New Order in the Gulf: The Rise of the UAE
By Dina Esfandiary
London: I.B. Tauris (Bloomsbury), 2023, 200 pages, £17.99, ISBN: 9780755645794
The UAE After the Arab Spring: Strategy for Survival
By Khalifa Al-Suwaidi
London: I.B. Tauris (Bloomsbury), 2023, 222 pages, £26.09, ISBN: 9780755648030
Smart Instead of Small in International Relations Theory: The Case of the United Arab Emirates
By Spyridon N. Litsas
Cham: Springer, 2023, 203 pages, €22.38, ISBN: 9783031446382
Introduction
The political landscape of the Middle East underwent a reconfiguration in the 2010s, as traditional centers of regional influence, such as Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, weakened, and new actors in the Gulf region, characterized by domestic stability, economic dynamism, and an increasingly assertive foreign policy posture, began to emerge. Among these emerging players, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) stands out as a remarkable and significant example. In this sense, the UAE case is critical because it exemplifies the transformation of a small state into a middle power, demonstrating how strategic capacity, wealth, and proactive foreign policy can extend the traditional limits of small-state behavior. Alongside other emerging actors, such as Qatar, and more traditional powers like Saudi Arabia, the UAE stands out as an outlier, revealing both how far a small state can advance and where the structural limits of a small-state power ultimately remain.
