Determinants of Inter-state Economic Competition in Global System: Analysis for the Gulf Countries

The phenomenon of globalization, which began after the Industrial Revolution and underwent several phases, has gained momentum in the 1990s, especially with advances in information technology. In this process, the boundaries of time and space on socio-cultural, political and economic relations have been gone and economic activity has been channeled into a more competitive field by reducing transaction costs. In this study, it will be analyzed how Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Oman, known as authoritarian-oppressive monarchies that gained their independence in the Second World War, have a place in the global economic system in terms of economic competitiveness performance. The research has been conducted around the “rentier state theory”, which explains the basic socio-political character of the Middle Eastern countries and is frequently referred to in the literature, and paradigm shifts in international political economy will be considered in this context. It has been understood that GCC member countries significantly improve their economic competitiveness performance based on modern infrastructure, sectors oriented to the information society, dynamical local supremacy and increased factor productivity in order to be able to move away from the “curse of resources” and retain the ranting relationship forms on the same plane