level conceptions of ‘national’ and ‘regime’ security have intersected with pragmatic assessments of the benefits any such mediation would bring to Kuwait’s regional interests. As a small state in a volatile neighbourhood, such calculations have been accorded greater policymaking priority than any ideational attachment to mediation. Kuwait’s experience is nevertheless worthy of closer study for the lessons that can be drawn for other small states, especially those in the Gulf, which share broadly similar attributes to Kuwait in style of decision-making and the careful balancing of competing regional pressures.
Keywords: Kuwait; mediation; diplomacy; blockade; balancing
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“Switzerland of Arabia”: Omani Foreign Policy and Mediation Efforts in the Middle East
James Worrall
In recent years, Oman has been recognised as a key mediator in the Gulf and the wider Middle East. The successful completion of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, in particular, firmly cemented its reputation as a peacemaker. To fully understand Omani mediation practices in the region, Muscat’s mediation must be placed within the context of the Sultanate’s wider foreign policy, and all known mediations must be assembled in one place in order to develop a typology to better understand forms and patterns. Ultimately, mediation both serves and is enabled by the Sultanate’s foreign policy. This was not an inevitable outcome. Over the course of Qaboos’ reign, Oman has developed into an ‘Interlocutor State’, in which the practice of mediation has become an important tool in furthering the central goals of preserving Oman’s independent foreign policy, and thus ultimately the Sultanate’s sovereignty and security itself.
Keywords: Gulf crisis; mediation; Oman; Iran; Yemen; Persian Gulf; foreign policy; Interlocutor State
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The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Failure of Peacebuilding in Yemen
Gertjan Hoetjes
Driven by increasing self-confidence and encouraged by Western states, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have gained a prominent role in multilateral efforts to foster peacebuilding in Yemen since the country experienced increased conflict from 2004 onwards. Based on the “negative and positive peace framework” proposed by Johan Galtung, it is possible to argue that the lack of focus of the GCC on fostering “positive peace” and disagreements between the Gulf monarchies heightened by hyper-nationalist tendencies inhibit the ability of this sub-regional organisation to facilitate peacebuilding in Yemen.
Keywords: Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); Yemen; (sub-)regional institutions; peacebuilding; positive peace
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Book Reviews

Strategic Confusion: The Evolution of the EU’s Discourse on Israel/Palestine
Muriel Asseburg
Review of: EU diplomacy and the Israeli-Arab conflict, 1967-2019, by Anders Persson, Edinburgh University Press, 2020
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Afghanistan: The War That Could Not Be Won
Andrea Gilli
Review of: The American war in Afghanistan : a history, by Carter Malkasian, Oxford University Press, 2021
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