QScience Connect - Current Issue

Since the sudden outbreak of what is known as the GCC crisis or the blockade on June 5, 2017, the four nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) involved in the conflict –the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the Kingdom of Bahrain – have found themselves in a diplomatic race for the support of their position on the rift in traditional media, as well as on social media platforms. This paper focuses on the different ways the ministries of foreign affairs (MOFAs) and the ministers of foreign affairs (MFAs) used Twitter as an instrument of digital diplomacy during the first 100 days of the GCC crisis. In general, states tweet on a daily basis, and the ways in which a sovereign state presents itself online offers an insight into the patterns of representation of state identity, strategy, emotional expression, and recognition of others. This study is based on the content analysis of tweets created by the MOFAs and their respective MFAs of the GCC, with a focus on Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain over the first 100 days of the crisis (June 5, 2017–September 13, 2017).

This paper uses different types of tweets to examine the various kinds of political and diplomatic discourses perpetuated on Twitter by the GCC officials, in order to engage the online public sphere and navigate the domestic and international discourses. For example, if ministers engage in dialogue with their followers, then they are exercising a two-way digital diplomacy approach via Twitter. On the contrary, when they tweet about their bilateral meetings, it is an example of a one-way digital diplomacy approach, since they do not require any response from their followers. It was of specific interest to examine the differences of topic, content, and frequency of tweets, through the communication in Arabic and English. The study shows that the countries engaged in discourse around the topic of the blockade, but the type of discourse differed significantly depending on the state itself. While some chose to focus on the idea of legitimizing their stance on the topic of the blockade (i.e. Saudi Arabia), others were more direct in voicing their viewpoint, creating specific hashtags such as “#boycottQatar” (i.e. Bahrain). In addition, Qatar differed significantly in terms of the volume of tweets and the topic, tweeting often in both Arabic and English and shifting their focus towards affirming their strong diplomatic relations with countries outside the GCC, such as the Republic of Turkey. Overall, this study aims to compare the way the four GCC countries used Twitter, in order to engage their local and international communities to disseminate an image or a message.

Various countries across the globe have implemented smart city initiatives to enhance the quality of living (QoL) for their citizens and other frequent users by offering smart services and innovative solutions. However, in many cases, end-users are often neglected during the planning, designing, and implementation phases of smart cities, which can impact the success of locally-based initiatives because their needs are not always fully taken into consideration. This research aims at exploring the approach of citizen-centricity in smart cities, define their key components, investigate the gap and challenges as perceived by citizens, users, and developers, and propose strategic recommendations for ways to enhance the QoL in Msheireb Smart City (MSC). The primary research was conducted to investigate citizens’ satisfaction, experience, usage of services, and to collect their feedback on areas of improvements in MSC. The results show that MSC’s users had low level of awareness about the smart services offered in the city, which resulted in less frequent use of the services. Based on this research, the strategic recommendations advise that smart city decision-makers should recognize citizens’ needs and preferences by implementing a customer relationship management strategy, promote citizens’ inclusion and engagement by establishing a citizen-centric inclusion strategy, and improve their awareness and usage of services by implementing a marketing campaign strategy.

This study aims to identify the factors that the Qatari government can contribute to Qatar’s internationalization of Small-Medium Enterprises (SME). In addition, it highlights the current role played with a variation of the future proposed programs. The obstacles faced by entrepreneurs also have been identified, and was accompanied by counterparts’ views from the country’s officials.

This study involved an online survey shared with 100 business owners and people working in the private sectors targeted through different mediums with help from Qatar Development Bank and their subsidiaries. The overall conclusion from the data analyzed is that there are still missing factors that the country lacks regulations, facilities, and education. However, there is evidence that the Qatari regulator moves in the right direction with the different initiatives and programs. Therefore, even though there are existing facilities, the programs offered do not fit the entrepreneurs’ needs. The entrepreneurs lack the managerial and marketing skills and the power in bargaining and negotiation with external stakeholders.

The main recommendation is to set national private sector/SME advancement techniques within the broader national advancement translated in a centralized portal based on the overall conclusion. Different recommendations have been proposed to provide proper training programs’ implementation plan. The proposals include the capacity of the Qatari government to actualize sound macroeconomic arrangements. The training programs to involve the teachers’ development expand the learner’s ranks, content sharing facility, and instructional methods redesigning. In addition, accessibility to loans and advanced finance equity, mainly to medium and long-term opportunities to grow SMEs’ exchange and venture capacity align with the Qatari National Vision 2030, whereas keeping up sound government accounts will offer assistance to the accessibility of finance for improvement purposes.

Sport is considered a favorable activity for children. Through participating in sport, children can acquire several skills and develop character traits like cooperation, teamwork, resilience, and focus. Nevertheless, it has been argued that children’s rights might be violated in sport at an elite level, primarily due to the intensive training given at an early age. More specifically, it was reported that approximately 20 percent of children involved in competitive sports may be at risk of abuse, violence, or exploitation, while 10 percent may be at risk of extreme abuse. This paper focusses on the lack of international law provisions to protect children who participate in elite sports and hence argue for a more effective protection. This gives rise to the need for an enforcement mechanism in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) specifically for elite-level sports. Thus, the international law could have a positive impact on domestic laws regarding young athletes in competitive sports. As a possible way through, this paper will examine the idea of imposing minimum age limit, including legal examples, as a potential solution to help protect children’s rights in sport.