MIDDLE EAST
November, 2009
Securing the Peace: The Battle over Ethnicity and Energy in Modern Iraq
Working Paper
By Justin Dargin, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
This article examines the legal and political impediments to the Kurdish Regional Government's (KRG) exploration and production contracts, which the central government in Baghdad has refused to recognize. The newly established Iraqi national constitution significantly opened as many petroleum-control questions as it resolved. Negotiated in 2005, the constitution not only separated branches of government, but established Federalism as its lodestar. When faced with unresolved issues over regional and national control over petroleum resources, however, International Oil Companies (IOCs) function in an ambiguous legal environment that fails to clearly distinguish between federal and regional powers.
November, 2009
The Ties that Bind: the Dolphin Project and Intra-GCC Relations
Policy Brief
By Justin Dargin, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Qatar was the force behind the creation of the Dolphin Project (Dolphin), a much reduced form of the pan-GCC pipeline, envisioned at the November 1989 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit meeting as the most ambitious domestic Middle Eastern gas project ever undertaken. As originally conceived, a transnational pipeline was to weld the national gas grids of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE into a single integrated bloc. Qatar's enormous North Field, the largest associated natural gas field in the world, became the centerpiece of this vision.
November, 2009
Private higher Education in the GCC: Best Practices in Governance, Quality Assurance and Funding, Executive Summary
Policy Brief
By Rasmus Bertelsen, Former Research Fellow, Dubai Initiative, 2008–2009; Former Research Fellow, Science, Technology, and Public Policy, 2006–2008.
The Gulf region has for the last 15 years seen a vast expansion of private higher education in an effort to increase higher education capacity beyond national systems, develop human resources, and diversify national economies away from oil and gas resources. The examples of classical American- and French-system private universities in Beirut and Cairo and their contribution to human and socioeconomic development are strong reasons for supporting private higher education. However, there are important shortcomings in the governance, quality assurance and funding of especially for-profit higher education, which must be overcome for this sector to positively contribute to development. This policy brief outlines the strengths and weaknesses of private higher education, best practices in governance, quality assurance and funding: non-profit, independence and commitment to academic excellence; the consequences of Western accreditation; and non-profit and endowment-based finance.
November, 2009
Applying For-Profit Principles in Water Management and Agricultural Policy in the Middle East and North Africa
Policy Brief
By Mohamad M. Al-Ississ, Former Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Through its partnerships with the government, the agricultural sector in the MENA has long engaged in dubious accounting practices to raise its reported profits through artificially suppressing its costs. This has led to the current unsustainable exploitation of the scarce water resources in the region.
November, 2009
The Cross-Border Financial Impact of Violence
Working Paper
By Mohamad M. Al-Ississ, Former Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
This paper argues that violent events have two economic effects: a direct loss from the destruction of physical and human capital, and a reallocation of financial and economic resources. It documents the positive cross-border impact that follows violent events as a result of this reallocation. Thus, it reconciles the two existing perspectives in the literature on whether violence has a small or large economic effect. Our results show that, in globally integrated markets, the substitution of financial and economic activities away from afflicted countries magnifies their losses. This study evaluates certain factors affecting the impact of violence in non-event countries. Geographic distance from the event country is not monotonic in its effect on the valuation of equities of other countries. Also, the safer a non-event country is perceived to be relative to the event country, the greater the positive impact on its financial market. Finally, event countries with deeper financial markets are less susceptible to capital reallocation following an event.
November, 2009
Oil, Labor Markets, and Economic Diversification in the GCC: An Empirical Assessment
Working Paper
By Tarek Coury, Associate, The Dubai Initiative and Chetan Dave
In a bid to reduce their dependency on oil and natural gas revenues, GCC governments have recently invested considerable resources to diversify their economies.This paper provides an empirical assessment of economic diversification in the GCC for the period 1980-2005. In particular we assess whether oil and natural gas revenues, government policies and foreign flows of labor have contributed to greater economic diversification, proxied by real growth in non-hydrocarbon GDP per worker. To our knowledge, this is the first paper that analyzes economic diversification in the Gulf using panel data techniques that explicitly treat the GCC as an economic block.
We find that lagged hydrocarbon revenue is the only variable consistently associated with subsequent economic diversification; this is in contrast to government expenditures whose impact on diversification is negative, large, and significant. We also find that population growth has little impact on either growth of overall GDP per worker or non-hydrocarbon GDP per worker; we present an economic growth model that takes into account features of the labor market structure in the Gulf to explain this finding. Finally, we present some empirical evidence consistent with claims of greater macroeconomic and financial integration within the GCC.
November, 2009
What Accounts for the Success of Islamist Parties in the Arab World
Working Paper
By Michael Robbins, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Islamist organizations are generally considered to be the strongest and most credible opposition to incumbent regimes throughout the Arab world. Fear of Islamic takeovers has led regimes and other outside powers to justify not holding free elections, citing examples that include the Algerian election of 1991, the Iranian Revolution, the AKP victory in Turkey and the perceived popularity of Islamist opposition groups throughout much of the Arab world (Brumberg 2002). Yet, other analysts have questioned the actual strength of Islamist movements within the Arab world, noting that although Islamists may be the main challenger, few have actually been successful in taking power (Roy 1994).
November, 2009
What Accounts for the Success of Islamist Parties in the Arab World
Policy Brief
By Michael Robbins, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Islamist organizations are generally considered to be the strongest and most credible opposition to incumbent regimes throughout the Arab world. Fear of Islamic takeovers has led regimes and outside powers to justify the suppression of free elections by citing the Algerian election of 1991, the Iranian Revolution, the AKP victory in Turkey, and the perceived popularity of Islamist opposition groups throughout much of the Arab world (Brumberg 2002). Yet, other analysts have questioned the actual strength of Islamist movements, noting that although Islamists may be the main challengers, few have actually been successful in taking power (Roy 1994).
November, 2009
The Blueprint: A History of Dubai’s Spatial Development Through Oil Discovery
Working Paper
By Stephen J. Ramos, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
While oil discovery brought revenue to Dubai and would change the city's physiognomy, moving it beyond the initial three settlements along the creek, it is clear that Dubai's status as a dynamic entrepôt for international trade and transshipment, its foundational infrastructure projects, and its "free port" policies to attract merchant communities from throughout the Gulf and the Indian Ocean, along with licit and illicit trade for re-export to Persia/Iran and India, were solidly established before "black gold" was struck in Fateh field.
October 30, 2009
Iran: Reform of Energy Subsidies
Journal Article, Monthly Review
By Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
At long last and after decades of talking about doing something about the subsidies, there is a bill before Iran's majlis to target (but not remove) subsidies. I could not locate the bill itself but my impression is that it only addresses energy subsidies and not other subsidies such as food and medicine. So far only 5 of the bill's 14 articles have been passed, but the government already has the mandate to raise prices on energy products over the next five years
