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Revolution is coupled with the state, and thinking about the former is linked to investigating the other, whether in history or political theory. Therefore, the Arab revolutions, as they were overthrowing the authoritarian regimes, had to evoke ideas about the state. This evocation would necessarily lead to an interrogation of the reality of the “nation state” and its future. The problematic dealt with directly in this paper, therefore, is whether the nation state was a subject for the revolution or a framework for it? On this analytical horizon a great many ironies and questions become apparent: is the revolution a sign of the decline of the national state and a decisive closure to a whole period when the state declared the impossibility of modernization and democracy? Or is it a late consolidation of the legitimacy of the nation state as the institutional expression of a national group, with the event of the revolution forming the pinnacle of its coalescence as a political nation? Does the idea of the nation state require burying once and for all, or does it need reconstruction? Was the Arab Spring a revolt against nationalism(s) or was it their maturation and the culmination of their consolidation?

This section highlights the most important political documents related to the democratic transition in the Arab world. In this issue, we publish a number of documents from January 1 to February 28, 2023.

Although the Justice and Development Party (AKP) victory in the 2015 Turkish municipal elections was generally expected, the percentage of votes surprised many, including the leaders of the party. This paper suggests that, despite the best efforts of opposition parties to manipulate a series of crises for the AKP, the voters were able to see past the political maneuvering and took action at the ballot box. By first examining the many factors that had been expected to impact the results, not least of which was its political timing, and the general sense that Turkey’s ruling party was set for victory, this paper explores the political situation in Turkey at the time of the elections, and probes the events leading up to the vote. It begins with events of the year prior, which had witnessed a series of crises for the AKP including: events in Gezi Park and Taksim Square, a series of leaked voice recordings that put leaders in compromising positions, allegations of corruption against some AKP ministers, and most importantly, an ongoing conflict between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his former ally and leader of the Gulen (Service) movement Fethullah Gülen. Each of these was expected to affect the AKP’s chances of maintaining a strong political position, and was used by the ruling party to bolster its own stance; a tactic that ultimately failed.

The Gulf States enjoy a strategic location and economic power, owing that to their oil wealth. The paper examines the contributing factors of the Gulf Cooperation Council states that help in measuring their strength. One of the main goals of the study is to state the points of strength and weakness of these states so that decision-makers in the GCC countries can better understand the contributing factors. The findings show that the points of strength differ from one state to another. It is difficult to accurately evaluate the points of strength that make one state more powerful than the other, but one can deduce that the state's power does not rely on one factor. Based on the study indicators, Qatar emerged the strongest, followed by the UAE then Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain came in sixth place.

Consociationalism is a system of government recommended for ‘divided societies’. Starting with a discussion of its theoretical components and criticisms it has received, this article addresses how consociationalism has been implemented in in post - 2003 Iraq. The article asks whether the Iraqi constitution and institutions formed by it represented a successful case of consociationalism. Key consociational mechanisms such as an electoral system based on proportional representation, governments based on big multi - party coalitions and a federal and decentralized governance were adopted. However, this model was not entirely consociational as some practices that are common in the majoritarian government have also been used. In fact, divisions between majoritarian and consociational perspectives have polarized, and sometimes paralyzed, the political process. In light of this, the article discusses the sustainability of the current model and its likely future trajectories.

​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".

Current scholarship on elections in authoritarian regimes has focused on exploring the relationship between elections and democratization, and it has generally used analytical frameworks and methods imported from the study of genuinely democratic elections to do so. These tendencies have kept scholars from asking a wide range of questions about the micro-level dynamics of authoritarian elections and the systematic differences among them. With these issues in mind, this review examines literature that investigates the purpose of elections in dictatorships; the electoral behavior of voters, candidates, and incumbents in these elections; and the link between elections and democratization. The review ends with a call to redirect the study of authoritarian elections toward uncovering and explaining the important differences among them.

​Digital communication technology plays a central role in broadening the scope of political participation by allowing most social groups to express their views and positions on issues, thus contributing to shaping the local or national political culture. It seems that all the political elements related to political culture (representation and mediation, media, parties, etc.) were greatly influenced by the emergence of digital social networks and experienced profound changes that became real challenges to classical political culture theory. This paper aims to explore the characteristics of political culture in the digital age and discuss its .challenges to orthodox political culture theory.

The basic hypothesis of the study is summarized in Israel's ongoing efforts to maintain its monopoly on nuclear weapons in the Middle East for as long as possible, and its various political, diplomatic, security, military, and economic activities to prevent Iran and any other country in the Middle East from obtaining nuclear weapons. The study examines Israel's policy, which calls for imposing the maximum international economic sanctions on Iran, manifested in its complete abandonment of the nuclear project or the overthrow of the Iranian regime. It presents Israel's policy towards the negotiations to return to the Iranian nuclear deal and the strategic confusion in which Israel finds itself due to many mistaken assumptions adopted by the Benjamin Netanyahu government regarding the Iranian nuclear project. It also discusses Israel's goals in the "war between wars" it wages against Iran and the major strategy against Iran advocated by the Israeli military establishment, as well as Israel's efforts to establish an Israeli-Arab-American military alliance against Iran. The study also presents the Israeli vision of the Israeli military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and the risks and problems it faces.

​The 20 February movement was formed out of a defining moment in modern Moroccan political history, and forced the ruling regime to undertake a process to reform and give up some of its powers. This study takes a look at the path of the 20 February movement as it took shape in 2011. It looks at the defining role played by the group in the Arab Spring protests. It analyzes the components of the movement and the stages of its development and decline in addition to presenting factors that explain the potentials and setbacks it faced months after its beginning. These are related to the existing political and social opportunities in Morocco, in particular the nature of its political system, the position of main actors, as well as the regional and international atmosphere. The social framing of the movement and the limits of its ability to instigate a wide social movement among the poor and vulnerable social classes is also considered, as well as how the movement went about promoting its ideas, apart from the difficulties related to creating a common identity that can unite its contradicting components.