1st Edition

The Foreign Policy of Smaller Gulf States Size, Power, and Regime Stability in the Middle East

By Máté Szalai Copyright 2022
250 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

250 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

250 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book studies how smaller Gulf states managed to increase their influence in the Middle East, oftentimes capitalising on their smallness as a foreign policy tool. By establishing a novel theoretical framework (the complex model of size), this study identifies specific ways in which material and perceptual smallness affect power, identity, regime stability, and leverage in international... Read more

Introduction

1. The four types of state size and the foreign policy of small states

2. Applying small state theory to the MENA region

3. The relative and normative size of smaller Gulf states

4. Absolute size, perceptual size, and regime security in the smaller Gulf states

5. The foreign and security policy history of smaller Gulf states (1968-2011)

6. Smaller Gulf states in the age of regional uncertainty (2011-2021)

Conclusion – Size, power and regime stability in the Gulf

Biography

Máté Szalai is a senior lecturer at Corvinus University of Budapest and a senior research fellow at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Hungary. He was a visiting scholar at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. Besides the general political, economic and social developments of the Middle Eastern and North African region, his primary fields of research include Small State Studies, the Persian Gulf, and the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts. He is co-author of the book entitled The Caliphate of the Islamic State, published in 2016.