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This study aims to present the results of the Saudi and Kuwaiti opinion poll on US policy in the Arab region. The study attempts to analyze how Gulf Arab citizens view US policy since President Donald Trump took office Kuwaiti respondents have more condemned US policies in the last five years than the Saudis. The study draws on data provided by the Arab Opinion Index, which has been published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies every year since 2011.

Milestones in Democratic Transition in the Arab World 1/3-30/4/2020.

​عقد المركز العربي للأبحاث ودراسة السياسات مؤتمره السنوي في قضايا التحول الديمقراطي في الوطن العربي، في مقر معهد الدوحة للدراسات العليا، حول موضوع "الجيش والسياسة في مرحلة التحول الديمقراطي في الوطن العربي". وبهذا يكون المؤتمر قد انعقد خمس دورات، منذ أول مرة عقد فيها؛ إذ بحثت دورته الأولى في موضوع "الإسلاميون ونظام الحكم الديمقراطي: تجارب واتجاهات" )تشرين الأول/ أكتوبر 2012 ، وتناولت ثانيتُها موضوع "الإسلاميون ونظام الحكم الديمقراطي: مسائل المواطنة والدولة والأمة"أيلول/ سبتمبر 2013، وبحثت ثالثتُها في "المسألة الطائفية وصناعة الأقليات في المشرق العربي الكبير" في البحر الميت/ الأردن )أيلول/ سبتمبر 2014 وناقشت رابعتُها "العنف والسياسة في المجتمعات العربية" في تونس أيلول/ سبتمبر 2015.

Forty days after the outbreak of the Yemeni Revolution, on March 21, 2011, General Ali Mohsen Saleh al-Ahmar (commander of the northwestern military district and the 1st Armoured Division), Major General Mohammad Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar (commander of the eastern military district) and a number of commanders of other military units declared their support for the revolution. The Yemeni army divided into two: “supporters of the revolution army” and the “family army,” according to the characterization by the forces of the revolution. This development exposed to the public the hidden divisions within the structure of the Yemeni Army, taking it to the point of no return. The capital Sanaa and some other Yemeni cities witnessed limited armed confrontations between the two armies and between the militias supported by them. That is why the executive mechanism of The Gulf Cooperation Council’s initiative (the Gulf Initiative) included a special term for uniting the army, restructuring it, and ending its division. With the split as its background and the Gulf Initiative as its point of departure, this paper aims to show what was achieved in terms of restructuring the army. It describes the course of this restructuring operation, the difficulties it entailed, the tasks that have not yet been accomplished, as well as its impact on national unity, social integration, and confidence-building between the parties participating in the national dialogue conference.

This article sheds light on the reasons behind the lag of Arab public administration scholarship behind the needs of coping with the questions of political and administrative reform and situating public administration within the context of political governance. This article draws insights from the development of the field in the US experience, its fuzzy boundaries, and value conflicts. This was characterized by overlap and the value struggle caused by the three tributaries that established the knowledge and research architecture of the field, namely law, business administration, and political science. The study concludes with a discussion of how different origins and political context detached public administration research in the Arab world from the ontological and methodological diversity that contribute to the richness of the field in the US experience.

This study breaks from the prevailing discourse portraying minorities as victims, presenting them as multi-dimensional historical actors and analysing their relationship with political modernity and national construction. It demonstrates how sectarian differences were sharpened and Ottoman culture facilitated the manipulation of minority groups by religious elites and the ruling clan. The Assad regime, supported by Alawi clientelism, fuelled fear of Sunni Islam. In addition, the revolution that began in 2011, accompanied by severe violent repression, has turned into a civil war. The Assad employs sectarian vocabulary that targets the Sunni majority in favour of the Shia minority and Iran. It views Damascus as the capital of minorities, seeking to restore demographic change in Syria. The study discusses factors to encourage a pluralist future Syria and focuses on the issue of the state model that must be redefined, taking into account the existence of all sects that share the same political culture, and all of them, including the Sunnis, demand guarantees.

Since the mid-1990s Morocco has traversed several stages of political and constitutional reforms. These were characterized by a restructuring of the political field in keeping with constitutional methodology and political consensus and were the precondition for the process of rapprochement between political actors. However, if this rapprochement or political openness transformed the electoral process into something diminished in practical terms, it in turn intensified the expansion of the protest arena, the accumulation of skills and experience among protesters, the development of more independent coordination capabilities, and the weakening of the regime's polarizing tendencies. This development imposes upon the political class a renewal of its discourse and means and modalities of communication, in the short and medium terms, to prevent continued erosion of its credibility.

In September 2014, US President Barack Obama announced a “comprehensive strategy” to degrade and destroy ISIL. Obama stated, “I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.” But despite this announcement, questions over the nature, goals, and instruments of US policy towards ISIL still continue to be asked in the context of a debate between those who think that the US is not doing enough to take on ISIL and those who think it would be better for the US not to expand its military involvement in the conflict. This debate has been influenced by internal American political polarizations in the form of the critical position taken by leading Republicans such as Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who view the Obama policy as weak, and Middle Eastern regional rivalries over the position towards ISIL and the nature of the political choices that must frame the confrontation with it.

​What is the effect of religiosity on public opinion? Islamist religiosity in particular has been linked to a variety of outcomes, including authoritarianism and violence. Nevertheless, many scholars have countered that there is in fact no relationship between religiosity in the Arab world and adverse political outcomes. Thus the debate remains unresolved to some degree. To adjudicate this debate, we use the Arab Opinion Index's 2016 data to examine the effect of individual religiosity on public opinion and political behavior. We find that there is no link between increased religiosity and negative views of democracy; in fact, the opposite is the case. There is also no link between religiosity and political participation. Finally, there is a positive correlation between religiosity and political tolerance.

This book examines the political, economic, historical, cultural, and linguistic relations between GCC countries and the Horn of Africa, highlighting the region's strategic significance to the Gulf.