The Blockade on Qatar: Conflict Management Failings

ABSTRACT

Current tensions in the Gulf region highlight the persistence of crises and conflict. A number of states within the area now regularly engage in interventionist actions that challenge previously held norms of sovereignty and non-intervention. Fragmentation characterises what were once considered fairly robust structures of unity and enduring regional organisation. Theoretical norms that presuppose non-intervention are tested by new forms of coercion and interventionism among Gulf actors that exacerbate rather than resolve security dilemmas. In turn, this highlights the inadequacies of normative models of conflict management and resolution, and in particular mediation. These developments are examined in the case of the blockade against Qatar instituted by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in June 2017.

KEYWORDS:

• Qatar
• blockade
• conflict management
• resolution

Notes

¹ The ‘Quartet’ states also arrayed other (albeit smaller and more fragile) state actors to their side of the dispute. These included the Comoros, the Maldives, Mauritania, Senegal, Libya HoR Tobruk and the Yemen al-Hadi government, which officially cut ties with Qatar. They also persuaded Chad, Djibouti, Jordan and Niger to downgrade diplomatic relations with Qatar.

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Notes on contributors

Beverley Milton-Edwards

Beverley Milton-Edwards is Professor of Politics at Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland.