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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 discusses Moroccan-African relations in light of the recent visit undertaken by the Moroccan king to Mali, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon, and how this differed from previous visits. The visit led to the signing of a number of strategic agreements with the above-mentioned states. In this context, the study looks at the historical constants that have governed relations between Morocco and West and Sub Saharan Africa. The paper also looks at the political, economic, and religious variables of the two sides using inference, analysis, comparison, and interpretation. What is the nature of the historical relationship between Morocco and the West African states? What are the variables that have contributed to the more intensive Moroccan presence in the region? What new elements have been added by Moroccan political, economic, and security initiatives? What are the difficulties that might impede Moroccan ambitions on the African continent? These issues are dealt with in the paper.

This article traces the different paths taken by constructivism in International Relations, from its emergence as a critical social theory in the 1980 s, 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.

​This paper will present a study of the challenges posed by the Tunisian transitional phase since the country's successful popular revolution; specifically, it will examine the problem from the perspective of the Tunisian General Labor Union. Any appropriate discussion of the Tunisian post-revolutionary transitional phase would call for an understanding of the theory of transitional phases, the author has chosen to focus primarily on the conceptual framework of civil society. He did this, however, only after highlighting some of the theoretical limitations of the concept of a civil society. With this in mind, Tunisia's General Labor Union remains one of the most significant pillars of Tunisian civil society. For the purposes of this paper, "civil society" is defined as those social forces which defend the ideals of justice and dignity and which fight to undo the subcultures and structures which have hindered political freedoms in Tunisia.

The study criticizes the general framework that has governed the broader current of the researchers in civil-military relations, their method of thinking about the military institution since the inception of the field, the paper presents the theoretical and practical gaps in that literature, in particular the researchers of "Coup-Proofing". The study shows the weakness of the explanatory capabilities of the field in extrapolating and analyzing the historical era that the research seeks to reveal its theoretical and historical ambiguities, which is the phase of political pluralism in Syria between 1954 - 1958 , which the researchers viewed as a democratic phase. The paper examines why did the army step down from the presidency and allowed civil forces to engage in political action at the time, in spite of that phase is in the midst of two series of coups. The paper is based on a basic premise that the army as a military institution do represent wings, sectors, units, brigades, and power relations, before it is an expression of any other social segments, which is in contrast to what the literature says in examining the sociological backgrounds of the officers.

This paper shall explore the historic shift in relations which has brought Russia and Turkey closer together, with a focus on the domains in which these two powers now cooperate. It shall examine in particular the impact of this new level of cooperation on their policies in the Arab region. The specific set of economic and political circumstances prevailing at the beginning of the twenty-first century have driven Russia and Turkey to revisit the nature of their centuries-long relations, which have previously been dominated by conflict and competition for influence. As two neighboring, great powers both of which are looking to adopt a new strategy to reclaim their imperial pasts on the world stage, Russia and Turkey are now compelled to cooperate, particularly in the economic domain. Yet even as the shared interests of these two countries expand, it has not brought an end to their contradictory sets of regional alliances in the Middle East which have placed them in a zero-sum game.

This study examines the impact of securitization on the democratization of three countries in the in the Horn of Africa: Djibouti, Somalia and Sudan. The three countries, all members of the Arab League, represent diverse but integrated securitization models. The study assumes that securitization in the region has left democratic transformation low in the list of priorities for the major powers, at a time when counterterrorism rhetoric is overwhelming. The paper raises the following questions: Why has securitization discourse overpowered talk of democracy in the Horn of Africa? How do the mechanisms of the securitization discourse interact with political reality? What is the role of regional institutions in enhancing securitization discourse?

Based on the Arab Index data, this paper aims to present the trends of Lebanese public opinion towards the protests in Lebanon. It focuses on two main axes to construct an image of the Lebanese community's interaction with this important ongoing event. The first one discusses public opinion trends towards the protests, to identify the extent to which citizens support or oppose these protests, as well as to define the reasons for such support or opposition. As for the second one, it discusses the extent to which citizens interact with these protests by actually engaging in protests or by providing help and support to the demonstrators. This paper uses the data of the 2019/2020 Arab Index, which was conducted in Lebanon during February and March 2020.

This report presents Palestinian public opinion trends in Gaza, through data collected by the 2019-2020 Arab Opinion Index. This paper reviews basic descriptive statistics from opinion on major issues relating to the economic and political situation and compares these Gaza findings with the Arab Opinion Index 2019-2020 data from the West Bank. The data shows that the situation in Gaza is extremely bad, not only in terms of economic and living conditions, but also in terms of societal confidence and the legitimacy of political actors. The report attempts to answer a set of questions surrounding the Palestinians' assessment of their economic, security and political conditions in Gaza; their conditions compared with those in the West Bank; their confidence in political parties; and levels of corruption.

​This study seeks to measure the digital divide and its impact on political participation in selected Arab countries. It focuses in particular on assessing the role of demographic and socio-economic status (SES) in unequal access to the Internet. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to predict political participation based on SES and internet use. Based on Arab Index data, the results of the analysis indicate that SES (gender, age, income and educational level) plays a major role in the level of Internet access, and that the purpose for which the Internet is used determines the likelihood of political participation. The results also indicate that vulnerable social groups are more reluctant to participate in political activities.