1. You’re regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on the international relations of the Middle East. How did you become interested in teaching International Relations? (Anoush is Professor of International Relations at Durham University, UK and was the University’s Dean of Internationalisation, 2009-2011 as well as the founding Head of the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University (2004-9)
I must say my lecturers during my undergraduate degree provided the inspiration for my perpetual learning! They opened so many doors in my mind that frankly I did not know even existed. Nevertheless, the range of subjects I was studying provided the basic intellectual infrastructure for my future learning and research. Combining political ideology, philosophy and economics helped me in putting the planks in place for my interest in international relations and international political economy. My research since then has been rooted in these two extraordinary disciplines.
2. You’ve written many books already (Globalization and Geopolitics in the Middle East: Old Games, New Rules ; The International Politics of the Red Sea; Iran and the Rise of its Neoconservatives; Globalization, 9/11 and the Middle East; and The Foreign Policies of Middle East States- to name but a few). What factors led you to writing Dynamics of Change in the Persian Gulf?
What an interesting question, as the Dynamics of Change in the Persian Gulf is in some ways a culmination of a number of strands that my earlier writings have explored. Firstly, I wanted to develop a conceptual framework for the analysis of sub-regions such as the Gulf. The classic work of Buzan and Waever provided the tools for understanding ‘regional’ politics – so called regional security complexes. What I wanted to do (similar to Greg Gause) was to ‘drill down’ to the sub-regional level and apply the RSC model to the Persian Gulf. I wanted to understand its insecurities and think about how these may be overcome.
But this was just the beginning, for having established the conceptual framework for understanding sub-regional analysis, I wanted to try and make sense of the drivers of change in this sub-region and the underlying currents which have determined inter-state relations here and also the sub-region’s interactions with the rest of the international system. So, I look at the nature of the sub-region’s globalization, for example, but in this I was keen to show that as globalization has become an ‘unevenizing’ process in the sub-region – which I detail extensively – it can at the same time magnify differences in the Gulf and thus raise tensions even further. I also wanted to show the dynamism of the sub-region by exploring the Gulf’s ‘eastward’ shift. But, always I have been asking what do these currents mean for the Gulf itself? How do they change it?
Insecurity has been one of the sub-region’s main problems, leading to three major wars and dozens of other internal and cross-border security incidents. I wanted to go beyond just cataloguing the insecurities besetting the sub-region and try and show the longer term impact and consequences of conflict and violence on the well-being of the sub-region as a whole.
Then there is the discussion about the process of political change in the Gulf – what has been going on? Previous studies had tended to focus on one side or country or another, which has yielded a rich literature on the Gulf monarchies, Iran, or Iraq. I wanted to go a step further and survey the political process right across the Persian Gulf, in the republics and the monarchies.
This book, in its four parts, tries to explain the sources of the sub-region’s dynamism, drivers of change and the frictions that these generate. Only the reader can judge if this has been done adequately, or well enough!
3. Have you read any Routledge books? If so, which is your favorite Routledge book at the moment?
I have many Routledge books! Currently I am enjoying Murray and Brown’s edited volume entitled Multipolarity in the 21st Century. I am actually using their insights in a volume on Middle East-East Asian Nexus that I am currently co-editing with a colleague at St Andrews.
4. How do you feel about the future of the Persian Gulf?
I am worried about the future stability of the Persian Gulf, the security of its smaller states, and its future in a post-hydrocarbons world. The latter may be a long way off yet, but the Gulf’s inter-state problems, underpinned as they are by religious and ethnic tensions, are clear and present dangers. My main concern is that for all the sub-region’s importance, to the riparian states themselves as much as to the rest of the international system, we have failed to devise credible ways and means of addressing its security short-comings! There is, for example, no acceptable security structure for mediating between its states, and indeed moderating. All its members are busy building huge arsenals on the back of unprecedentedly-high oil prices and I worry that someday in not too distant a future one party or another will use its arsenal for tactical advantage. Such an act will be a strategic mistake, setting the whole region back for a generation or more, as was the case in the 1980s and 1990s.
But, I also am hopeful that the actors themselves, as well as the rest of the international community, will find an inclusive and constructive mechanism for building confidence. The key to this, I think, lies in the peaceful resolution of Iran’s nuclear dispute with the international community, which by definition will include the neighbours. I am also hopeful that the Gulf Cooperation Council will mature into a robust regional organization, and, learning from the EU, will increasingly lend itself to the promotion of dialog and peaceful resolution of disputes in the Gulf itself but also beyond.
5. You’re the Series Editor for the Routledge Durham Modern Middle East and Islamic World Series. How did this come about? How would you describe the series?
The Series came about as a consequence of a number of conversations that I had had with academics from around the world and which I related to colleagues at Routledge, and the expression of my frustration that at that time little systematic focus was being given to the study of the Middle East in its wider context. We both agreed that there was a clear need for systematizing – an awkward word, I know! – scholarship on the region and with some 30 volumes under our belt (and counting), the rest, as they say, is history.
I am likely to be biased here, but I would say that this is one of the most innovative book series out there! Its aim is to encourage new and cutting edge research on a wide range of subjects, topics, and issues pertaining to the Middle East and the wider Muslim world. But the Series is also unique for its philosophy of encouraging and supporting the research of early career researchers and budding scholars while also publishing the works of some of the greatest and experienced minds of our time. The mix of volumes is also, I would like to think, interesting and thought-provoking – just look at what we commission and what we have published!
6. You’ve said that Dynamics of Change provides the most complete analysis of the geopolitics of the Persian Gulf since the Second World War. What makes this book different from others on the market and why do you think people should buy Dynamics of Change?
I would like the reader to appreciate the complexity, and in a sense the uniqueness of the Persian Gulf and the critical role that this sub-region plays in the international system. But I also want the reader to see the wider canvass; this is just one part, albeit an important one, of the complex international order and dynamics of change here should not be divorced from the global currents. The comprehensiveness of the study also sets it apart from many others.
To summarize in a (long!) sentence: This book compacts years of experience of watching the political and economic currents flowing in and out of the Persian Gulf, and as such provides a one-stop shop for better understating what drives change in this important sub-region and the forces which are shaping it today and will be into the future.
