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​This review discusses the main findings of the report issued by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral entitled The Global State of Democracy 2021: Building Resilience in a Pandemic Era.

This paper investigates the factors that have led to the collapse of Baath-ruled Syria. It argues that the abandonment of the rentier – distributive economic system that had traditionally propped up the social base of the Baath party (labourers, farmers, and rural populations) and the adoption of liberal economic policies was key to the crisis. The end of the Cold War, the passing of resistance discourse, with the start of the Middle East peace process, and the information revolution have contributed to weakening the cultural and ideological hegemony of the Syrian Baath-ruled state. This led to increasing reliance on the security apparatus to control an increasingly young and educated society. The loosening economic grip of the state resulting from the abandonment of the public sector, and the rise of crony capitalism accompanied by the declining role of political socialisation (in schools and universities), and the loss of control over the flow of information, left the regime with no other option but resorting to violence to deal with the crisis. The peaceful opposition movement hitherto was transformed into an armed revolution, and then into a regional and international proxy war, with the rising role foreign interference in the crisis.

In this book François Burgat presents a number of arguments and logical motives, which prompted him to delve into the study of the phenomenon of political Islam.

This study examines how international economic and political matters are interrelated within the context of the Covid- 19 pandemic's outbreak as well as its serious effects on global economy. It argues that the International Political Economy (IPE) may provide answers to how the pandemic shapes (or fails to shape) international economic relations. The paper explores how, as a transdisciplinary field, IPE helps to understand patterns of change and continuity in global economics and politics in the wake of the pandemic, and IPE's contribution to global health research as well. The study defends the hypothesis that the state has been and is still present at the heart of neoliberal capitalism, and that it has preserved its foundations within a heterodoxy neoliberal trend heading towards more authoritarian neoliberalism, and steadily moves from market to state neoliberalism. The study also advocates positioning the Political Economy of Health at the center of health research; as long as health is considered a transnational issue. It goes on to discuss the failure of international institutions to enable international cooperation to confront the pandemic, a failure forged by the rise of nationalist populism.

A considerable amount of literature dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic has been published fromA considerable amount of literature dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic has been published from very different perspectives, from politics and policies, economy and trade, family and society, travel and transportation, environment and urbanization, work and education, and so forth. In such a context, this special issue of Siyasat Arabiya claims that pandemic is a political issue at its core, and that state and interstate/international relations lie at the heart of almost everything related to it. This special issue includes four articles; these look at the relationship of the pandemic to theories of International Relations, the international system, the Political Economy and Populism respectively; in addition to a theoretical article on public and global health translated into Arabic, and a critical review of an edited book on the future of conflict, competition and international cooperation after the pandemic. very different perspectives, from politics and policies, economy and trade, family and society, travel and transportation, environment and urbanization, work and education, and so forth

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.

Mercantilism presents itself as an explicit model of economic nationalism. Since its early application to the new protectionism, economic nationalism has theorized that economic activities must be subject to the maximization of the power of the state. This article aims to explain economic nationalism and track the evolution of its application, primarily to analyse its viability as a theory in the midst of economic globalization which threatens to bring about the de facto end of the state's interventionist economic system in a borderless world. As the article refutes the premise that globalization and nationalism are two sides of the same coin, national economies continue to be driven by disguised new forms of economic nationalism.

Documents of Democratic Transition in the Arab World

Scholarship explains impediments to democratic transition in Middle Eastern countries as forms of neopatrimonialism - a combination of patrimonial tradition and cosmetic electoral procedures. However, this approach conflates two spheres of governance: firstly, the government as a sphere of appointed or elected politicians, secondly, the state's bureaucracy as a sphere of administrative staff necessary for the government to execute its planned actions. The impediments Hamas governments (2006-2007) faced highlight the difference between the two spheres. Accordingly, I conceptually differentiate between two types of government: government in office and government in power. While the Hamas government was supposed to rule, the administrative personnel refused to comply. Thus, the elected government in office faced local-institutional and external constraints which prevented its functioning, and provoked power struggles that led to internecine war and the collapse of the electoral democracy.

عنوان الكتاب في لغته: Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance. عنوان الكتاب: احتواء حماس: صعود مقاومة فلسطينية وركودها. المؤلف: طارق بقعوني Tareq Baconi. الناشر: Stanford University Press. سنة النشر: 2018. عدد الصفحات: 368 صفحة.