Introduction

The small state of Qatar has garnered a level ofnotoriety for its rogue foreign policy and whatother GCC countries view as a refusal to play by therules. Whether making a home for exiles fromorganisations marked as ‘terrorist’ by the UnitedStates, aligning itself with Islamist politicalparties in the region or offering tacit support forthe commentary championing populist resistance inother Middle Eastern nations by the state-owned newsnetwork Al Jazeera,Qatar has irked its Gulf neighbours to the point ofrift (twice) while stubbornly refusing to back down.Particularly since the 2011 Arab uprisings, theQatari state has sought to represent itself as aprogressive force for change in the region, andcreate distance between itself and other autocraticregimes in the region that have responded to dissentwith harsh and repressive measures. However, despiteimplementing new domestic political reforms andaligning its foreign policy discourse with thehegemonic Western paradigms of democracy and humanrights, the state has continued to engage inauthoritarian measures at home to maintain andenforce its power, and has limited theimplementation of democratic political reforms.

These and other factors make the topic ofauthoritarianism in Qatar a particularlyinteresting, albeit puzzling, case for politicalpundits and scholars alike, who have sought tounderstand Qatar's seemingly contradictory domesticand foreign policies. Moreover, the topic of Qatar'sforeign policy has received renewed attention inpopular media and academic scholarship since the2017 Gulf crisis, which involved Saudi Arabia, theUAE and other Arab nations enacting a blockadeagainst Qatar and accusing the state of sponsoringterrorism, among other accusations. In thetwenty-first century, Qatari rulers have faced newchallenges to consolidating their domestic rule andbuilding a positive reputation for internationalconsumption, particularly as new forms of socialmedia communication and the expansion of the digitalsphere have made it more difficult to control thedissemination of national narratives among domesticand international audiences. This chaptercontributes to filling a gap in current scholarshipon authoritarianism in Qatar by examining thestate's use of new authoritarian measures,particularly digital media censorship, to fulfil itsdomestic and foreign policy agendas and consolidateits social and political power.