Trust and the Gulf Cooperation Council

1. Trust and the Gulf Cooperation Council Dr. Vincent Charles Keating Center for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark Dr. Lucy Abbott Department of Politics International Relations, University of Oxford

2. Introduction and Research Problem • Study of trust has been primarily confined to liberal democratic states • Empirically limited • Just democratic peace theory? • Study of the Gulf Cooperation Council fills a gap • Alliance of non-democratic, non-liberal monarchies • Sinatra-type case study

3. Previous GCC IR Literature • Realism • Alliance to counter influence/threat of Iran/Iraq • Social Constructivism (security communities) • Limited defense cooperation • History of internal interference • On the face of things, limited possibilities for trust from a security perspective

4. Our Argument • Trusting relationships exist, but require a focus on • Internal security • Social norms • Internal security • Security of regime from insurrection at least as much of a threat as external invasion • Social norms • Different from most institutions, but focus of trust relationships

5. Identifying Trusting Relationships • Rooted in social trust theory based on two criteria • Changes in hedging relationships • Evidence of betrayal • Problems with purely emotional stance • Conflates the characteristics of an independent causal variable with the characteristics of the phenomenon itself • Removes possibility of habituality? • Focuses on an intermediary variable less important than the causes of that variable • Distinct one-sided bias in opposite casual pattern: betrayal

6. GCC Crisis Over the Arab Spring • Falling out between Qatar and Saudi Arabia • Arab Spring brings possibility of internal instability to the Gulf region • GCC states clamp down on potential domestic threats • Qatar breaks from the pack in supporting anti-regime revolts in Libya, Syria, and Egypt • Saudi sees Muslim Brotherhood as ideological competition

7. The Trusting Relationship • Strong social norm of maintaining face in the GCC • Supported by norms of informal mediation, advice-making, and particularly consensus • Almost no hedging strategies employed against defection • GCC has very low levels of institutionalization, relying instead on these norms • States had relative freedom to pursue goals even with Saudi hegemony

8. The Betrayal • Qatar supports Islamist forces in the Arab spring, particularly Muslim Brotherhood • Saudi Arabia sees this as a betrayal of the core values of preserving internal security and face-saving • Evidence of betrayal: ‘shocking’ moves by Saudi in responding publically to defection • In coalition with UAE and Bahrain, withdraws ambassadors

9. Rebuilding Trust • Move from habitual to calculative trust • Importance of betrayer to demonstrate trustworthiness • Saudi aggrieved party: incumbent on Qatar to make amends • Does not retaliate in recalling diplomats • Engages in confidence-building measures such as recalling Egyptian ambassadors • Follows Saudi in recalling envoy to Iran

10. Summary • Potential for trusting relationships in non-liberal democratic states • Potential of linking trusting relationships to particular social norms • Moves it beyond ‘norms of reciprocity’ • Potential of identifying security concerns that IR might otherwise ignore: internal security