The oxymoron of monarchies promoting change: Qatar and the Arab Spring

Unlike the Arab monarchies, Qatar embraced a supportive position towards the Arab revolutions since the moment they broke out in late 2010. In fact, Qatar's Al-Jazeera network had been an essential media mobilizer for the Arab masses, and a major promoter of the revolutionary change process in the region by hosting pro-revolution Arab intellectuals and broadcasting pro-reform messages. Qatar firstly welcomed the Tunisian revolution, and financially backed the country in its transitional stage, the same it behaved with the Egyptian and Yemeni cases. What's more, Qatar made efforts to encourage Arab and international support for humanitarian intervention in Libya and Syria, and generously backed revolutionary forces there both financially and militarily. However, Qatar's pro-Arab Spring policies weakened its relations with its conservative neighbors, namely Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, which, consequently, prompted them to boycott Doha and withdraw their ambassadors from there in 2014. Then, in the summer of 2017, the same three states, along with Egypt, announced a total boycott and embargo on Doha. Given the fact that Qatar's political system is of the conservative-monarchic type, this dissertation aims to review the dynamics that drove Doha to embrace a pro-change policy in the region during the Arab Spring by asking whether regime "types" matter in terms of their respective reactions to revolutions that occur in their geopolitical backyards. Along with studying Qatar's support for post-revolutionary Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Syria, a detailed analysis was conducted on Doha's role in Egypt with a view to better understanding what has come to be known as "Qatari Exceptionalism." This dissertation comes up with many conclusions with a view to understanding the geopolitical interests that drove Doha to adopt that exceptional position. Key Words: Qatar, Arab Spring, revolutions, Egypt, Regime Type