5. Oil and Political Economy in the International Relations of the Middle East

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-131
Author(s):  
Giacomo Luciani
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Rentier States

This chapter looks at the role of oil in the political economy and the international relations of the Middle East. Oil is commonly considered a political commodity. Because of its pivotal importance as a primary source of energy, governments are concerned with its continued availability and seek to minimize import dependence. Historically, interest in oil — especially in the United Kingdom and the United States — strongly influenced attitudes towards the Middle East and the formation of the state system in the region, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Oil also affects the power balance within the region. The polarization in the region between oil-rich and oil-poor states is thus an essential tool of analysis. The parallel distinction between rentier and non-rentier states helps to explain how oil affects the domestic political development of the oil-rich states and influences their regional relations.

Environment in the Global Political Economy

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Haas
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Private Investment ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Environmental Politics

The literature on the political economy of the global environment is a hybrid of political economy, international relations (IR), and international environmental politics, looking at the formal and informal institutional factors which give rise to unsustainable habits. The physical environment has long been the subject of social scientists, who recognized that patterns of social activity might contribute to environmental degradation. One of the most common formulations of environmental issues as a collective action is through the metaphor of the Tragedy of Commons, which argues that overpopulation worldwide would undoubtedly contribute to extensive resource depletion. Following the formulation of the core properties of environmental issues as lying at the interstices of a variety of human activities, implications followed for how to conduct research on international environmental politics and policy. Realist and neorealist traditions in international relations stress the seminal role of power and national leadership in addressing environmental problems. Neoliberal institutionalists look at the role of formal institutional properties in influencing states’ willingness to address transboundary and global environmental threats. On the other hand, the constructivist movement in international relations focuses on the role of new ecological doctrines in how states choose to address their environmental problems, and to act collectively. Ultimately, the major policy debates over the years have addressed the political economy of private investment in environmentally oriented activities, sustainable development doctrines, free trade and the environment, environmental security, and studies of compliance, implementation, and effectiveness.

On the Political Economy of Long-Run Trends in Strike Activity

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas A. Hibbs
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Coal Miners ◽  
Strike Activity ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Industrial Societies ◽  
General Strike

Outbursts of strike activity in many industrial societies during the late 1960s and early 1970s focused considerable attention on relations between labour, capital and the state in advanced capitalist systems and led to many inquiries into the sources of the ‘new’ labour militancy. The events of May–June 1968 in France, the ‘hot autumn’ of 1969 in Italy, and the nation-wide strikes of the coal miners in 1972 and 1974 in the United Kingdom (the first since the great General Strike of 1926) are the most dramatic examples, but sharp upturns in strike activity in Canada (1969, 1972), Finland (1971), the United States (1970) and smaller strike waves in other nations also contributed to the surge of interest in labour discontent.

scholarly journals Aquí Estamos? A Survey of Latino Portrayal in Introductory U.S. Government and Politics Textbooks

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (02) ◽  
pp. 309-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Lavariega Monforti ◽  
Adam McGlynn
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conscious Choice ◽  
Survey Courses ◽  
Racial Ethnic ◽  
Source Of Information

AbstractThe breadth of material covered in introductory U.S. government and politics survey courses creates a situation in which the textbooks used may serve as the primary source of information students receive about the country's political system. At the same time, their content represents a conscious choice by the authors, editors, and publishers of these textbooks regarding what topics and content are necessary and worthy of publication, which socializes students to accept particular viewpoints of the formation and operation of the U.S. government. Oftentimes, the information presented in textbooks across subdisciplines ignores the political experiences and influence of racial, ethnic, and other minority groups. We test this premise by engaging in a study of 29 introductory U.S. government and politics textbooks to assess the level of coverage and treatment of Latinos/as, the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the country. We find that the discussion of Latinos in these textbooks is incredibly brief and often limited to the civil rights chapters. Furthermore, Latinos are primarily mentioned in the discussion of immigration, while their overall contributions to the political development of the United States are largely ignored.

Strategy, Hegemony and Ideology: The Role of Intellectuals

1996 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip K. Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
National Security ◽  
State Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Critical Areas ◽  
Political Argumentation ◽  
Symbolic Reality ◽  
Institutional Location

This article argues that in the United States international relations scholars and political scientists have been significantly involved in the articulation of critical areas of state policy, especially in the arena of national security. The political significance of this is not merely a matter of individuals influencing policy; it concerns the construction of modes of discourse which legitimize aspects of state policy. In the problematic domain of nuclear strategic theory this has been pivotal in providing élites with a language which neutralized the political threat created by policies of nuclear apocalypse. Thus the power of intellectuals must be seen as more than a question of institutional location. It resides partly in the creation of discourse which constitutes the symbolic reality of political argumentation.

The myth of the reforming monarch: Orientalism, racial capitalism, and UK support for the Arab Gulf monarchies

Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 026339572110415
Author(s):  
David Wearing
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
The Political ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Material Interests ◽  
Arab Gulf ◽  
Crown Prince

The narrative of ‘reform’ in Saudi Arabia, recently recurring in British political discourse around the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, is situated within wider Orientalist themes, wherein a progressive and modern West is juxtaposed with an Arabian peninsula mired in backwardness. In this context, the purported Arab ‘reformer’ is presented as the ideal ally of the West, attempting to haul his society up to the West’s supposed standards, for example on women’s rights. This racialising narrative serves to legitimise British support for authoritarian Gulf regimes, thus helping to sustain the political economy of this set of international relations at the political level. It does this by obscuring the important role the United Kingdom plays in sustaining authoritarianism in the Arabian peninsula by externalising the explanatory focus onto the terrain of cultural difference. This article contributes to the literature on UK relations with the Arab Gulf monarchies by critically analysing the ways in which racialising discourses dovetail with material interests to reinforce and sustain these ties. In doing so, it also contributes to the emerging literatures on ‘racial capitalism’ and ‘race’ in international relations, through its exploration of the role of Orientalist discourse in this significant empirical case study.

8. Islam and International Relations in the Middle East: From Umma to Nation State

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Mandaville
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Islamic Revival ◽  
Islamic Movement ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the issue of identity in the Middle East from an Islamic perspective. It shows how Islam, in a variety of forms, has interacted with the domestic, regional, and international politics of the region. The chapter first provides an overview of the history and concepts of Islam and international relations in the Middle East before discussing the relationship between pan-Islam, colonialism, and the establishment of modern nation states in the Middle East, using Egypt and Saudi Arabia as case studies. It then explores the political economy of Islamic revival as well as the role of Islam in Cold War geopolitics and in foreign policymaking. It also considers how globalization has acted as a facilitator of transnational Islam and concludes by assessing how the Arab Spring has created new opportunities and challenges for the Islamic movement, along with their implications for Arab states’ foreign policies.

Response 1: “For We Had Hugged the Delusion…”

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-231
Author(s):  
James L. Huston
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Equal Chance ◽  
Short Piece ◽  
The Subject ◽  
George Iii

I wish to thank the editors of the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era for giving me a chance to react to Richard Schneirov's engaging article on periodizing the Gilded Age. I tend to agree with his generalizations and approach to the subject, having only some small qualifications to offer, largely concerning the quest for periodization, the timing of the break from one type of society to another, and the role of the Civil War. It seems that modern historians have revised somewhat the comment of George III to Edward Gibbons, “Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbons?” Now it has become, “Quibble, quibble, quibble, eh, Mr. Historian?” Well, such seems to be our fate. However, on one interpretation there is no quibbling at all: somewhere in the years called the Gilded Age came the mightiest transition that the society of the United States has ever experienced. The quote in the title of this short piece attests to the realization that such was the case: it is from the Brahmin historian, James Ford Rhodes writing about the Great Railroad Strike of 1877: “For we had hugged the delusion that such social uprisings belonged to Europe and had no reason of being in a free republic where there was plenty of room and an equal chance for all.” The political economy inherited from the Revolution had failed, and it was beginning to be recognized that a new political economy was emerging.

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