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This paper examines the rise of modern social sciences that deal with sports phenomena. It begins with the first formula that paved the way for sports science to become an independent scientific field. This is found in European intellectual discourse in the first half of the twentieth century, which linked sport to what was then known as the "crisis of European values." It then deals with the endeavours of the social sciences to make sport a research and knowledge topic, which was devoted to and institutionalised in the 1960s. It investigates the first theoretical paradigms in the field, the first designed by Norbert Elias, and deals with the position of sport in the development of modern European societies. The other, designed by Pierre Bourdieu, is based on viewing sport as an independent social field. Finally, the paper looks at the interest in cultural studies in sports in the late seventies of the twentieth century, which saw it as a field revealing the distinctions on which Western societies are built.

Aggression is the door that lets in all other forms of crime. Therefore, it is necessary to criminalize it rather than just ban it. Although it was difficult to realize that these two goals are separately essential, they were ultimately reached through the 1945 UN Charter that banned the use of force in international relations and the 1998 Rome Statute that stated the inclusion of the crime of aggression in the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, the practice of this jurisdiction was put on hold until 2010, pending the holding of the review conference that would define aggression and the conditions of the court’s practice of its jurisdiction in this crime in compliance with the UN Charter. This alignment between the UN Charter and the amendment seems logical at first as long as it halts war. The Security Council gets to decide whether the committed act was an act of aggression and a threat to international peace and security. But, the question is the following: Did the amendment of the Rome Statute complement the relationship between the Security Council and the ICC in the field of aggression or did it entrench the council’s dominance over the court?

This study addresses the vital importance of the Litani River in Lebanon and tackles the environmental challenges resulting from severe pollution in the river, where approximately 40 million cubic meters of untreated sewage are dumped annually. The study argues that political fragility and inadequate governmental response in Lebanon, along with the sectarian system, civil war, and extreme poverty, have contributed to the failure to resolve Lebanon's water crisis. The study emphasizes the urgent need for sustainable development and balanced reconstruction in Lebanon, through the implementation of integrated solutions and effective governance of water and land. The study highlights the importance of efficiency in using natural resources and the adoption of innovative technologies to build resilience against climate change, such as remote sensing services, improving rainwater collection, and enhancing soil moisture.

This book belongs to the field of political books and books on international relations, as it focuses on the analysis of the course of European integration and analyses European behaviour towards a number of problems in the Arab region.

​This paper proposes an approach to studying the impact of the Internet on political culture through the concept of collective memory. Departing from the traditional approaches that confine political culture to knowledge, orientations, and behavior, to constructive and interpretive frameworks that define it through the process of "meaning-making," collective memory emerges as an essential component of political culture with its meanings, symbols, and narratives about political life. The paper concludes – from examining the case of the Egyptian Revolution of January 25, 2011 – that the development of the Internet may limit the role of the state and the elite in shaping political culture and collective memory, but it may also increase the severity of political and social polarization and weaken the culture of tolerance towards the other, and the chances of achieving social reconciliation, which is what we call the "paradox of collective memory".

This study examines the constitutional management for political transition in Algeria following the popular movement of February 2019. After setting out the basic tenets of Transitional Constitutionalism, the study investigates the extent to which peaceful political change can be achieved through constitutional mechanisms or arrangements derived from inherited texts. In contrast to similar Arab cases, the Algerian experience was characterized by the adoption of a political plan to manage the transitional phase, based on constitutional measures derived from the texts in force. But it was not convincing for a large segment of the popular movement, who believed that these arrangements would restrict the path of change to reproduce the existing system at the expense of achieving peaceful political change. In this sense, managing the transitional political phase according to the applicable constitutional texts did not set a precedent. Rather, in Algeria, a kind of precedent was set in the restriction of the concept of constitutional solution to the literal requirements of the functional constitutional text, without partial constitutional amendments, nor a fundamental revision of the inherited legislative structure.

This paper highlights the role of the armed forces and their impact on the process of political transition, and discusses civil-military relations in their various aspects: the state, society and the armed forces per se, in order to reveal the main pillars that constitute a balance between the power of political institutions (legislative and executive) and the military power of the army. Such a balance would lead to the subduing of the army to the civil authority, and confine military activities to security and defense. The paper focuses on the common characteristics shared by states that have succeeded in building democratic armies. To conclude, the author presents a set of recommendations addressed to activists and democrats, on what ought to be done and what should be avoided in the security-defense field during the process of democratic army building.

This book comes to complement the findings of previous research projects in the crises in the Middle East, the American treatment of them, and the impact of the cultural and intellectual composition of the ruling administrations in the US.

Antoine Nasri Messarra (b. 1938), a pioneer of Constitutional and Political Science in Lebanon and the Arab region, outlines a selection of the fundamental political ideas he developed over the course of his academic career. Messarra focuses on his critique of Arab political science in its reliance on a diasporic political culture that adopts European theories of nation building and applies them to Middle Eastern societies, without bringing to bear Arab-Islamic heritage in dealing with pluralism in those societies. Messarra argues that Arab production in political science has been dominated by two approaches. The first are diaspora approaches that draw on European Jacobite models , which have consequently failed to understand the Arab social dynamics. These include sectarianism studies that overlook ethnoreligious diversity and secularization research that rejects the Islamic constitutional tradition. The second (smaller) group are authentic approaches, which Messarra argues are grounded in reality and draw on the region’s heritage.

Humanity has continued to develop expertise in addressing the environmental issue and to better understand extreme weather events such as droughts and increased desertification, often accompanied with political tensions and economic crises that have contributed to conflicts over natural resources, leading policymakers to re-think climate change and the drivers of armed conflict. In this regard, the study attempts to deconstruct the relatedness/unrelatedness of climate change and the drivers of conflict, focusing on international legal perspectives and methods to enable local communities develop own adaptation and resilience particularly in the African continent and the Arab region. Therefore, the study provides proposals that address climate vulnerability and adopt equitable access mechanisms as steps to reduce waves of displacement and avoid climate risks, conflicts, and insecurity.