Did the GCC Make a Difference? Institutional Realities and (Un)intended Consequences

Abstract

Since its inception the GCC has been largely ignored by scholars of international relations. The few who dedicated more than a passing remark to the organization have been quick to point out the fairly clear shortcomings of the regional grouping. Indeed, from an institutional point of view, few of many promises have been fulfilled by the six member states. Much remains to be done both in the political and the economic field. However, I will contend that what was conceived as a pact between rulers evolved into an entity that contributed to transform Gulf politics in several ways. From the point of view of the rulers the propounding of a separate ‘Arabian’, as opposed to Arab, identity served to draw a conceptual boundary vis-a-vis the rest of the Arab world. In other words, the appeal to regional identity helped to constitute boundaries of inclusion and exclusion that reinforced the notion of the six GCC countries as status quo states in a region characterized by the activity of a number of revisionist powers. The establishment of the GCC itself had been carefully portrayed by Gulf officials as a step in the direction of Arab unity. Since the Kuwait war, though, Gulf leaders have been far more energetic in their assertion of a separate Gulf identity and in stating their need to find solutions to specific sub-regional problems by looking for support from non-Arab actors. I argue that from the start the establishment of the GCC had been meant as an exercise of ‘identity diplomacy’. This is demonstrated by the timing of the founding that allowed the exclusion of Iraq, a country that had previously insisted in being included in any kind of Gulf-wide regional grouping.