This talk will present Dr. Young’s new book, which is a study of the economic statecraft of the Gulf Arab states, specifically the deployment of aid, investment, and direct support from some of the wealthiest petrostates of the world to their surrounding sphere of influence within the Middle East, Horn of Africa, and West Asia.  These new models of development finance, aid, and intervention include distinct institutional designs and ideological bases. For the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, the preference for state-led and often state-owned development is a strategic priority in the energy sector, a mechanism for domestic economic growth and consolidation of wealth among leadership and ruling families. Exporting that agenda as a foreign economic policy tool continues most of the domestic benefits, while also affirming broader regional political goals.

Dr. Karen E. Young is a political economist focusing on the Gulf, the broader MENA region and the intersection of energy, finance and security. She is a Senior Research Scholar at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy. Prior to this, Dr. Young was a Senior Fellow and Founding Director of the Program on Economics and Energy at the Middle East Institute, a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a professorial lecturer at George Washington University. Earlier, she was Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute and a Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Middle East Centre. At the American University of Sharjah, she served as Assistant Professor of Political Science from 2009-2014.

She is the author of many articles for Market Watch at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and has published articles in the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Lawfare, Al Monitor, ORIENT, Oxford Analytica, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, among many academic and analytical outlets. Her comments have been featured on NPR, CBS, CBC, AFP, in the New York Times, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Reuters, Al Arabiya, Arab News, Debtwire, MEED and MEES. Dr. Young received her PhD in Political Science from the City University of New York Graduate Center.