New podcast online: Understanding Gulf States’ Foreign Aid: A Conceptual Framework

• Guest: Altea Pericoli (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow jointly affiliated with the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and the Department of Economics at Ca’ Foscari University)

• Episode available here

  
  

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The International Spectator is pleased to present a new podcast episode exploring how Gulf States have emerged as influential actors in the field of international development assistance. In this episode, Altea Pericoli (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow jointly affiliated with the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and the Department of Economics at Ca’ Foscari University) discusses the key arguments of her article Understanding Gulf States’ Foreign Aid: A Conceptual Framework, published in The International Spectator.

Pericoli outlines how states such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have developed distinct aid profiles shaped not only by geopolitical and strategic interests, but also by domestic political dynamics and identity-driven considerations. Combining insights from neoclassical realism and constructivism, she proposes a new framework for understanding the motivations behind Gulf foreign aid and its implications for global development politics. The article appears in Volume 60, Issue 3 (2025) of The International Spectator, the peer-reviewed journal of the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), which features a focus on evolving strategies and narratives in the foreign policies of Gulf States.