Qatar: Small State, Big Politics (9 page)

In addition to alliances and issue specialization, small states tend to rely on hedging as a strategy to enhance their position in the international system. Hedging may be defined as “a behavior in which a country seeks to offset risks by pursuing multiple policy options that are intended to produce mutually counteracting effects, under the situation of high-uncertainties and high-stakes.”
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Hedging stresses engagement and integration mechanisms, on the one hand, and realist-style balancing and external security cooperation, on the other.
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An insurance policy of sorts, hedging can be seen as “a set of strategies aimed at avoiding (or planning for contingencies in) a situation in which states cannot decide on more straightforward alternatives such as balancing, bandwagoning, or neutrality.”
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As such, hedging is “a luxury of the weak only” and prompts weaker states to adopt a middle line of engagement and indirect balancing. This is not to imply that hedging means lack of a clear commitment as to where one’s security and interests lie. It is a carefully calibrated policy in which the state takes big bets one way—for example, in Qatar’s case opting for the US security umbrella—while it also takes smaller bets the other way, as in maintaining friendly ties with Iran and regional Islamists.

Generally, if a state faces an unequivocal threat from an actor, it is likely to pursue a balancing strategy in relation to that actor. Alternatively, if the state views an actor as a principal source of profit, then it is likely to bandwagon with it.
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More often, however, smaller states face risks that are “multifaceted and uncertain.”
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At the same time, small states often find that their relations with the major powers need to be deliberate and studied. Too close of an alliance could mean losing their independence and inviting unwanted interference, whereas too distant of a relationship can put them “in an unfavorable position if the Great Power gains pre-eminence in the future.”
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Small states, therefore, are likely to engage in hedging by pursuing simultaneous strategies of return-maximizing and risk contingency. In order to maximize their returns vis-à-vis a great power, they pursue economic pragmatism, limited bandwagoning, and binding engagements (in the form of formal treaties), all the meanwhile careful, through dominance-denial and limited balancing, to reduce their risk exposure if things go awry.
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All too often, dominance-denial and limited balancing take the form of maintaining relations with the great power’s adversaries and competitors, at times as perfunctorily as simply keeping lines of communication open, and at other times in the form of warm and cordial ties. Whatever form these endeavors may take, their ultimate outcome is a deliberately crafted, highly active diplomatic profile on the part of the small state which, on the surface at least, may seem incongruent with its position in the international system.

Varieties of Power

Power is an essentially contested concept.
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One of the most enduring definitions of power was offered by Robert Dahl, who defined power as the ability to control the behavior of others, or, more specifically, to get others to do what they would not otherwise do on their own.
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Power does not necessarily mean control, but does bring with it greater autonomy, permits a wider range of actions, “a wider margin of safety in dealing with the less powerful,” and a bigger stake in the system and “the ability to act for its sake.”
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Power and persuasion have a close, interconnected relationship. If we take
power
to mean the ability to get others to do what they would not do otherwise,
influence
is to do so through persuasion.
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A similar definition is offered by Michael Barnett and Raymond Duval, though for them power is the capacity to determine one’s own existence. They maintain that power is “the production, in and through social relations, of effects that shape the capacities of actors to determine their circumstances and fate.”
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Whether it presents itself through coercion or persuasion, or directed at controlling others or at asserting the self, for realist thinkers power revolves around material capabilities rather than influence or outcome. For Waltz, state power is derived from a combination of tangible resources: “the size of population and territory, resource endowment, economic capability, military strength, political stability and competence.”
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Others have similarly defined power in terms of population, economic productivity, and relative political capacity.
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Writing at the turn of the twenty-first century, a group of scholars saw population as the key ingredient of power. “Population is the sine qua non for greater power status,” they wrote. “The size of populations ultimately determines the power potential of nations. Population is the element that determines in the long run which nations will remain major powers.”
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John Mearsheimer, another realist theorist, similarly sees power as the product of two main resources—namely a sizeable population and high levels of wealth—both of which enable a country to construct a formidable military. States with small populations cannot be great powers. Power represents “nothing more than specific assets or material resources that are available to a state.” For Mearsheimer, as for most other realists, power is the very essence of international politics, the very prize over which states compete with one another. States, he maintains, seek power not just to maintain the international status quo, but for the purposes of dominating other states. Accordingly, states focus on each other’s capabilities rather than on intentions. Wealth is important, but only insofar as it enables states to maintain an effective military force. Wealth underpins military power, and wealth by itself is a good indicator of latent power. There are two kinds of power: latent power and military power. Latent power “refers to the socio-economic ingredients that go into building military power; it is largely based on a state’s wealth and the overall size of its population.” In international politics, a state’s effective power is ultimately a function of its military forces and how they compare with the military forces of rivals. More specifically, it is the size of land forces that matter. According to Mearsheimer, power needs to be defined “largely in military terms because…force is the
ultima ratio
of international politics.”
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Along similar lines, Paul Kennedy points to the importance of resources as the basis of national power. Economics is an important ingredient of power, Kennedy maintains. But it is one of its ingredients, others being factors such as geography, military organization, national morale, the alliance system that affect a state’s powers relative to others.
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He argues that there is “a significant correlation
over the longer
term between productive and revenue-raising capacities on the one hand and military strength on the other.” Robust productivity and military strength combine to result in power. Technological and economic changes, which are inescapable features of human history, bring about shifts in levels of national and international power. Major shifts in military power balances have been followed by alterations in the productive balances, as confirmed by outcomes of major wars between the great powers. States need to maintain three essential tasks—provide for military security, meet economic needs and demands, and ensure sustained growth. To achieve great power status, they have to strike a rough balance among the three competing demands of defense, consumption, and investment. Power necessitates balanced focus on both the economic as well as military facets of power. Excessive focus on military strength and security runs the risk of neglecting and burdening economic strength, thus leading to decline. Spending on unproductive armaments takes away from productive investments, leading over time to an erosion of power.

Robert Keohane similarly links wealth and power. He defines power in terms of control over such key resources as raw materials, markets, and sources of capital, as well as competitive advantage in the production of highly valued goods. Access to crucial raw materials, control over major sources of capital, maintaining a large market for imports, and holding competitive advantage in goods with high value added that yield relatively high wages and profits are all key elements of power. For Keohane, exclusive access to these resources adds up to the making of a “hegemonic power.”
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But in the real world such access is hardly exclusive, enjoyed by many—but by no means all—resource-rich countries that have positioned themselves appropriately in the international system.

Joseph Nye’s concept of “soft power,” which he initially introduced in 1990, altered our understanding of power in a number of respects. Whereas the resources associated with hard power are tangible (e.g., force and money), the resources of soft power are intangible (e.g., institutions, ideas, values, culture, and perceived legitimacy of culture).
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Soft power shapes the preferences of others. It involves “getting others to want the outcome that you want” and “co-opts people rather than coerces them.”
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Soft power is more than just influence or persuasion; it is also the power of attraction—“an intangible attraction that persuades us to go along with others’ purposes without any explicit threat or exchange taking place.” Power does not always have to be deliberate in nature and in its exercise. There is also a “structural” aspect to power, which is to get the desired outcome without resorting to bribes or threats. In international politics, soft power is produced from three primary sources: values expressed in a nation’s culture, examples set by internal practices and policies, and the way a nation handles its relations with others.
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Nye argues that power should not be seen so much in terms of resources but instead should be viewed in terms of influencing and getting desired outcomes. States endowed with resources that are traditionally seen as sources of power do not always get their desired outcomes.
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Transforming resources into sources of power requires well-designed strategies and skillful leadership. What is important is how resources are turned into outcomes based on strategies and context. “Power conversion” is the capacity to transform potential power into actual power.
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Some countries are far more effective at converting potential power into actual power.
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Power resources are not static and differ based on different historical contexts.
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Over the past five hundred years, each century has featured a different source of power, often held by a different country. In the eighteenth century, conceptions of power revolved around population size and control over minerals and metals, all of which provided favorable conditions for the Industrial Revolution.
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In today’s world, the main indices of economic power are information and professional and technical services. In the twenty-first century, new notions of security are coming to the fore, revolving not just around survival but also economic welfare, group autonomy, and political status.
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In today’s information age, “it may be the state (or nonstate) with the best story that wins.”
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New circumstances call for new power resources, such as the capacity for effective communication and for developing and using multilateral institutions. Although force remains a viable and necessary form of power in the anarchic, self-help international system, new instruments of power such as communications, organizational and institutional skills, and “manipulation of interdependence” are just as critical and important.
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Therefore, any attempt to devise a single index of power is doomed to fail.
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More important, Nye argued, an important source of power is agenda-setting and determining the framework in which preferences and decisions are formulated.
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There are three aspects or faces of power: commanding change, controlling agendas, and establishing preferences.
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Power may be indirect and co-optive, resting “on the attraction of one’s ideas or on the ability to set the political agenda in a way that shapes the preferences that others express.”
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International institutions set agendas and define issue areas, thus setting rules of conduct in interdependent relationships among states. States try to use these international institutions to shape the overall agenda and set the norms of interstate conduct in relation to specific issues.
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