Introduction
The global factors that affect the state include the international organizations, such as the United Nations, GCC, EU, and WTO, supranational institutions, including transparency international, human rights watch, and WHO. These actors are very powerful to an extent of influencing the state to adjust its foreign and domestic policies in a significant way.
For instance, any state, including the United Arab Emirates, is expected to follow the trade rules and regulations as set by the International Labor Organization (ILO) for it to be considered a global trade partner. Similar, the country is forced to observe international human rights principles such as providing equal opportunities to all citizens, irrespective of race, gender, religious affiliations, and cultural beliefs.
This always compromised the state interests and aspirations, as policy makers are left with minimal options. The need for rapid development in the country has forced it to invite foreigners to take up jobs in the industries, which are critical in economic development. However, the state has to follow the international labor standards stating that employees must be provided with safer working conditions whereby their freedom is given priority.
It is unfortunate that these regulations are inconsistent with the cultural beliefs of the local population leading to tension and constant conflicts that have threaten the very survival of society1. Of particular concern is the emerging trend that forces the state to consider the wishes and desires of foreigners in drafting national policies and laws. Currently, foreigners are frequently accused of messing up with the country’s laws and cultural heritage, as new forms of crime are reported in various parts of the country.
Drug trafficking, drunk-driving and prostitution were some of the social crimes that were nonexistent in the country before the arrival of foreigners. A number of opportunities are available that can perhaps play a role in resolving the problem, including strengthening the country’s intelligence, restructuring the immigration policies to meet the international standards, and empowering the local security agencies to contain the situation.
The instruments of power in available in the country are sufficient, but additional strategies must be devised to strengthen them. For instance, a law should be passed to deal with the problem of law breaking among expatriates who have diplomatic protection.
Domestic Environment
For any state to have a global influence, it has to strengthen the economy, political institutions, social-cultural aspects, and technology. Powerful states have always had global influence because of their robust economies, powerful cultures, advanced technologies, and well-designed educational system. First, the state must address the problem of security by setting up an intelligence agency that is able to detect and prevent crime.
In the United States, the FBI and the CIA have always done well to safeguard the country’s interests. Similarly, Britain relies heavily on the Scotland Yard and other powerful security agencies to prevent serious crimes, such as drug trafficking and money laundering. Certain types of crimes are dangerous to the economy because they might easily lead to inflation and economic instability because financial transactions carried out in the black market are enormous.
The state has to invite the services of developed countries, especially the United States, to strengthen its security agencies because the current state of affairs is unfavorable to development. One of the strategies is increasing the police-civilian ration to deal with crimes committed at the local levels. To be economically influential, drafting economic policies must be informed by the private sector demands. The country suffers from serious managerial problems both in the public and private sectors because families mainly own businesses.
Corporate strategies lack in companies’ agendas, something that leads to ineffectiveness in terms of service delivery. The country has a defective policy suggesting that locals must own close to 70% of the private companies2. Performing companies are always taken over by the government and competition is never allowed because regulatory role is left to one of the market players, which is unfair to others. To improve innovation and technological development, patent and copyright laws must be developed to safeguard companies’ interests.
The country has one of the highest GDP in the world, which is a perfect opportunity to strengthen domestic economic performance. However, the only threat is that the current political class has no capacity to institute economic and political changes, as they view this as a threat to their personal survival.
The government has to incorporate the public in making important domestic and international policies in order to gain its support. For instance, people’s representatives in parliament must be consulted constantly before entering into important treaties.
Assumptions
The assumption entails formulation of a domestic policy that will facilitate changes in the way the country’s security agencies operate. Again, the immigration policies should be revisited to identify the loopholes and come up with ways of sealing them to prevent the state from falling prey to the western expatriates who are frequently accused of breaking the law and interfering with the social fabric.
The assumptions are valid given the fact economic development cannot be achieved in unsecure environment where life and property is not safeguarded. Security is an important variable in any form of development whether political or socio-economic hence enhancing it is critical. One of the strategies aimed at boosting security is capacity building and training of the intelligence, as well as other security officers. The current security system is reliant on the traditional techniques that are unable to detect and deal with crime sufficiently.
In developed countries, conventional methods are no longer employed because the police-civilian ration is too large meaning utilization of intelligence is the only option3. The international environment provides enough opportunities that are helpful in dealing with the security menace in the country.
For instance, the country should start working with an international policing institution, Interpol, to deal with transnational crime, such as drug-trafficking, money-laundering, and cybercrime, as the organization has well established structures to identify individuals, organizations, and global leaders engaged in these forms of crimes. Domestically, the state is ill prepared to adopt the new security measures and a strong policy has to be formulated to improve the condition.
Interests
From a realist perspective, the international system is hostile, brutal, and anarchic meaning it does not have a police to guarantee individual security and freedoms. The vacuum is always filled by powerful states that try to dictate policies to the weaker states. Currently, the powerful western countries, including Britain, the United States, and France are sending its citizens to the country to provide technical support in the service industries, but it is unfortunate that these foreigners are unwilling to follow the law4.
The aim of any state is to realize the national interest, which is mainly in terms of security. The powerful states ensure that their citizens enjoy their economic and political freedoms by providing employment, either domestically or internationally. For these western countries, their interests are achieved whenever their nationals are given employment in the United Arab Emirates. Even though the United Arab Emirates have other interests, the main one now is security because it is threatening the country’s sovereignty.
Therefore, the government must move in to address the problem by making effective use of the available instruments, such as the legal system and the security agencies. However, the security agents in the country are poorly trained and cannot handle the situation, which calls for additional training and capacity building.
Indeed, the state has to develop additional strategies and change the existing ones to tackle the problem. As already discussed in the previous sections, the state security agencies must drop the traditional methods of handling security issues in favor of the modern ones that incorporate the community and applies technology.
Objective
The objectives of the country include initiating economic development, creating an enabling environment for individual fulfillment, being the best investment destination globally, and becoming an economic hub in the region. For all these to be achieved, security must be given priority because economic development never thrives in a hostile environment. In fact, investors are never interested in forming partnerships with countries that are considered failed or insecure.
The country has an easier option to end all the problems, which is stopping further migration, but this will definitely shutter its economic ambitions given the fact it suffers from a serious labor shortage. Based on this, it does not have any other option other than strengthen the security forces and improve the institutional structures to deal with high rates of crime occasioned by the influx of immigrants from western countries.
Various tools are needed to achieve all the state objectives, but the main ones are those related to improvement of state security5. The country’s borders are considered porous because criminals easily manipulate the officials to smuggle drugs and illegal goods, including weapons that destabilize the peace.
Crime detection equipments and training plans are some of the tools needed to protect the borders and the country in general. The country should follow the footsteps of its neighbors in installing the cameras in crime hotspots, including the compounds of expatriates, as this will help in early detection.
Power and Influence
The state is always under intense pressure to act in order to improve the current situation in which the locals are seriously threatened in their own country. The country’s political leadership has always promised to crack the whip, but diplomatic protocol has always restrained it because it has to consult widely. Since the state cannot drastic measures that are likely to affect foreigners, it is forced to establish new instruments to support the national interests and objectives.
A number of state instruments, including political ones (parliament and the cabinet), legal (the courts and laws), economic (development plans and the treasury), cultural (national museums and local NGOs), and social (the educational system) exist. Therefore, the executive is permitted to use any of the instruments to resolve the issue that is facing the population.
The current problem should be dealt with from a social, political, and legal perspective6. Socially, the state has to facilitate community policing whereby the interaction between the populace and the police is improved, as this will facilitate sharing of information. This cannot be attained without taking officers for additional training since their current curricula does not incorporate this aspect. Secondly, the legal system has to be developed further to shorten the time taken to arrest and charge suspected criminals.
The courts have been accused of offering bail to the dangerous criminals found engaging in drug trafficking and money laundering. A law should be formulated to ensure such criminals are deported and declared persona non-grata, as this will serve as a lesson to those intending to commit crime. The state might seek help from global security agencies, but the decision to act must be unilateral because the issue at hand pertains to the country’s security.
Instruments
Machiavelli suggested that the prince has several options at his disposal and he should not be shy to employ any of them as long as it brings glory to the city-state. Similarly, the country’s leadership has various instruments that must be utilized effectively in containing the situation that is getting out of hand. The criminal justice system, whereby criminals are arrested, taken to court, charged, and jailed if found guilty, is one of the instruments the government can rely on to deter criminal activities.
Another option is invoking a section of the constitution talking about territorial integrity and expelling criminals engaged in serious crimes. The state should consider setting up an educational centre that teaches foreigners the country’s laws and cultural values. It will be a must for any one intending to work in the country to go through the system, as it will help them in coping well with the country’s laws and cultures.
Just as Machiavelli noted, the prince should not be compromised to interfere with the state’s integrity, but instead he should ensure visitors serve the interests of the city. To tap into the economic opportunities, the ministry in charge of immigration has to step up its efforts to encourage as many foreigners as possible to accept employment offers in the country, but it has to restructure the current policy to ensure only people with special talents, knowledge, and expertise enter the country7.
To deal with the threats, the law making agency has to intervene by drafting sufficient laws to contain crime. Through efficient leadership that relies on consultation, coordination of instruments of power and influence is not expected to be an issue.
Statecraft
To be realistic, the existing state policies in the United Arab Emirates are insufficient implying they do not meet the national interests, goals, and objectives.
At the time of designing some of these policies, the country never expected immigration to be an issue of national concern. Currently, the state is working closely with global experts to formulate vibrant immigration policies that will lead to a win-win situation because the country is in urgent need of workers while at the same time the populace is concerned with the rising cases of crime committed by these foreigners8.
The instruments of power offer little situation in the current states because they are mostly ineffective, but empowering them will change the situation. The instruments should be used in drafting the laws, enforcing them, and restructuring the ones considered defective.
Bibliography
Al-Raisi, Nadir, & Al-Khouri, Ahmed. “Iris recognition and the challenge of homeland and border control security in UAE.” Telematics and Informatics, 25.2 (2008), 117 132.
Deibel, Terry. Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic for American Statecraft. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Hippel, Karin. “The Roots of Terrorism: Probing the Myths,” The Political Quarterly 73.1 (2002): 31-58.
Joffé, George. “The European Union, Democracy and Counter-Terrorism in the Maghreb,” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 461 (2008): 163-200.
Lori, Newman. “National Security and the Management of Migrant Labor: A case study of the United Arab Emirates.” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 20.3 (2011): 315- 337.
Rapoport, Andrew. (2011). Nation-building, identity and citizenship education: cross cultural perspectives. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 31.2 (2011): 225-227.
Turnbull, Peter, and Wass, John. “Defending dock Workers-Globalization and labor relations in the world’s ports”. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 46.3 (2007): 582-612.
Zemni, Sammy, and Koenraad, Bogaert. “Trade, security and neoliberal politics: whither Arab reform? Evidence from the Moroccan case.” The Journal of North African Studies 14.1 (2009): 37-71.
Footnotes
1 Zemni, Sammy, and Koenraad, Bogaert, “Trade, security and neoliberal politics: whither Arab reform? Evidence from the Moroccan case,” The Journal of North African Studies 14.1 (2009): 43.
2 George Joffé. “The European Union, Democracy and Counter-Terrorism in the Maghreb,” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 461 (2008): 163-200.
3 Karin, Hippel, “The Roots of Terrorism: Probing the Myths,” The Political Quarterly 73.1 (2002): 50.
4 Turnbull, Peter, and Wass, John. “Defending dock Workers-Globalization and labor relations in the world’s ports”. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 46.3 (2007): 582-612.
5 Terry, Deibel (Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic for American Statecraft, Cambridge: Cambridge University), p. 65
6 Andrew, Rapoport, “Nation-building, identity and citizenship education: cross cultural perspectives”, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 31.2 (2011): 225-227
7 Lori, Newman, “National Security and the Management of Migrant Labor: A case study of the United Arab Emirates,” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 20.3 (2011): 315- 337.
8 Al-Raisi, Nadir, & Al-Khouri, Ahmed. “Iris recognition and the challenge of homeland and border control security in UAE”, Telematics and Informatics, 25.2 (2008), 117 132.