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Eastern Sudan is in a critical stage, where local fault lines intersect with Horn of Africa tensions and regional and international ambitions. This study traces those fissures and their intersections in order to understand and analyze the conflict in the region. Its basic premise is that eastern Sudan represents the priority and geographical entry point in the Sudanese peace-building process, and that the establishment/strengthening of peace in this region is linked to a reciprocal relationship with the security and stability of the Horn of Africa. The study presents preliminary ideas, in terms of preventive diplomacy, that may contribute to healing the rifts. It is based on a combination of primary sources, literature, and personal interviews with Sudanese academics, diplomats and other actors. In addition, it builds on the outputs of two workshops from the Sudan Track II Peace Dialogue Project. It frames some aspects of the analysis and ideas presented with a set of theories and hypotheses that intersect with the field of conflict studies, following the "combined approach," for studying complex conflict environments.

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.

This paper seeks to ascertain the extent of positive Arab public attitudes—or lack thereof—towards the Arab popular revolutions, after more than a year since the revolutions first broke out. The results show an overall positive attitude towards the Arab revolutions among the Arab public. When asked to provide reasons for their positive disposition towards the revolutions, respondents spoke of an "Arab Awakening" which laid the foundations for democratic governance in the Arab region by restoring the democratic rights of Arab citizens. Opposition to the Arab revolutions and their impacts accounted for only 25% of Arab public opinion. A majority of respondents who disapproved of the Arab revolutions blamed the failure of these popular movements to achieve their aims, as well as the resulting economic and political instability. In addition to broad overall support for the Arab revolutions, the Arab public credits the recent revolutions with improved treatment of the public by the police and other government officials in the Arab region.

​​​​This article examines the "intuitive knowledge" as one of the most important sources for understanding the trajectories of the Arab revolutions, despite the scarcity of studies that focus on it. We explore intuitive knowledge by examining its observable manifestations, such as its role as an alternative to "ideology" in expressing social and political views, its practical application in shared traditions, its flexible interpretation of relational life emphasising its habitual and voluntary aspects, its pragmatic evaluation of social and political phenomena, and its expression of distrust in "elites" who distance themselves from ordinary people's lives. Building on these premises, we explore the relationship between intuitive thought and charismatic phenomena or volatile populism, as well as the formation and dissolution of loyalty relationships, particularly in the neoliberal era. In this context, we emphasise the importance of viewing intuitive knowledge as a starting point for analysing the relationship between political and social revolution. We argue that the separation of these two types of revolution has created additional opportunities for counter-revolution.​

This paper explores public attitudes to pan-Arab issues, specifically, the question of intra-Arab relations and intra-Arab cooperation. The results, based on a series of public surveys conducted for the Arab Opinion Index, indicate that a majority across the surveyed countries agree either with the statement “The Arab peoples constitute a single nation, even if certain specificities distinguish the specific peoples”. In contrast, only 14% of the respondents agreed with the view “That the Arab peoples are entirely distinct nations tied together by only tenuous bonds”. This broad consensus among respondents in the countries surveyed is further evidenced by respondents’ answers to a number of other points, such as support for increased intra-Arab cooperation and respondents’ reported desire for increased economic, political and military cooperation between Arab countries.

This study analyses the constructivist perspective of security and establishes the constructivist contribution to security studies, particularly in terms of the conventional and critical constructivist approaches, arguing that constructivism has constituted an intellectual turning point. It demonstrates how constructivism, or rather constructivisms, has enriched and developed the concept of security and security studies on three levels. First, it approaches security as socially constructed and intersubjective. Second, it has undertaken a critical revision of major rationalist concepts, notably anarchy and the security dilemma. Third, it has introduced concepts of identity, interests, and norms to the field of security studies. However, there are shortcomings in the constructivist contribution on identity and security, in addition to inter-constructivist disagreements, which have prevented the evolution of a clear theoretical framework, even within critical constructivism, which has made the most innovative contributions to the field. The study concludes that constructivism has not formulated a distinct theory of security. However, its innovative contributions and its role as a theoretical reference point for new approaches to security constitute a constructivist perspective within International Relations. Both critical and non-critical strands of the new security approach have developed security theories grounded in constructivist insights. This constitutes the central theoretical achievement of constructivism in the field of security studies.

This paper highlights the mental and political changes that took place in Russian society after the fall of the Soviet Union. An examination of these changes is significant because it fills a gap in research that relies on original sources written by Russians in Russian. This shift is analyzed with particular focus on the Russian position in Syria following its Revolution, a position that surprised analysts. This surprise in itself is evidence that Russia, in relation to the Arab world, remains a mystery. In order to assess the decisions taken, a look into emerging political forces in Russia and their overall objectives seems necessary. These forces hold strong subjective power, and after the years of weaknesses after the collapse of the Soviet Union, forces in the country are again looking internationally. This study is an initial attempt to determine the general view of the intellectual and political shifts in Russia.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​This article traces the different paths taken by constructivism in International Relations, from its emergence as a critical social theory in the 1980s, in response to the third debate between positivist rationalists and post-positivist reflectivists, to Alexander Wendt's project to seize a middle ground and to bridge the rationalist–reflectivist epistemological gap. The article, then, examines the intra-debates among conventional and critical constructivists on Went's project, as well as the rise of the new constructivism after Wendt left the constructivist research program. The article explores the Wendtian project's epistemological tensions and demonstrates how such tensions led to a plurality within constructivism: modernist conventional and postmodernist critical (reflectivist). It highlights that Wendt's leaving constructivism and his shift to a quantum approach have not caused constructivism to decline, but instead, it continued to thrive through the efforts of a new generation of constructivists. The article argues that three main developments in International Relations over the past twenty years have contributed to its ongoing thriving: the decline of epistemological polarization among IR theories; the rise of critical realism as a philosophy of science in International Relations, and the emergence of analytical eclecticism.​

Politicians are increasingly adopting populist rhetoric that is appealing to people's emotions and biases rather than their rational judgments. This rhetoric includes claims of representing the people (us) as opposed to the establishment and the traditional elite (them). Anti-elitist populism manifests in its opposition to facts, with populists becoming the main players who distort facts and spread disinformation. Therefore, populism and disinformation reinforce one other, creating a cycle of manipulation that undermines democracy. By conducting a comparative qualitative analysis of the speeches of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Egypt and Kais Saied in Tunisia, this study argues that there are four tactics, rely on disinformation, used by authoritarian populists to legitimize the obstruction of constitutional and institutional constraints and suppress the opposition: (1) constructing the people by creating the enemy; (2) attacking the media and democratic institutions; (3) creating illusion by amplifying achievements; and (4) employing conspiracy theory and misinformation to justify failure at fulfilling promises.

This article addresses an epistemological question related to the methodological impasse in political science through a reading of selected conceptual orientations in Gregory Bateson's thought. It advances the hypothesis that methodological difficulty does not primarily stem from analytical tools as such, but rather from the underlying frameworks through which political action is understood. Drawing on an analytical-interpretive approach, the article examines concepts such as "dysfunction as a patterned regularity", the "double bind", and "second-order learning", with the aim of questioning linear modes of explanation in political analysis and approaching politics as a network of interrelated relations and paradoxical repetitions. The discussion also engages, comparatively, with selected contributions by Niklas Luhmann, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Bourdieu, in order to highlight shifts in the production of meaning in analyses of power and to delineate the limits of dominant approaches. The article concludes that a Batesonian perspective offers epistemological possibilities for understanding political complexity by foregrounding context, relational dynamics, and patterned dysfunction, beyond models based on linear causality and predictive techniques.