[Book Talk] Gulf Monarchies after the Arab Spring

The post-Arab Spring collapse of decades-old regimes inaugurated a decade of re-shaping for the geopolitical order in the Middle East and North Africa region. A multipolar disorder ensued, solidified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Amid general bewilderment, the small monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) spent the decade between 2011 and 2022 trying to re-shape regional equilibria as protagonists. Cinzia Bianco’s book applies an original theoretical framework to unpack the threat perceptions and strategic calculus driving the behaviour of these new impactful regional players. Six chapters look at the GCC monarchies individually. Bianco challenges commonly-held narratives, and goes beyond attention-grabbing headlines, thus provides reading keys to the past, present, and future of policy-making in the Gulf monarchies, which are middle powers destined to play an oversized role in the new multipolar world. Against that backdrop, the book talk will allow us to reflect on the major evolutions of Gulf states in the past decade, and venture on their future trajectories.