GCC

In 2016, the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) hosted around 3.77 million domestic workers. Based on data from the past 10 years, the sector is growing at an annual average growth rate of 8.7 per cent (or 35,970 new domestic workers every year).

The consistent demand for household paid care and domestic work in the countries of the GCC is
driven by two trends:

Explanation A: Increasing care pressures on national households due to higher female labour force participation rates (FLFPRs) combined with growing child and elderly care needs in
national contexts where care is traditionally the responsibility of women in the family and where intergenerational households (i.e., care by extended family members) are being replaced by nuclear households.

Explanation B: A growing population of dual wage-earning expatriate families with child care needs and a demand for professional housekeepers who require little supervision.

The familial care policies of the GCC have transformed domestic work into an essential component of care provision in households, with domestic workers providing care themselves or relieving employers from household chores so that they, in turn, can provide care. More attention needs to be paid to the socio-demographic changes in the GCC and to their implications for the management of human resources. The organization of the sector, as it progresses from housekeeping to home-paid care, must take into consideration how the long-term demand in the sector will be structured and what this demand structure will mean for labour matching.

Dear Colleagues,‎

We are proud to bring to you the latest edition of the FORTNIGHTLY, a review of Middle East ‎business, developments and news, for the period ending 2 October 2019.‎

Some highlights of this issue include the following:‎

‎2.3  Cox Automotive Begins Israel Auto-Tech Operations

‎3.3  Dubai's Retail Sector Undergoing a Major Transformation Due to e-Commerce

‎8.3  Strauss Group Reduces Sugar in Its Milk Chocolate by 30% with No Artificial Substitutes

‎9.8  US Defense Innovation Unit Selects D-Fend Solutions' Counter Drone System

‎10.1  Israel Ranked 38th in the World for Economic Freedom

‎11.4  EGYPT:  Israel to Start Exporting Natural Gas to Egypt as Last Obstacle Is Removed

In addition, if you would like to bring to our attention any relevant Middle Eastern regional ‎development of interest, please notify me at: seth.vogelman@atid-edi.com.‎

Hezbollah is the archetype and so far the most important and efficient of all Iranian proxy forces in the Middle East, and it demonstrates all the traits that eventually became the trademarks of Iran’s proxy networks in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and beyond. While embedding itself in the national government of Lebanon, Hezbollah receives its portfolio from Tehran and advances the agenda of the Islamist regime of Iran. While pressing the regime’s interests at the expense of the West and its regional allies through widespread terrorism and proxy warfare, Hezbollah provides Tehran with just enough plausible deniability to still appear as a somewhat “respectable actor” on the world stage.

Bahrain’s Royal Family, the Al Khalifa, has long pursued a strategy of divide and rule in order to prevent the emergence of cross-opposition coalitions, while exacerbating the country’s sectarian divide has become a critical means of ensuring regime survival. This article examines the country’s twentieth century imperial and post-independence history through the framework of divide and rule theory, providing crucial context for current events in Bahrain. It demonstrates how a divide and rule strategy is structurally embedded within the ruling family’s mode of governance, and reveals how it continues to be employed as an effective means of maintaining absolute monarchy in Bahrain.

Keywords: Bahrain, Arab Spring, Gulf Cooperation Council, divide and rule, sectarianism

Many scholars have contributed to ongoing debates about the competition between the dollar and the euro for global monetary dominance. Few have added as much value as Miguel Otero-Iglesias with his systematic and original survey of the views of financial elites in major emerging market economies. Where conventional interpretations emphasize material "reality," Otero-Iglesias's ideational analysis clearly demonstrates how important it is to consider as well how "reality" is perceived and framed by key actors. The euro may be structurally weak, limiting its "hard" power. But at the cognitive level of "soft" power, Otero-Iglesias suggests, Europe's money poses a significant challenge to America's greenback. This is an argument to be taken seriously.

Benjamin J. Cohen, Louis G. Lancaster Professor of International Political Economy University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.

Per capita oil and gas consumption and, by implication, CO2 emissions in the GCC countries are uniquely high. This paper will argue that under current global market conditions, fossil fuel conservation is a rational strategy for the Gulf monarchies; in electricity production, in particular, there are large-scale opportunities for introducing non-carbon energy sources. Many of the Gulf regimes’ current sustainability-oriented energy policies can be pursued on a project basis, building on efficient technocratic enclaves under the direct patronage of rulers. These are more likely to be successful than broader regulatory strategies aimed at changing consumer and business behaviour in general. There is considerable potential to build up local technology clusters, but spillover into society and business at large is likely to remain limited.

Inhalt:
- Eine historisch gewachsene Feindschaft ist derNährboden für die gegenwärtige Rivalität
- Neueste Entwicklungen
- Die Rivalität zwischen dem Iran und Saudi-Arabien
- Der Konflikt zwischen dem Iran und Saudi-Arabien: Ein Gespräch zwischen Gehörlosen
- Probleme in der Position des Iran
- Probleme der Position Saudi-Arabiens undder von ihm angeführten Staaten
- Tauwetter zwischen dem Iran einerseits undSaudi-Arabien und den Emiraten andererseits?
- Die Notwendigkeit eines Paradigmenwechsels unddie Tücken eines autoritär verordneten Stabilitätspaktes

(Übersetzung aus dem Englischen: Ingrid von Heiseler)

本報告書では、アラブ首長国連邦（以下UAE）金融機関のコーポレート・ガバナンスをとりまく外部環境と内部統治メカニズムについて概観する。

UAE金融機関のコーポレート・ガバナンスの改善は、UAE金融機関自身の継続的な成長を促すだけでなく、UAEの経済発展にとっても極めて重要な課題である。金融機関における統治が欠如すると、経営者が株主利益よりも自己利益を優先するインセンティブを持ちやすいため、金融機関は効率的な資金配分が困難になる。金融機関における資金配分の失敗は、金融機関自体の収益を低下させることにつながり、主要な融資先である国内の企業部門に十分な資金が行き届かなくなるためである。

The GCC’s militaries remain one of the most cost-effective in the world. Despite failing oil prices in the GCC countries, they are set to continue  their massive military spending spree. In 2014 the Gulf states spent  $113bn on  the military. These arms purchase have recently increased after signing the Iranian nuclear deal. The GCC countries explain that they need more weapons as they are taking part in the US-led coalition air strikes on ISIL and they also need to be able to respond militarily to Iranian threats in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. The Gulf states see technology as a counterbalance to the disadvantage stemming from a smaller population than in many of its neighbors.
But the GCC military forces still hasn’t achieved interoperability. This is a condition sine qua non to command and control multinational and multiservice forces and to use them for operations under the political and strategic direction of the GCC. This would pose an important step toward a deeper regional military integration.
The aim of the paper is to conduct SWOT analysis  related to the Gulf military and evaluate internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to create an improved GCC military capacity.
The main thesis of the article is that the military investments will remain the major way to keep Iran at bay as long as the Arab Gulf states are vulnerable to external (Iranian) threats and engaged in neighbor affairs (through proxy wars).

The recent bailout of Invest Bank of Sharjah, UAE was a relatively discreet and undramatic affair. Capital and liquidity support were provided by the Sharjah Government and the Central Bank respectively after real-estate and construction asset quality pressures drove severe losses. Economic patriotism, as well as sector challenges around asset quality, growth, technology, regulatory and compliance costs are already driving consolidation and-like the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Union National Bank and Al Hilal Bank deal-are made easier by common state shareholdings. For Invest Bank however, the reported merger failed to materialise and as per historical norms, the government stepped in-a theme incongruent with the Basel 3 themes of debt bail-ins. This note provides insights into ongoing M&A drivers, credit events and GCC government support dynamics.

This article attempts to examine the relationship between organizational learning and employee productivity in the Gulf Cooperation Council. The study was conducted through an empirical research design; a survey method was employed and the study population comprised 15 banks in Oman. The research believes that the result of this study may be inferred to all GCC member countries. The researchers find that there is a strong, statistically significant positive relationship between organizational learning and organizational performance. In conclusion, organizations that invest in organizational learning reported improved employee productivity in Omani Banking Industry. Correlación entre el aprendizaje organizacional y la productividad de los empleados en el consejo de cooperación del golfo Resumen Este artículo intenta examinar la relación entre el aprendizaje organizacional y el aprendizaje organizacional en el Consejo de Cooperación del Golfo. El estudio se realizó a través de un diseño de investigación empírica; se empleó un método de encuesta y la población del estudio comprendía 15 bancos en Omán. La investigación cree que el resultado de este estudio puede inferirse a todos los países miembros del CCG. Los investigadores encuentran que existe una relación positiva 1973 Mohammed Abdul Imran Khan et al. Opción, Año 35, Especial No.19 (2019): 1972-2007 fuerte y estadísticamente significativa entre el aprendizaje organizacional y el desempeño organizacional. En conclusión, las organizaciones que invierten en aprendizaje organizacional informaron una mejora en la productividad de los empleados en la industria bancaria de Omán. Palabras clave: aprendizaje, bancos, desempeño organizacional, GCC.

A series of incidents have recently brought the Persian Gulf to the brink of war. While all the countries in the region are wary of the catastrophic consequences that a war could have, they appear trapped in a highly risky vicious cycle of mutual suspicion, inflammatory rhetoric and tit-for-tat actions. The region is in dire need of a functional regional security system capable of managing risks, facilitating dialogue and enabling peaceful resolution of conflicts while at the same time favouring the emergence of cooperative order to replace confrontation. To address the shortcomings of the Gulf security environment, this ebook aims to answer several questions and to propose a new approach to exit from the current stalemate. What are the key drivers of the current regional insecurity? What options are there to respond to the unfolding crisis and why have previous efforts to create an effective regional security architecture failed? How can a new regional security-building approach em...

Social Media has revolutionized the communications and connected people across continents; its effects are seen worldwide. In Middle East, societies have been transformed through the influence of social media platforms and new trends in social participation, identity making and communication. The Gulf States have witnessed high usage of social media amongst its youth. The Middle East and Gulf have the highest population of youth in the world and one of the highest rates of social media usage. The combination of the two has translated in to new realities for the region. Social media has become a tool for progress, social participation and overcoming traditional boundaries placed on communication and information sharing.

After the global oil price has fallen almost 70 % since mid-2014, oil exporting countries have felt the impact of the lower prices on growth rates, trade figures and public finances. Despite the negative impacts of the fall in oil prices, the UAE Government remains positive about the country's economic outlook and diversification policies, which have helped neutralise the impact of the decline in oil prices. The positive side of any crisis is added urgency that comes in the implementation of reforms that help decision-makers reduce economic vulnerabilities in the future. Across the GCC action is being taken in response to the situation through changes in subsidies and fuel pricing, along with efforts for increasing diversification of the economy. Since the UAE was formed in 1971, the diversification of the economy away from petroleum has been a clearly stated government policy. The UAE has become a global financial and major trading centre, a location of choice for multinational operations, along with a heavily desired tourist destination. Investments in non-energy sectors, such as infrastructure and technology, along with a rapidly recovering real estate sector, continue to provide the UAE with a buffer against oil price decline and global economic stagnation. According to the World Trade Organization in its latest June 2016 Trade Policy Review, the UAE has continued its policy of diversifying its economy, which helped it overcome the global financial crisis that began in 2008, and the repercussions of falling oil prices that began in 2014. The UAE continues to pursue a strategy of diversification concentrating on high technology sectors and high growth sectors. The share of non-hydrocarbon in the UAE total GDP has continued to rise to exceed 69% today against 53% back in 2000. Dubai is now a services and a trade hub for the region, while the economic diversification strategy in Abu Dhabi continues to rely on manufacturing, petrochemicals and renewable energy. Economic diversification for sustainable and inclusive growth A report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows that many empirical studies have documented a strong association between economic diversification and the achievement of sustainable economic growth. A diversified economy based on several sources of income is more resilient and

Does contract law really serve any purpose? If so, why do businessmen often resort to and rely on ‘a man’s word’ knowing that a transaction may involve inherent risks?  Even in the current investment climate, are contracting parties now employing more sophisticated or advanced risk planning and management policies or pleasantries and ambiguity in contracts still continue to operate? If the objective of contractual clauses is to cement the relationship between the parties then why is such binding effect often flexible and informal? Would imposition of strict legal sanctions disrupt the relationship of two contracting parties? The term contract as per standard contract law textbook theory is nothing but meeting of ‘wills’ or ‘minds’. If the will is really free, why can it not change its mind?  Will holding parties strictly to their promises, operate harshly and unfairly in many instances?

For all of human history, people have been involved in the process of migration for livelihood. The changing trends and challenges of migration seem to differ in developed and developing countries like India – a land of high migration. UNESCO (2013) claims three out of ten Indians are moving across the state for livelihood - more than 400 million people. This movement has impacted as population shift, a rural-urban developmental divide and in unequal modes of development in the southern and northern parts of India. A recent trend is the shifting of the labour force from rural areas of the northern states into the comparatively more developed parts of the southern state of Kerala. Kerala itself is noted for high out-migration overseas to the Gulf and other developed nations, as well as for high education and skills levels and a reluctance among youth to take up non-white collar work.  This leaves gaps in the state in unskilled and manual labouring sectors and in the unorganised economy.  Internal migrants from north India are filling these gaps and Kerala is becoming the ‘new Gulf of India’, with a population of 30-40 lakh inter-state migrant workers. This  study explores these changing trends, via interview work with a focus on the attitude and perception of government stakeholders and migrant workers in the state. The research used snowball sampling to gather 60 respondents who are ‘government stakeholders’ - ranging from district and assistant labour officers, police officials, to judges and advocates, all of whom are directly involved in management of and who have some exposure to the issues of migrant workers in the state. The paper contributes new understandings to public debates about migration and emphasises the need for shifts in role and attitudes among government stakeholders and internal migrants.

Keywords: Recent Trends, Challenges, Internal Migrant Workers, Government officials, Rights, Kerala

Widespread disappointment with compliance auditing in supply chains has led to a search for new governance solutions in global industries. Recent scholarship on labour standards in supply chains emphasises the need for complementarity between public and private forms of governance, and the importance of local contexts in shaping compliance outcomes. This paper, in contrast, argues that the distinction between public and private governance belies the complex interaction of regulatory forms and industry dynamics in global production networks. It develops this argument via an analysis of the International Labour Organisation Better Work programme, which, over the last decade, has metamorphosed from a country-specific monitoring programme into a unique model of hybrid governance that has been implemented in a half dozen countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Drawing from field research conducted on Nicaragua’s Better Work programme, it examines the achievements and limitations of hybrid governance, and proposes that these can best be understood when the global value chain for apparel is seen as a transnational field within which relational struggles between different stakeholders at the global and national levels shape the political contexts within which particular governance solutions are pursued.

Persian Gulf has a unique geographic location, it has the potential to create a positive economically connection between China and Arab Region. The political and security status in the Gulf region is unpredictable, China will be facing many challenges to implement this project it the gulf region. The situation is same for the gulf countries, they will need to establish a stable economic framework and policies for China’s large-scale and long-term economic project, in order to have a stable long-term cooperative relationship with China. BRI currently is an ongoing process, and through this project China and Gulf region not only will benefit from economic cooperation, integrating local economic strategies, but also able to acknowledge and maximize the ascendancy of two different civilization.
    BRI a profitable global economic project will be facing many unpredictable challenges, not only for the project initiator country, but also the ones that participate. This paper will mainly focus on GCC countries in the Gulf region, although GCC are not directly along the BRI trade routes, still GCC states has high economic and geopolitical value in BRI, hence, what is the foreseeable challenges and the perspectives for the future development of GCC states.

Dengan menyatukan negara-negara arab dibawah ideologi Pan-Arabisme, Asia Barat menjadi pionir dari awal dari pembuatan organisasi region di Asia. Dengan menggunakan sistem organisasi negara-negara percaya bahwa mereka dapat memecahkan permasahalan mereka masing-masing. Namun apakah kemunculan regionalisme di Arab menjadi salah satu tolak ukur mengapa Arab tidak pernah bisa bersatu? Apakah organisasi regional menjadi negara-negara di Arab menjadi hegemoni? Apakah organisasi regional menjadi salah satu cara mereka berkordinasi dalam mengatur kebijakan minyak mereka? Negara arab sudah terkenal dengan negara yang memiliki sumber daya minyak yang melimpah. Hal tersebut tercemin dari Amerika yang sangat ingin sekali menguasi minyak di Arab dengan cara apapun.

In an era of economic expansion and speedy urbanisation along with changing food preferences, the food balance equation has been disturbed that has resulted in " food gap "-a serious food security issue-even in rich gulf rich monarchies like Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Although such food deficit nations manage to supplement for this gap by importing foods, it alone cannot serve to be a reliable alternative since exporting countries have their own premises and conditions to be looked after. To tackle with such worrisome event of global food crisis, the World Food Conference (1974) adopted the concept of " food security'' that mainly focuses on-food availability, food access, security and utilisation. Dealing with the challenge of catering to the Kingdom's population, estimated to exceed 38 million by 2030, this paper provides a detailed insight into its domestic agricultural production and why Saudi food supply is very vulnerable and highly dependent on the world food market. This paper begins by elaborating on the discussion with respect to location, topography, climate etc, of the study area as these natural factors that make Saudi Arabia highly vulnerable in the food market. Finally, it examines the various types of strategies adopted to improve food security emphasises on factors which increase food demand and limit food production.

According to the Qatar National Vision, the country aims to become an “advanced country” by 2030. While this is a realistic target with respect to infrastructure development, it remains to be seen whether Qatar can also succeed in other areas, particularly domestic democratization processes and increased international recognition, both of which are intertwined.

Since the early 1960s, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have augmented the recruitment of foreign domestic workers – mostly from Asia and Africa – to work in various GCC and expatriate households.  The GCC-led nationalization policies increased employment opportunities for GCC female populations in particular, creating a significant demand for foreign domestic workers within the GCC region, currently totaling 2.5 million.  Given the large-scale domestic work population, the GCC governments have faced a dilemma in regulating the domestic work sector.  Although the GCC governments have implemented ongoing policy measures to improve foreign domestic work conditions, they neither have a coherent legal framework nor strong policy implementation to mitigate labor violations within the domestic work sector. Drawing from field observations and in-depth document analyses, we argue that the GCC governments’ incoherent national and international labor regulatory framework for domestic workers has not only reduced institutional effectiveness, but also undermined the GCC domestic work market stability.  This paper is divided into four sections.  The first section explores the domestic worker migration to the GCC region, highlighting domestic workers’ demographic characteristics.  The second section reviews current domestic work policies/legislations, identifying GCC countries’ attempts at regulation.  The third section examines the GCC countries’ compliance with selected international labor conventions, highlighting the challenges in translating them into their national legislative framework.  The final section specifically examines Qatar’s domestic work sector to recommend policies for mitigating potential labor violations within the GCC labor markets.

This report will describe the key factors which create hurdles in marketing operations of Qatar Airways (QTR), which is the national airline of the State of Qatar and also considered to be one of the youngest top airlines of the world. This report will further discuss the role of GCC crisis which intensified the challenges for QTR’s growth and also discuss the major opportunities for QTR in form of FIFA World cup (2022) which can give the airline a chance to grow exponentially. Being the national carrier of Qatar, QTR has always been in the centre of extremities of geopolitical conflicts, whether it is related to the sanctions imposed by its dominant neighbors or aggressive international competition who always seek reasons to criticize it. Furthermore, this report will appraise the current marketing strategies of QTR and also provide reasonable and unbiased recommendations to the airline for further growth and prosperity.

India and GCC countries have very strong trade relation; 50 percent of India's energy sources are extracted from GCC and India is the biggest exporter to GCC after China. GCC is India's largest trading partner with over $137 billion trade and still growing at a steady pace. India's strength in the agriculture sector has a lot of potential to fill the demand for food products in the GCC as GCC fulfills 60 to 90 percent of its food demand through imports. Currently GCC imports 12 percent of its Agriculture products from India and 17 percent of India's agriculture exports go to GCC alone. Agriculture products have a very strong presence in the Indian export basket to GCC; more than 40 percent of Bahrain and Kuwait's import from India is only in the Agriculture products. An effort has been made in this paper to understand the trend and pattern of India's Agriculture export to GCC with the help of Descriptive Statistics and to find out the impact of tariff reduction on India's agriculture export to GCC Partial Equilibrium Analysis (Smart Analysis) has been used and BRCA has been used to find out the agriculture products where India has comparative advantage in GCC import market and to make a comparative analysis of GCC countries as a destination of India's agriculture export. It has been found that India's agriculture export has a lot of potential if tariff are reduced in the GCC and Top ten products represent most of the export change as a result of tariff reduction.

تتناول هذه الورقة دراسة نظرية تحليلية لمفهوم التدريب الالكتروني وأهميته وسبل تطبيقه في مجال تنمية الموارد البشرية مع التركيز على قطاع التربية والتعليم وبيان صلته تربويا بالتعلم الالكتروني، ونماذجه النظرية السائدة، ومدى تكيفها مع الاحتياجات البيئية لدول مجلس التعاون؛ وتستعرض بعض الأدبيات والبحوث الدالّة على فاعليته؛ وتستخلص الدراسة نموذجا للتدريب الالكتروني يتلاءم وهذه الاحتياجات بما يفعّل استخدامه في قطاع التعليم وتوصي الورقة بوضع خطة استراتيجية لتحقيق ذلك.

The results of the largest ever HR research project in the GCC. OSC researchers conducted over 1,000 interviews across 7 countries. This report identifies significant opportunities for HR functions (HRf) and practitioners but also highlights major gaps between current HRf effectiveness and the needs of organizations.

This work is written by Mari Luomi.
This paper analyzes Qatar’s present and future challenges relating to natural resources and environmental sustainability through the concept of “natural sustainability,” which is defined as the use of natural resources in a way that ensures prosperity for humans and the environment, presently and in the future. By doing so, it proposes an alternative standpoint on sustainable development. The paper asks three broad questions: How is the relationship between development, economy, and the environment understood by different actors in Qatar? What implications do these different views have for planning and definition of desired outcomes in the areas of natural resource use and environmental sustainability? What can a more environment-centered focus contribute toward solving the existing unsustainabilities of development in Qatar and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)? By refocusing attention from the economy and growth to the environment and its limits; and from technology and efficiency to institutions, people, and resourcefulness, Qatar and the GCC states might be able to avoid an impending collapse stemming from their fast exacerbating natural unsustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential and challenges facing tourism development in Kuwait.  The first part of the paper will examine the current state of tourism in Kuwait. Next, the current political events, economic reforms, and development plans will be discussed to provide a foundation for understanding how tourism fits within the economic diversification plans in Kuwait.  Finally, the paper will use the proposed development of Failaka Island to illustrate the obstacles and opportunities for the development of tourism in Kuwait.  The critical discussion of tourism development on Failaka will focus on three main narratives: preservation of heritage vs. the development of an iconic modern destination, the role of Failaka Island development for the economic diversification in Kuwait, and the implications of the Kuwait’s democratic system and rentier economy on large-scale developments.  The discussion is based upon analysis of secondary data, materials from official sources, and fieldwork observations. 
Failaka Island has the potential to be developed into a iconic destination for tourists in Kuwait.  It has a rich mix of cultural heritage, natural climate, and is strategically located.  While there are many obstacles for the development to come to fruition, mostly surrounding the political instability and in-fighting between the National Assembly and the executive branch, there is hope that the economic reforms outlined in the Kuwait Vision 2035 will allow for the development to move past the conflicts between the private sector and the government that have plagued the proposed development in the past. Additionally, the island’s development will need to take into consideration the preservation of the historically important sites.  The struggles faced in the development of the tourism projects on Failaka Island are reflective of the wider challenges facing Kuwait as it seeks to diversify its national economy.

نظرًا لتحول مركز الثقل الاقتصادي العالمي نحو آسيا، فإنَّ سعي دول مجلس التعاون الخليجي إلى نسج علاقات استراتيجية مع القوى الاقتصادية الصاعدة في آسيا سيكون ذا أهمية بالغة، ما سيمثل فرصة لدول المجلس لتكثيف جهودها من أجل ضمان حصص مستقبلية لها في هذه المنطقة الواعدة.

This article investigates why the small Middle Eastern country Qatar is investing so heavily in the sport sector. The country is hosting prestigious sporting events such as the Asian Games, the handball and the football World Cup, promotes elite sport success by local and naturalized athletes and invests in famous sport clubs abroad. The article analyses how sport is used as a domestic policy tool, for example to develop a healthy society and to attract white-collar expats from abroad. Sport is also used as a foreign policy tool to build relations with as many countries and people in the world as possible to gain soft power and for national security reasons.

The role of human resource management function is at the crossroad, and on the one hand it is facing the crisis whereas there also exists an unprecedented opportunity to redefine and refocus the HRM function to leverage its credibility in organization. In Oman, HRM is in its infancy and there is a need to strengthen its discourse and learning. The present paper attempts to understand the dynamics of HRM in Oman and evaluates various HRM models which have evolved over a period of time. It is difficult to prescribe a HRM model without analyzing the regional and socio-contextual factors inherent in Oman and neither convergence nor pure divergence provides a solution to this end.

The crisis symbolised by the withdrawal from Doha of the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Bahrain in March, 2014, was the first of its kind since the establishment of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and therefore set a precedent in terms of dispute resolution between the six member states. The disagreement that sparked the ambassadors’ withdrawal was among the most serious in recent years, and threatened to seriously undermine relations between the GCC states. The crisis certainly affected the GCC negatively at first – raising questions among member states, revealing shifts in their political agendas, and changing the balance of power in the region to some extent.
This chapter discusses causes of the crisis, and a review of its development and eventual resolution with the signing of the Riyadh Supplementary Agreement on 16 November 2014. This chapter suggests that the crisis will continue to affect the GCC in future. While the immediate crisis has passed, the loss of trust between the GCC states is likely to take some time to resolve. Nevertheless, the resolutions that emerged from the 35th GCC summit held in Doha on 9 December 2014 indicate a kind of convergence in understanding among the GCC countries on a number of regional issues. This convergence was arrived at in the context of various regional pressures on the member states and the Gulf region as a whole, stemming particularly from concerns around the emergence of the Islamic State and Iran’s nuclear programme. Finally, the chapter argues that resolution of the crisis is indicative of the maturity of the GCC states, and reflects their ability to focus on prioritising their own local interests. In the longer term, it seems likely that this maturity will enhance integration and strengthen the GCC.

The foreign policy literature on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is plentiful, and cer- tainly has a rich and volatile sample to consider. Foreign policy analysis of the Gulf, however, is often hindered by the ‘black box’ of leadership within the Gulf Arab states. Our theories, including rentierism, simplify rather than tease out the idiosyncrasies between Gulf states and their mechanisms of policy making. The purpose of this workshop1 and the papers presented here is to address drivers of foreign policy within GCC member-states, and sub- sequent interaction and effect of these policies in neighbouring countries. What we might also achieve is some shared conceptual clarity on frameworks for analysing foreign policy in the subregion, and to put forward some hypotheses about how the process of state-building in the region is changing both the agents and the practice of policy making.

The Indo-Pacific has become more prominent internationally since President Trump’s administration began using it instead of the Asia-Pacific – a term more commonly used by his predecessors. This change in terminology largely appears to be a response to China’s growing influence across Eurasia and the Indian Ocean, as its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) expands. The Trump administration’s approach to the Indo-Pacific indicates an attempt to limit Chinese gains, a contrast to previous U.S. administrations’ efforts to integrate China into the liberal order. This could potentially lead to balancing behavior across Eurasia, with competition increasing in multiple Asian regions. The Gulf, deeply embedded in the American-led liberal order while increasingly engaged with China, is a region that could be affected by Sino-American competition, as economic and strategic interests of external powers come into play at a time when the regional order is undergoing change. This confluence of tensions – at both the international and regional levels – will influence the Gulf’s political, economic, and security environment.

Deepak Unnikrishnan’s debut text, Temporary People, attempts to explore certain vulnerabilities and anxieties of transience that accompany emigrants to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, where citizenship is not an option. By representing one of the largest Gulf diaspora in contemporary history—the Keralan emigrants or pravasis—as spectral figures and as absence-presences that signal a non-present presence in the Gulf, Unnikrishnan’s book attempts to retrieve and register their occulted histories on the Gulf landscape. In particular, this article explores how, by creating a Keralan Gulf-pravasi spectre, Unnikrishnan critically engages with a more varied version of Gulf diasporic experience and, therefore, a more complex definition of emigration itself.

This Al-Sabah paper is an edited volume that consists, apart from my introduction, of three excellent student essays written for the module Politics of the Middle East's Oil Monarchies. I taught this module at Durham University from October 2018 until June 2019. The three essays cover a wide range of subjects, including regional integration in the Gulf region (Lucy Forster), the foreign policies of the UAE and Saudi Arabia after the Arab Spring (Rosie Trainor) and Economic Diversification among the Gulf states (Stanislav Kudryashov).

This article analyses the Gulf Arab states’ changing posture toward Israel since the June 1967 War. Fifty years on, the ‘three no’s’ of Khartoum have been replaced by the Saudi-coordinated Arab Peace Initiative, which offers Israel normalization in return for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Furthermore, the meaning of ‘normalization’ has been re-defined over the years in accordance with the changing geopolitical circumstances. Mutually beneficial ties between Israel and the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have grown up in proportion to their shared interests and shared threat perceptions. In the period from the 1967 War to the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, the Gulf Arab states, for the most part, boycotted Israel in line with pan-Arab requirements. While Iranian propaganda during the Khomeini era (1979–1989) depicted Gulf Arab rulers as lackeys of Zionism and imperialism, GCC–Israel ties were anathema. In the 1990s, the GCC lent cautious support to the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, and two of its members, Oman and Qatar, expanded trade relations with Israel in defiance of Arab and Gulf norms. The emergence of the Saudi–Iranian regional cold war after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 gave rise to unprecedented levels of tacit security and intelligence cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia.