Economic Statecraft of the Gulf Arab States

This 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.

Karen Young explores two issues central to the future of development in the broader Middle East region in this book. First, how Gulf economic statecraft is affecting and will affect the development trajectory of the countries that receive Gulf aid and investment. Second, how the Chinese and Gulf development models and policies in the region both challenge the Washington consensus and compete with each other. The book is a welcome primer to how to understand these key issues., This meticulously detailed and extraordinarily timely analysis of economic statecraft in the context of the Gulf Arab States sheds valuable light on the political motivations and policy tools that are reshaping patterns of aid, development, and investment strategies across the Middle East and North Africa at a time of enormous volatility and great uncertainty in the global economic and energy landscape.

KAREN E. YOUNG is Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University, USA, in the Center for Global Energy Policy. She was a senior fellow and founding director of the Program on Economics and Energy at the Middle East Institute, USA. She was a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, USA. She has published The Political Economy of Energy, Finance and Security in the United Arab Emirates (2014) and her analysis has appeared in Bloomberg Opinion, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.