Background
In 1981, the six Arab countries of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kingdom of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Oman signed an agreement to establish the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Since the Charter has been formed, the GCC region has been considered the most stable entity of the Middle East region (Bianco & Stansfield, 2018). The fundamental principle of constructing this entity is to promote economic, financial, and cultural cooperation; and to enhance social ties between people and foster political stability and security within the region (Nakhleh, 1986).
From a social identity perspective, several key factors helped to facilitate an integrated entity among Gulf states. It enabled people to strengthen a shared identity known as “Khaleeji' identity” (Al-Misned, 2016) that had been formed before the national identity of Gulf citizens (Allam & Karolak, 2020). In relation to social ties, there was recognition that intermarriage across GCC countries is common. As a result, the existence of extended families across these six countries produced similarities in many aspects of life spanning culture, identity, music, and poetry. In addition, GCC citizens have travel privileges to facilitate free movement between member states without visa requirements (Alshihaby, 2015). Therefore, these factors indicate that, before the Qatari blockade, GCC citizens perceived themselves as relatively united and with a common identity sharing many key characteristics (Al-Khouri, 2010).
Aside from the geopolitical importance of the landscape, the Gulf region is undergoing considerable political and social transformations caused by several key trends in recent times, including the Arab Spring, economic transitions and shifting demographics. The state of Qatar - a small peninsula within the Arabian Gulf - is a traditional Muslim collectivist society with established gender segregation norms (Bahry & Marr, 2005); but with state commitments to harmoniously modernize the country with ambitious development strategies at national and international levels, such as the hosting of the FIFA World Cup 2022. High levels of social security, extensive public and private investments, openness to globalization and rapid industrialization have typified the nature of Qatar’s development in recent decades (Dogan Akkas & Camden, 2020). Such developments have also seen regional competitiveness emerge, with Qatar and UAE regularly competing with each other to promote their active contributions to international society (Ennis, 2018). As a result, it has been suggested that the success of Qatar in different fields such as sport can foster jealousy (Gulf Times, 2017).
Although the GCC entity has maintained stability and cohesion since its inception, the political relationships have encountered some tensions among the allied countries. For example, there was a sovereignty dispute between Bahrain, Qatar and the Hawar Islands in 1936, and it was peacefully resolved in 2001 via the International Court of Justice (Wiegand, 2012). Similarly, political tension resulted in a border dispute between Qatar and Saudi Arabia that emerged in 1992 and 1994 (Okruhlik, 1999). Nonetheless, the GCC overcame these disputes and maintained the strong ties among the Gulf states.
However, on 5th June 2017, to much regional and international shock, the Gulf States of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates; and Egypt severed all diplomatic relations with Qatar. Given the cooperation of the Gulf region in the past, this blockade was regarded as unprecedented; and brought with it a cascade of effects across many levels of society. Sophisticated cyberattacks on Qatari state media implicated Qatari stakeholders across a range of politically sensitive allegations. Following this, a 13-point list of maximalist demands were put to Qatar (Ulrichsen, 2020) - itself underpinned by a narrative of Qatari involvement in terrorist activity and corruption (Milton-Edwards, 2020). For example, the demands included: closing of Qatari-run media such as Al Jazeera, ceasing military cooperation with Turkey, severing alleged ties with terrorist organizations and the hosting of their representatives within Qatar, and paying compensation to the blockading Gulf states.
Despite a willingness to find a resolution, Qatar did not wish to accept the accusations nor the demands of the blockade. Owing to considerable dependence on importations of key goods and services, in addition to the social and familial interconnectedness of Gulf states, immeasurable challenges emerged for the Qatari population. The Qatari National Human Rights Committee (QNHRC) in 2017 reported that the blockade had instilled a sense of fear due to the fragmentation of families (due to border closures); created risks of adverse psychological outcomes; and caused irreparable damage between once-intertwined Gulf cultures and societies. The psychological consequences of intergroup conflicts within the Gulf region remain poorly understood within the literature. The particular characteristics of this blockade present a unique opportunity to understand intergroup conflict within an understudied region.
Theoretical background - social identity and perceived threat
This paper adopts a theoretical background initially framed by social identity theory (Tajfel et al., 1979) which posits that an individual’s sense of identity is based on their group membership(s), and can thus heavily influence other key psychological factors (including self-esteem and group pride). Social identity theory places the origins of social identity within the domains of both cognitive and motivational factors - this can influence group members to support or detach from their group. Indeed, one of the key contributions of social identity theory is the replicated finding of in-group favoritism across different conditions (Brewer, 1979). However, it has been argued that social identity theory has not been as impactful as expected in political psychology due to a focus on the effects of social identity across group memberships; but a lack of attention on the development of such identities in real-world contexts (Huddy, 2001).
It is important to note the challenges to social identity theory, as outlined by Huddy (2001), such as: acquired versus ascribed identities; the potential role of individual differences; group differences in the freedom to acquire identities; boundaries versus meaning for group identities; and the overall strength and stability of identity. These challenges also reflect some of the original theorizing by Tajfel et al. (1971) who emphasized the importance of understanding the role of context when applying the theory to different groups and to not make the assumption of universality. Nonetheless, a recent cross-cultural meta-analysis (n = 21,266) found in-group bias to be a relatively universal phenomenon (Fischer & Derham, 2016), but with systematic variance found for countries with differing levels of individualism or collectivism, and uncertainty avoidant contexts. Importantly, and reflecting limitations found in much of the literature, no data on Muslim-majority countries were included thereby limiting the generalizability of the findings. Relatedly, while there is extensive research on the effects of political violence (Muldoon, 2013; Palmieri et al., 2008), less is known about the complex relationship between the perception of threat in socio-political tensions, and its subsequent effect on identity, and mental health variables such as self-esteem. This is especially the case for younger populations.
Research on (perceived) intergroup conflict have typically focused on effects relating to stressors that may exacerbate conflict, physicality, territory, power; in addition to restrictions for civil liberties and human rights (Carriere et al., 2020). There is a distinct lack of research on the potential role of perceived threat for wellbeing and identity in young adults where such individuals do not have prior experience of conflicts, as is the case in the Qatari blockade. Although some research from a Northern Ireland context has found that perceived threat was associated both directly (negatively) and indirectly (positively) via social identification with wellbeing, this was only for those who had prior experience of political conflict and violence (Schmid & Muldoon, 2015). The distinctive factors within the Qatari blockade are difficult to situate within the current perceived intergroup threat literature. This is due to a number of factors, chiefly the absence of violence, and the uniquely impactful role of social media in communicating some of the psychological effects of the blockade in young adults - living in an increasingly globalized Qatar - who have no direct experience of political conflict or violence (Alkaabi & Soliman, 2017; El-Masri et al., 2020). Moreover, over 50,000 citizens from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates lived in Qatar prior to the blockade, and significant overlapping familial, sporting, commercial and political ties existed across the Gulf (Zahlan, 2016).
The largely unforeseen and immediate severing of these ties has never been experienced by the so-called generation Z of Qatari citizens (born from 1996 onwards). Given the overlapping ties held by young Qatari adults across Gulf groups, it is unclear how the functionality of the perceived threats from the blockade would potentially affect individual wellbeing, identity and self-esteem. It should be noted that perceived threats of any kinds may not adversely impact wellbeing in all contexts. There is a body of research that has demonstrated the important positive relationship between one’s social identity and perceived threats. In the context of social identity theory, this therefore means that some individuals may more readily identify with their perceived in-group in an attempt to cope with the stressors from the perceived out-group threats (Haslam et al., 2005). Indeed, recent experimental evidence illustrating the widespread trend of coethnic voting within the Middle East has been posited as a reflection of actual preferences for members of social in-groups; but this does not means that there is a simultaneously negative qualitative prejudice against perceived non-coethnics (Shockley & Gengler, 2020).
Extant literature - what do we know about the psychology of Qataris?
Compared to studies involving Western samples, there is a lack of high-quality large-scale datasets concerning populations from Gulf States such as Qatar. Within psychology and the social sciences more broadly, the dependence on samples typically from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic populations (WEIRD) have limited the cross-cultural generalizability of key conceptualizations of the self, motivation, and behavior (Henrich et al., 2010). Nonetheless, there has been an emergence of some empirical research on youth well-being from Gulf countries in international psychology literature (Ahmed M. Abdel-Khalek, 2013; A. M. Abdel-Khalek, 2011; Al-Attiyah & Nasser, 2016; Bedair et al., 2020).
Previous research has demonstrated that mental health problems in Qatari young adults are comparatively frequent (Schoenbach et al., 2018), with some data indicating that females (mean age = 13.5 years) report higher life satisfaction than males (Al-Attiyah & Nasser, 2016). Other data from undergraduate samples have reported higher self-rated levels of mental health for men, and in keeping with regional trends, an overall significant positive correlation between subjective wellbeing, health and religiosity has been identified (Ahmed M. Abdel-Khalek, 2013). However, a recent cross-cultural telephone survey of non-migrant Qataris and migrants found that the former had lower levels of depression that was comparable to Western epidemiology (between 4.2% and 6.6%) (Khaled, 2019; Khaled & Gray, 2019). Within Qatari primary healthcare, it is estimated that approximately one-quarter of attendees had at least one psychiatric diagnosis (Ghuloum et al., 2011; Bener et al., 2015). However, much of this data is using smaller samples from college-aged participants or older adults in timeframes that predated the Qatari blockade. A further challenge relates to the role of mental health stigma in Qatar regarding self-reporting, help-seeking behaviors, and national dialogue (Ciftci et al., 2013; Zolezzi et al., 2017).
To date, there exists no high-quality definitive dataset regarding the mental health, self-esteem, identity or perception of threat among young adult citizens in Qatar, and no research regarding the effects of the blockade on these psychological variables. Nonetheless, the National Mental Health Strategy for Qatar, Changing Minds, Changing Lives 2013–18 has identified a need for transformational change in mental health services in Qatar. Within this policy, destigmatization and evidence-building have been identified within an overarching implementation plan (Sharkey, 2017). This has now been extended into the Qatari National Health Strategy 2018–2022 which aims to take a population health approach using an integrated system of care, with mental health and wellbeing named as a priority area.
Research objectives
The project has the following series of objectives:
1. To assess the effects of the Qatari blockade on the national identity of Qatari youth;
2. Identify the scale of the transformations affected by the blockade and how they are reflected in the self-esteem of young Qataris;
3. To measure the levels of perceived threat in Qatari youth as a consequence of the blockade;
4. To investigate the relationship between perceived threat and national identity among Qatari youth.
5. To evaluate if the combined variables of Qatari identity, self-esteem and perceived threat predict the wellbeing of Qatari youth.
This project is a part of a broader investigation into Qatari national identity in the context of the blockade. The analysis is devised to inform future policies of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education to assist with the cultivation of an education system oriented towards the promotion of national identity and citizenship. The outcomes will provide scope to inform educational content that can be leveraged to positively shape Qatari identity and solidarity amidst increasingly uncertain conditions for their young citizens who are already in a developmentally-transitional stage.