Political relations of Saudi Arabia with Jordan and Qatar in 1990–2021. The character of relations between Arab monarchies

Abstract

The Arabian Peninsula is the last place on Earth dominated by absolutist monarchies or systems that are, in fact, similar. There evolved a political system dominated by Saudi Arabia and in the shadow of that kingdom there are monarchies in Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is a federation of several smaller monarchies. In the period of the Cold War these states were forced to act jointly towards the threat of post-Soviet Arab republics, such as Egypt. However, the houses exercising the power in these states for centuries have been involved in conflicts and disputes. Even nowadays it is possible for these conflicts to revive. The following text discussed two such disputes, the first one being the rivalry between the Saudis and the Hashemites. In 1990-1991 it resulted in sudden severing all of collaboration between Saudi Arabia and Jordan. A similar dispute concerns the Saud and the house of Al-Thani, the result of which was a severe political conflict of Riyadh with Qatar in 2014-2020. These two conflicts reflect sudden variability of relations between Arab monarchies- they indicate hegemonic ambitions of Riyadh, but also strong resistance of some of the royal families against these claims, and the potentiality of destabilisation inherent in these relations