Research Library

Amid recent disputes on oil trade, "fractious Saudi-UAE relations are ... better understood as a return to the pre-2015 status quo than a unique diplomatic breach," write Jim Krane and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen.

Today’s oil market contains not one, but two prisoner’s dilemmas: traditional OPEC+ members, policed by Saudi Arabia, and a new dilemma with U.S. shale producers, policed by their investors. This boosts the prize for cooperative behavior but also raises new risks. Energy fellow Mark Finley explains.

The relationship between President Joe Biden and Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has not been easy, and emerging trade issues are about to make it worse.

Is Mexico's President López Obrador, a Trump fan, capable of making the changes needed for a new and different relationship with the U.S.? The authors examine López Obrador's early moves, which portend a difficult four years.

When President-elect Joe Biden assumes office in January, he will be compelled to deal with the most important and ferociously complicated geopolitical question the United States faces today: how to manage its relations with China. Fellow Joe Barnes explains how the U.S.-China situation differs from the Cold War dynamic, and how the U.S. will best be served in the years ahead. Read more at the Baker Institute Blog.

Saudi Arabia’s newfound willingness to take a stand against oil quota cheats has forced the rest of OPEC+ to adhere to their quotas. Will today’s discipline – driven by the biggest-ever plunge in oil demand – fade alongside the virus? Read more in the Baker Institute Blog.

David Buckley offers brief reflections on distinct approaches to religion in U.S. diplomacy, particularly at the State Department, and the implications they may have for religious tolerance abroad. His post is the first of 12 prepared for an April 2019 workshop on “Religion, Reverence and Tolerance” organized by the Baker Institute for Public Policy and the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance at Rice University.  Baker Institute Blog: https://bit.ly/2z6CGZo

The good news: we managed to get through June and July without war in the Persian Gulf. The bad news: the risk of conflict remains high. Read more at the Baker Institute Blog: https://bit.ly/2MKqWDS

Declarations against violence issued by ulama on behalf of their government provide an opportunity for Muslim political leaders to signal their commitment to the international security agenda while vilifying Islamist opposition actors as terrorists. Baker Institute Blog: https://bit.ly/2LNAZrr

While the U.S. still maintains the overall lead in Nobel prizes (with the exception of literature), the rate at which American scientists have been awarded the prize has declined since the late 1970s. Fellow Kirstin R.W. Matthews and postdoctoral fellow Kenneth M. Evans explore the state of scientific collaboration in the U.S. in this Baker Institute blog: https://bit.ly/2yiNhzF