Could the Middle East Be the Answer to Saving Multilateralism? Different IR Theories Point to Yes.

Guadalupe Paz Coria, The University of California – Santa Barbara

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Abstract 

Amid intensifying political fragmentation, growing worry about the international system and declining trust in international institutions such as the UN, this article asks whether looking toward the Middle East and Global South through the emergence of regional diplomatic hubs could contribute to the revitalization of the multilateral system. Drawing on constructivist and psychological approaches to international relations, the article argues that entrenched identity formations, cognitive biases and rival perceptions between the West and MENA region have produced systemic pathologies that undermine multilateral cooperation. Using Qatar as a case study, the article examines how small-state diplomacy, soft power and regionalism may challenge Western-centric dynamics by reshaping norms, identities and physical spaces of global governance. The author analyzes how Qatar’s growing role as a mediator, humanitarian advocate and host of United Nations institutions in Doha could present challenges and solutions to the effectively disconnected world system. 

1. Introduction

I was recently sitting at the ITU’s ‘AI For Good Summit’ watching the discussion AI for Humanitarian Responses. The 20-minute time limit allotted discouraged profound discussions, but one theme stuck out like a sore thumb: we are disconnected. Many realities exist at once. While the tech-world hosts a summit ‘for good’ with soccer-playing robots and a Deloitte booth, humanitarian crises plague the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe. The West has maintained an unrelenting grip like no other on the international system, increasingly so in a post-Cold War order, clashing with the Middle East due to rival perceptions. Today, perceptions of regional bloc identities have led the international system into a point-of-no-return, squashing diplomatic possibilities. The United States’ decision to largely defund the UN has uncovered its possibility to collapse, and multilateral diplomacy with it. Qatar’s growing diplomatic personality and the opening of the UN House in Doha can help repair threats to multilateralism by provoking global cultural shifts and challenging biases according to constructivist and psychological approaches.

1. How Different Theories Explain the Current Status Quo

Constructivism argues that systemic norms shape the world order, a concept contributing to longstanding polarization between the West and the Middle East. The Middle East has specific foreign policy shaped by Islamic political movements, often arising as anti-colonial or anti-imperialist movements. With this in mind, constructivists recognize the opposing identities this dynamic created between the Middle East and the West, with cognitive biases creating rival perceptions of the regions. There is a clear intersection between new constructivist and psychological approaches demonstrating how states act based on distorted realities, which reinforce preconceived stereotypes to each other. Psychological approaches explain that the West has seen the Middle East as a non-ally through a colony-image as an opportunity to exploit a ‘weak region,’ while the Middle East views the US as a threat, in many cases having a homogenous “inherent bad faith” attitude to the region, exemplified by the Gulf conflict. As modern hostilities in West-MENA relations increase with the war in Gaza and Iran’s involvement, these perceptions and systemic pathologies currently play out, leaving many discontent with multilateralism and the UN.

For many modern realists, these tensions incite distrust in the sustainability of multilateral cooperation, such as the UN. Based on ambassador Michael Waltz’s belief that the international system is inherently anarchical, which overlooks institutions as legitimate peacebuilding efforts and instead as extensions of global power structures, many see Qatar hosting the UN as symbolic rather than impactful. However, realists agree that the most stable international systems are those with the least imbalances of power. Given this consensus, Realism falls short in recognizing soft power as a legitimate way to shift power dynamics, and thus assessing modern multilateralism. 

Instead, constructivism and elements from psychological approaches lead some scholars to agree that systemic norms and global identities can be part of the solution. According to constructivist Alexander Wendt, “self-help and power politics are institutions, not essential features of anarchy. Anarchy is what states make of it”, meaning violence is not an inherent norm, but a socially constructed culture. The addition of new regions for multilateral diplomacy can legitimize the importance of institutions and offer the beginnings of an alternative model to Western-centric multilateralism instead of horizontal integration emerging. Some regional institutions and hubs are essential to global peace initiatives and therefore raise an opportunity to create a more unified global culture through regionalization. The United Nations in Qatar could play a pivotal role in bridging the gap with the West and Arab-African world. Furthermore, Doha’s diplomatic identity breaks down systemic regional divides and perceptions by localizing global governance. Qatar has built soft power foreign policy over 25 years through financial contributions, bilateral aid, and mediation, in addition to promoting regional journalism with Al Jazeera, demonstrating diplomatic and peace efforts from the Middle East, combating biased and over-simplified perceptions of the region. Additionally, Qatar’s sustained efforts to global governance culture by promoting the use of Arabic in partnership with UNESCO, importantly balancing anglo-dominance in diplomacy through the use of language as integral to cultural identity. Their partnership with the UN helps information symmetries, another inflammatory phenomenon, by promoting transparency and dialogue across cultures. This relationship crucially solidifies Qatar’s position as a pivotal actor in international relations and increases inter-state trust which decreases potential for war. With tangible avenues for diplomacy in the Middle East, Qatar offers an avenue for trust-building through conferences, expansion of culture, and MENA inclusion. 

2. How Qatar Comes Into Play

Therefore, Qatar as a strategic diplomatic hub for its regional humanitarian efforts alongside the United Nation’s credibility and rapport for diplomacy can help transform self-help identities with biased perceptions to remedy international disconnect. Clearly, multilateralism requires challenging and rejecting realist ideas. Instead, using elements from constructivist and psychological approaches to reinforce institutions as legitimate actor-avenues for transforming culture, as well as utilizing regional offices to turn away from egoist-identities and create a unified global governance culture, for a new, horizontal multilateralism.

Unfortunately, IR theories can be far from perfect in practice. Qatar’s diplomatic endeavors are burdened with hard criticisms from the very own international community, such as with the Qatar diplomatic crisis from 2017-2021 and now due to ongoing allegations of modern-day slave labor under the Kafala system. The Kafala system forms part of a visa-controlled regime that allows employers to maintain substantial control over worker’s legal status in Qatar. The 2022 World Cup, another attempt at soft power from the state, uncovered the legacy of migrant labor abuses due to thousands of unexplained deaths and difficult labor conditions (Human RightsWatch). Attention unfolded after workers built the impressive stadium in an even more impressive amount of time, raising questions about workplace practices as many of these employees are immigrants contracted under Kafala.

3. Reading Between the Lines: Qatar’s True Intentions

According to Human Rights Watch, over 91 percent of Qatar’s population consist of foreign workers, often controlled by abusive employers. Employers can withhold passports, legal visas and documents, and, oftentimes, even pay. Employees are often subjected to dangerous working conditions and long hours at the costs of their freedom. While there have been social public initiatives against the system, workers still struggle to find ethically managed employment or employers. In 2024, migrant workers continued to face serious abuses, such as wage theft, restrictions on job mobility, inadequate grievance and redress mechanisms. Furthermore, migrants brought to Qatar by deceitful recruiters and abandoned once within Qatari borders were admitted to government shelters where they faced questioning about connections to organizations, severely restricted from freedom of movement, and had their passports confiscated. Qatar may be rebranding its international identity, but its internal human rights failures may infringe upon its influence. Although it is possible that these may be continued to be ignored, as little to no action has been taken for direct worker restitution from the 2022 FIFA world cup, allowing Qatar to continue building international credibility and trust. 

The truth is, it seems as though Qatar may be less interested in becoming a facilitator for humanitarian aid and more so in mending regional tensions, which may still offer benefits while perpetrating domestic human rights violations. Qatar’s identity as a strong actor in Middle Eastern geopolitics has, since the 90s, built strong partnerships with a variety of state and non-state actors, from Israel to the Muslim Brotherhood, to Hezbollah, to Iran, to even Hamas. The Arab Spring signaled a pause in objectivity, with support for several winners such as The Brotherhood in Egypt, the Libyan rebel council, and becoming a leading supplier and backer for anti-Assad forces. By 2017, Qatar involvement in tensions with its neighbors such as in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE broke off diplomatic relations with the state. Although Qatar may have overestimated its capacity to leave unscathed in participating, this period solidified a trend of increasingly assertive foreign policy.

4. Modern Relevancy

Now, Qatar has solidified its position as a key player in mediating the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, acting as a mediator and revitalizing the small-actor identity of mediation. Just as IOs can act as actors, mediators and spaces, Qatar has provided space for dialogue in its very own territory.  Some political scientists argue that small-state identity pathology is in-fact well positioned to advocate for cross-regional issues such as concerns within climate change, emerging technologies, and development, therefore becoming credible multilateral actors. However, in order to successfully build this identity, The International Peace Institute argues small states must: 1) reinforce the fundamental principles of international cooperation, especially the fundamental purposes of the UN Charter; 2) expand and strengthen the diverse cross-regional coalitions for global governance; 3) promoted information sharing and capacity building; 4) revamp working methods; 5) update the peace and security toolbox; 6) prioritize inclusiveness on new and emerging technologies and 7) embed future thinking.

So, Qatar’s involvement has already named it part of a geopolitical realignment, but could it provide the region relevancy of a Switzerland-esque nature, an inclusive middle eastern voice in international relations, or does it only desire to fulfill its personal goals? As Qatar departed from a de facto aid framework to use aid money for facilitating its foreign policy initiatives. Vast funds attracted parties to Qatar’s early mediation initiatives facilitating the institutionalization of foreign aid as a component of Qatar’s constitutional commitment to “strengthen international peace and security through its active foreign policy.” However, mediation initiatives have decreased foreign aid due to the weakening role of financial incentives in these processes. For example, a study by scholars Bulent Aras, Burucu Fazlioglu and Majed Al Ansari on Qatari foreign aid showed Qatar ceased to “offer major financial inducements to conflict parties as a carrot to incentives reaching an agreement”signifying a move toward a “universal approach and widening the geopolitical horizons of aid provision”. Qatar’s commitment to be an internationally reliable partner falls in line with the usage of foreign aid as it “utilizes a pragmatic approach to cooperate with major aid actors … while continuing to pursue aid operations in its immediate neighborhood and in geographies in need.” However this study indicated the more Qatar is politically engaged with a country whether in diplomatic or mediation efforts, the higher the probability that Qatar would provide aid to this country. As for aid intensity, ethnic and cultural similarities, alongside Qatar’s import relations, determined the number of aid interactions, finding that countries from which Qatar imported food and necessary materials during the Qatar blockade received more aid when compared to others. Therefore, at least in regards to Qatari foreign aid, allocation decisions prioritize recipient needs, and aid provision also depends on foreign policy interests in the targeted countries. There is reason to believe that may reflect Qatar’s greater international actions as “regime boosting” and status signaling, which according to Louise Fawcett, Professor of International Relations and fellow of Oxford, sometimes reveal the “desire of Southern bodies to control regional agendas without outside interference.” These trends, therefore, speak to the desire of regions for greater voice and autonomy in a multilateral system that is “often deemed alien to their concerns.” This could reinforce preconceived perceptions of regional instability, while still performing some action to better tensions, creating a compounded effect. 

With this in mind, Qatar offers more optimistic principles in line with International Peace Institute’s seven attributes. For one, Qatar advocated for the reform of global institutions and the application of international law itself  supporting the ICC and ICJ through its position on the war in Ukraine varied with ‘Qatar aligning most with Ukraine (and the United States’ position on the war) and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE leaning more closely toward Russia, with Kuwait and Oman falling in between. In regards to the UN’s Hub in Doha and the Doha Global South Health Policy Initiative, Qatar is currently leveraging asymmetric global dynamics to serve as a space for dialogue. As IO’s act as space, Qatar builds its international identity on this principle of a neutral space for dialogue, namely doing so for Maduro and US negotiations in 2022. In the same breath, Qatar additionally shifted its security paradigm toward “human security,” focusing on protecting individuals from poverty, food insecurity, and climate change through the Qatar Development Fund sending direct aid and providing logistical support  to conflict zones. Lastly, for embedding future thinking and revamping working methods, Qatar has taken the position of “niche diplomacy” thus far. This method concentrated its resources` on specific facets of international relations, in this case mediation, to maximize its influence, largely through providing space for mediation and foreign funding, as well as formal and informal diplomacy to exchange ideas by centering the Middle East and Global South in conversations from the inside (Doha). These tactics are aggregated with the Qatar National Vision 2030, a blueprint for future-oriented thinking within its own national planning framework, attempting to implement sustainable economic practices, research and development promotion, and adapting national legal frameworks while aiming to increase global multilateralism. Without a doubt, these efforts show a multi-faceted intent behind Qatar’s foreign policy, which seems to, while fulfilling national interest, embed the preservation of multilateralism within it. 

Antonio Guterres in 2023 expressed that “As we consider ways to make multilateral institutions more effective, and to meet the current and future challenges facing people and the planet, we need the perspectives and engagement of local and regional authorities” spotlighting the significant regional bodies in maintaining peace and security provision. In moving beyond Europe or Western-Centricisim and its systemic approaches which place regions at subordinate levels of analysis, the regional dimension that small states such as Qatar may impact can facilitate different regions and their significance, specifically for the Global South, where regionalism often functions differently. As the Western-centric system fails to adequately accommodate a range of global experiences due to its own inherent perspective biases, Qatar offers promise in bridging this gap within the international system for a more representative order within security and peacekeeping in North-South relations, and even regional disputes. Within the west-controlled diplomatic stadium, a regional actor with credibility could be a powerful and meaningful gateway into the MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa region. However, this meaningful entry into international politics is often criticized and discredited due to continuous abuses of migrant labor. Other important international actors, such as Japan, have also faced only a slap on the wrist due to their role in the international system.  However, Qatar’s role in the war in Gaza may grant a pivotal and decisive moment for the Qatari state to solidify this position. Its longstanding support for Palestine, hosting Hamas’ political office and Al Jazeera’s scathing critiques of Israel have placed Qatar under fire by some Western nations, though peace negotiations and hosting of officials are claimed to be at the request of the United States, to which Qatar is an ally. This liaison between two poles of the international system places Qatar as a key actor with a key function in mediation in modern-day international system-building. 

Peacemaking in the multipolar 21st century is indubitably subject to change, as systemic approaches to global governance evolve and adapt. A possible pathology political theorists have proposed for the multipolar world is minilateral mechanisms emerging within multilateralism. This would be a “growing reliance on informal, non-binding, purpose-built partnerships and coalitions of the interested, willing and capable.” Meaning, partnerships where the diplomatic world can foster this shift of global governance culture, with international actors who are interested and capable. Qatar’s mall state environment  and pathway to interlocutor of global south dialogues falls on this notion, and deconstructs preconceptions of Western-MENA tensions by creating peace building efforts and environments, So, a new UN headquarters in Doha as well as the longstanding provision of space and aid from Qatar could offer a catalyst for a necessary shift or cleavage in international relations for a more equitable multilateral system, rather than a failed multilateral system.