The Abraham Accords: Yesterday’s foes, tomorrow's friends? : A Qualitative case analysis of the Geopolitical-Economic drivers of the AbrahamNormalization Accords

Sammanfattning: Throughout the years that followed the establishment of the state of Israel, the relations between the Arabs and Israel have never been open and transparent as they were after the announcement of the Abraham Accords. The Abraham Accords refer to the normalization agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain that was announced on the the15th of September 2020. A few months later, Sudan and Morocco joined the accords. The agreements were signed to promote peace and security in the region and improve cooperation on several fronts, mainly through trade and economic cooperation between Israel and the Arab states. The idea behind the title of the accords is to emphasize the prophet Abraham as the common ancestor of Muslims, Christians, and Jews (the main three religions in the region). This study will investigate the common security concerns and challenges, as well as the motives and drivers that led to the signing of the agreement. This thesis will be using two different analytical models, the neorealism theory and rational choice theory, in order to pursue an interpretation of the factors and the underlying patterns of the accord from two theoretical perspectives. The results presented in this study show that the accords have both neorealistic and rational theoretical elements in the decision-making process made by the countries that signed the accords.