Possessing limited oil and gas resources by regional standards, the emirate of Sharjah has worked hard to develop a more thoroughly diversified economic profile in order to drive growth. Efforts have evidently paid off, with its GDP increasing by more than 32% between 2010 and 2015, fuelled largely by its strong manufacturing and logistics industries. Another major growth area is financial services, which accounted for 10.3% of GDP in 2015 having grown by an average of 12.7% per year over the past half-decade. The UAE’s third-largest economy after Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Sharjah has also established itself as a leading centre of higher education in the region with its sprawling University City and the 1997 founding of two of the UAE’s most prestigious higher education institutions, the University of Sharjah and the American University of Sharjah. Another economic engine is tourism, as Sharjah is a key regional destination for family-oriented and cultural visits, attracting large numbers of arrivals from the Gulf, Europe and Asia.

The twenty-first century has seen a sharp rise in privatization of the military, especially of logistics and security functions during the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The outbreak of Somali piracy that started in 2008 has prompted a similar revolution in maritime security. Private security companies began operating armed escort vessels to protect merchant shipping against pirates off the Horn of Africa. Private Anti-Piracy Navies is intended to provide a contextualized understanding of the historical origins, current state, and future prospects of this fast-changing sector. Centuries ago, the British East India Company used a private navy against piracy in the same waters with much success. Yet since then, international law has evolved to more tightly regulate the use of force by civilians, and to afford greater protections to suspected pirates. Thus, the development of what are in effect private warships has presented numerous legal and regulatory problems. How can the companies that operate these vessels be effectively licensed? Under what circumstances should they be allowed to use lethal force? This book explains how regulators in industry and government have attempted to answer such questions, and highlights the remaining areas of uncertainty. It also addresses the economic factors that drive the struggle between pirates and anti-piracy forces. Of equal concern are operational considerations such as defensive tactics, logistics, and rules of engagement. Security companies must carefully balance rights concerns against the need to defend ships effectively. Partly due to the contribution of private security, piracy in the Indian Ocean has dropped significantly over the past two years, leading to widespread overconfidence. Governments under severe budget pressure may withdraw their naval task forces from the region prematurely, leading to a resurgence of Somali piracy. At the same time, pirates are wreaking havoc in the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa. The book concludes with an assessment of private naval forces’ prospects in these conflicts over the short term, as well as the implications for wider naval privatization in the long run.

Governance in the Middle East is topic of interest to scholars, activists and policy makers. The currently proposed book is intended to present the first comprehensive framework of the question of governance in the Middle East in its various forms and manifestations: political, economic, and government performance.

In many respects 2014 marked the transition from strong recovery to promising growth for Dubai. With many exciting projects in the pipeline, not least the hosting of Expo 2020, the emirate is continuing to build on its reputation as a dynamic and international centre for business. Already a regional and global centre for business and finance, Dubai’s reputation has been bolstered by the MSCI’s decision to upgrade the UAE from frontier to emerging market status in 2014, while the emirate’s successful Expo 2020 bid is expected to generate myriad opportunities for private investors across a range of sectors. Construction is thriving once again, driven in large part by strong retail sector growth, with various projects, including plans for the world’s largest mall, indicating that the sector will maintain its position as the emirate’s biggest GDP contributor moving forward. The transport and logistics framework is set for major expansion in the coming years as well, furthering cementing the emirate’s status as a leading transport and logistics hub not just regionally, but globally too. The continued development of Dubai’s retail and hospitality offerings, alongside the upgrades to its airports, should help to ensure robust growth in visitor numbers from both the region and further afield.

When starting new airlines in response to government deregulation, entrepreneurs in the U.S. and Europe reduced some traditional service qualities (to reduce costs), concentrated on non-stop services between city pairs not already so connected, improved on-time performance, and offered low fares to win leisure travelers from the incumbents and to encourage more travel. In recent developments, some of the new airlines have offered optional extras (at higher fares) to attract business travelers and entered major routes alongside the legacy carriers. Within both the U.S. and Europe, deregulation removed most geographical barriers to expansion by short-haul airlines. Later, limited deregulation spread to other world regions, where many short-haul routes connect city pairs in different countries, and where governments have retained traditional two-country mechanisms restricting who may fly. To gain access to domestic routes in other countries, some new airlines are setting up affiliate companies in neighboring countries, with each company legally controlled in the country of domicile. With air travel growing strongly, especially in Asia, a common result is intense, but potentially short-lived, competition on major routes. The recent developments give clear signposts to likely mid-term outcomes, and make this an opportune time to report on the new-airline scene. The Airline Revolution will provide valuable economic analysis of this climate to students, airline professionals advancing to senior positions, public servants and others who provide advice to governments.

Today, Dubai is a city of shimmering skyscrapers attracting thousands of tourists every year. Yet just sixty years ago Dubai's population scraped a living by picking dates, diving for pearls, or sailing in wooden dhows to trade with Iran and India. Dubai is everything the rest of the Arab world is not. Until recently it was the fastest-growing city in the world, with an economy whose growth outpaced China's while luring more tourists than all of India. The city has become a metaphor for the lush life, where the wealthy mingle in gilded splendour and luxury cars fill the streets, yet it is also beset by a backwash of bad design, environmental degradation and controversial labour practices. Dubai tells its unique story.

Building Sharjah reveals how modern architecture unfurled across the United Arab Emirates’ third-largest city. An oil discovery in 1972 positioned Sharjah as one of the world’s final cities shaped by transformative fortune. In the footsteps of Kuwait, Riyadh, and Dubai, Sharjah faced a metamorphosis: either one that repeated the past’s mistakes or one that reimagined how wealth can build a city. Sharjah’s potential enticed an international cast of experts to create a bold, new city. As their projects begin to vanish, this book preserves them through unseen photographs and recovered documents. New writing chronicles how local and arriving residents arranged the designed, concrete environment into a home. Beyond just a local artifact, this book examines the confident promises made by global practices of urbanization.