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Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni Struggle for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Membership View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by White Rose E-theses Online Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni Struggle for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Membership 1979- 2014 Mubarak Mohammed Rajis Aldossari Submitted in Accordance with the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Languages, Cultures and Societies April 2018 Words Count 81694 1 DECLARATION "The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his/her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others." COPYRIGHT “This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement” © 1214, the University of Leeds. Mubarak Mohammed Rajis Aldossari 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would never have been able to finish my thesis without the guidance of my supervisor Dr. Hendrik Kraetzschmar, help from friends, and support from my family. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my adviser, Dr. Hendrik Kraetzschmar for the immeasurable amount of support and guidance he has provided throughout this study. Dr. Hedrick’s insights into and patient endurance throughout this project have been a true blessing, I admit that it would not be possible for me to finish this humble work without his excellent guidance, caring, patience, and providing me with an excellent atmosphere for doing research. I would like to thank from Kuwait, Dr. Abdullah al-Nafisi, Dr. Ayed Almanaa and Dr. Haia Almkami, who hosted me at their own homes and offered me their time to answer my questions. In addition, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks and appreciation to the faculty members in the Department of History at the University of Kuwait. From Qatar, Dr. Mohammed Almosfer from Qatar University. From southern Yemen, Dr. Fekri Alsaid, the former consul in the Yemeni Embassy in Qatar. From Saudi Arabia, the Director of the Institute of Diplomatic Studies, along with the staff of the Institute’s library. I would also like to thank Dr. Shabib Al-Qahtany, from the Saudi Interior Ministry, for giving from his time and effort to help me finish this humble work. I would like to thank Mr. Khalid Aldossari and his family, who open his house for me during working on my thesis in Dammam. Many thanks to my uncle, Hamad Alshrafee, who became like my father and supported me throughout the work stages. I would also like to thank my parents and my brothers. They were always supporting me and encouraging me with their best wishes. 3 ABSTRACT Upon the British withdrawal in 1971 from the Arabian Gulf region, three powerful states (Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran) were left competing among each other to gain influence. Accordingly, that competition transformed the region’s dynamic into something of a Regional Security Complex (RSC) (Buzan and Wæver, 2003 p. 187) – to be more precise, the Gulf became a distinct sub- complex of the Great Middle East RSC. After the Gulf War II (1990-1991) and even more so following the U.S invasion of Iraq in 2003, this RSC was defined by the competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran, as each sought to expand their influence over the other regional states. Consequently, the region was divided in two camps: first, the multilateral security and political organisation of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (usually alluded to as the Gulf Cooperation Council or GCC), including Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Oman; and second, Iran and its proxies in the region. Yemen and Iraq occupied a shifting and unstable space in between these two camps, with the latter oscillating between quiet recipient of GCC assistance and outright hostility to the GCC states, and the former relying heavily on GCC assistance and gaining partial membership in the GCC Secretariat in 2001. This paper asserts that the GCC approach to regional politics and security has been largely determined, whether passively or actively, by the policies and threat perceptions of Saudi Arabia. At the same time, Saudi Arabian policy has been tempered by the interaction of other actors behaving within Security Complexes at the global, regional, and domestic levels. By extending the RSC framework to the case of the Gulf region, this thesis examines the degree to which the nature of cooperation and conflict among the Arabian Gulf Countries (AGC) shapes their interactions with external powers, including Iran and Iraq, but especially with their southern neighbour Yemen. The importance of this project is that it should add to the ongoing debate on the importance of Yemen’s security and stability for Saudi Arabia and the other GCC members. It concludes that at the core of Arabian Peninsula security dynamics, Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Yemen affects other regional relations with the Smaller Gulf States and Iran, even at the same time that it is conditioned by those same relationships. 4 Declaration ............................................................................................................................ 1 Copyright ............................................................................................................................... 1 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 2 Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 3 Table of Figure ..................................................................................................................... 7 1 Chapter One: Introduction........................................................................................ 9 1.1 Theoretical Overview .................................................................................................. 12 1.1.1 Parameters of the Thesis ............................................................................................................... 13 1.1.2 Securitisation of Yemen .................................................................................................................. 14 1.1.3 Interpenetration of International, Regional and Local Security ................................ 15 1.2 Research Objective and Rationale ........................................................................... 17 1.2.1 Background ........................................................................................................................................... 18 1.2.2 Hypothesis and Question ............................................................................................................... 19 1.2.3 Literature Review .............................................................................................................................. 20 1.3 Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................................ 22 1.4 Terms of Discussion .................................................................................................... 24 1.4.1 Regional Security Complex Theory .......................................................................................... 24 1.4.2 The Domestic Level of Analysis .................................................................................................. 25 1.4.3 Terrorism as a Domestic Threat with Regional and Global Implications ............. 27 1.4.4 The Global Level of Analysis......................................................................................................... 28 1.5 Research Methodology ............................................................................................... 30 2 Background of the Two Yemens Relationship with the GCC States ............. 33 2.1 Saudi Arabia and the Exclusion of the Two Yemens from the GCC, 1960-2001 33 2.2 Introduction................................................................................................................... 33 2.2.1 Saudi Arabia’s Growing Importance in the Arab Gulf ..................................................... 34 2.2.2 Saudi Arabia Economy Growth ................................................................................................... 35 2.2.3 Saudi Arabia in International Politics ..................................................................................... 38 2.3 The YAR and the PDRY Relationships with Arab Gulf States............................ 42 2.3.1 The YAR Relationship with Saudi Arabia .............................................................................. 43 2.3.2 The PDRY Relationship with Saudi Arabia ........................................................................... 48 2.4 Two Yemen Unification .............................................................................................. 54 2.5 Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 62 3 Theoretical Approaches .......................................................................................... 65 3.1 Introduction................................................................................................................... 65 3.2 Regional Security Theory and Securitisation Studies ........................................ 65 3.2.1 Social Theory and Constructivism ...........................................................................................
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