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The US commitment to stability—both domestically and abroad—has been a consistent feature in the way Washington, DC carries out international relations. This commitment is complimented by the increased overlap between the economic and political spheres in international affairs. Consequently, this US approach to foreign interaction is informed by an assumption that foreign policy tools can influence global stability for the better. In order to investigate this assumption, this book details the foundations of what Amir Magdy Kamel refers to as the US Stability Policy—how it evolved over time and how it was implemented in Egypt. He finds that domestic and global forces were left unaccounted for by the Stability Policy, ultimately leading to a failure to achieve the self-stated stability goals.

Kamel's analysis is informed through a unique mixed-method approach that sheds light on how and why this policy fared so poorly under Mubarak's Egypt. He develops and tests a unique and particular way of examining the Stability Policy and presents a framework for future work to replicate and build on in the quest to understand other state-on-state relationships and the effectiveness of other foreign economic policies in achieving stability goals. Floundering Stability reflects on what Kamel's findings mean for the relationship between the US and Egypt, as well as specific US foreign policy suggestions on how the same mistakes can be avoided in the future.

AbstractThe success of a state's coercive foreign policy depends on how much influence it has over a 'target' – a premise that assumes other factors do not obstruct the policy goal. In practice however, the nature of the international system complicates the potential for such a policy's success. This paper examines this idea using the 2018 US decision that aimed to dismantle the JCPOA by pulling out of the agreement and re‐sanctioning Iran. To do so, this paper engages with the general and region‐specific literature on coercive foreign policy, sets out a background of US‐Iranian ties and examines the consensus‐driven momentum that led to the JCPOA, along with the unilateral 2018 US decision to renege on the agreement. The findings demonstrate how the US and Iranian political environments made it difficult to realise the coercive foreign policy goal of dismantling the JCPOA. The reasons for this centre on the notion that the interconnected nature of the international system diminishes the effectiveness of this type of coercive foreign policy – even when considering the USA as a powerful implementer of this policy. Thus, I argue for the importance of capturing contextual factors when considering this type of international relations.

This paper argues, with a focus on the final 10 years of the Mubarak regime, that the US policy of using economic interdependence to influence stability in Egypt failed. By assessing the formation of this US policy and the factors concerning US‒Egyptian ties, this paper also provides a better understanding of US policy towards Egypt in general. The argument is entrenched in the stability through economic interdependence literature and identifies how this case study disproves the positive correlation associated with these two variables. The paper achieves this aim by consulting primary source governmental and non-governmental material, media, analytical and scholarly work concerned with the topic. Consequently, the paper identifies how and why Egypt's alignment to the 'War on Terror', suppression of political opposition and the run-up to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, led to the US policy failure.

This article examines the effectiveness of the EU's use of trade to induce peace in Libya during Gaddafi's final ten years in power, between 2001 and 2011. During this period, the EU implored and reiterated through rhetoric, policy and the exchange of goods and services that trade was to be used as a tool to maintain peace and prevent conflict. Indeed, this peace-through-trade assumption is at the heart of the EU, which was founded on the notion that economic interdependence ameliorates potential causes of conflict. Initially, this article embeds its argument in the theory concerned with the relationship between trade and peace, followed by tracking the development of the EU's policy. The main body of the article then provides evidence which goes against the assumption that the trade–peace relationship is positively correlated. Specifically, it is argued that the EU's peace-through-trade policy failed in this instance due to the fact that it failed to take into account the Libyan context: namely, the Middle Eastern state's ethnographic and historical makeup; the weapons of mass-destruction programme and the subsequently induced sanctions; Gaddafi's rule and attempts at reform; as well as the 2011 conflict. All these factors amalgamated to ongoing conflict in Libya during Gaddafi's final decade in power despite EU–Libyan trade continuing to take place during this timeframe.

From 2005 up until the end of the Joint Plan of Action's first phase in July 2014, the United States sought to exploit Iran's economically interdependent foreign ties in order to eradicate the perceived Iranian nuclear threat. This article analyzes the developments that took place in this time frame to assess and establish the effectiveness of this economic policy to achieve its security aim. By positing the argument in the context of the economic interdependence–security literature, this article contributes to the debate and policy discussions concerned with this political economy approach, and highlights the importance of economic and political interests when considering this relationship. By using the U.S.–Iran case study, this article emphasizes that unilateral actions to economically isolate a state are becoming increasingly impotent. Therefore, for such an economic isolation policy to work, it must be adopted on a multilateral if not universal level. Only then can the economic incentive for the targeted state be used to induce the desired security aims. This article also provides a commentary on how its conclusions match up to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.