Latest Articles

This paper adopts the assumption that the series of foreign interventions which served to transform the Syrian crisis from a domestic revolution into a regionalized, and later globalized, conflict were not the result of factors intrinsic to the revolution itself, but rather the consequences of dramatic changes sweeping across the entire Middle East following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The fallout from 2003 included the collapse of the former tripartite of Arab regional powers: Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia. For the first time, the non-Arab regional powers of Turkey and Iran came to be directly involved in intra-Arab affairs. The latter effectively had an overland border tying it to Syria's Mediterranean coast once the US withdrew the bulk of its military forces from Iraq in 2011. While the Syrian regime had worked to strengthen its ties to both Ankara and Tehran in the wake of its losses following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Syria would fall victim to regional power politics between its two regional neighbors. Once the Syrian revolution was militarized, in response to the Damascus regime's iron-fisted approach to peaceful popular protests, Turkish-Iranian rivalry over the future of Syria quickly became bloody. In an attempt to limit the extent of influence not only by Turkey but also its ally Iran, the Syrian regime resorted to seeking out additional foreign support, latterly from Russia.

​This paper examines the state of Political Science in Egypt, suggesting that the Egyptian school of Political Science is facing a crisis and analyses the reasons why. It particularly focuses on the experience of the Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Economics, Cairo University, as the first specialized school for Political Science in Egypt, in view of the increasing roles played by its graduates in the public sphere. The study focuses on three key dimensions: the perceptions of this scholarly community regarding the role entrusted to political science in Egyptian society and politics, the changes in academic curricula, and the ideological and political contexts influencing teaching and research in political science in Egypt. The study concludes that the crisis of political science in Egypt is twofold: the crisis within the field in general and specific issues within the Egyptian context itself.

​​This study examines the redefinition of civil–military relations in Sudan, arguing that the prevailing approach in the country reduces these relations to the issue of military reform and reduces that reform to preventing the army from carrying out a coup, removing it from politics, or restricting its economic activity. The study begins with a critique of Samuel Huntington's traditional theory and presents alternative approaches that advocate integrating the military into society and expanding its roles under civilian control. It also offers a typology of armies based on four models according to their political and economic engagement, applying this framework to the Sudanese army and its transformations since the independence (1955). The study concludes that building a more sustainable relationship requires rethinking the framework that shapes civil–military relations in Sudan. It calls for involving military personnel in formulating national policies and regulating their economic activities through governance in ways that strengthen national security and support the political process.​

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is taken here as a nucleus for new policies and powerful alliances that seek to establish a new world order; an order where the organization acts as a main pillar of the international power balance. The SCO has transformed from a regional organization with a specific goal into an international one by shaping new positions distinct from those of the United States. This was demonstrated through the SCO’s position on Iran’s nuclear program, the Korean issue, the Syrian crisis, and security issues in central Asia. Since this new international organization includes two permanent members of the Security Council (Russia and China), as well as nuclear powers, such as India and Pakistan, as observers, a serious look at its program seems essential for projecting the outcome of recent shifts in world politics. This paper thus attempts to answer two central questions: How far can the SCO consolidate multipolarity in international relations away from US hegemony? How will this affect the international power balance?

The paper provides indications and analysis of the positions of the most influential Shia powers and parties in Iraq after the fall of the predominantly Sunni city of Mosul and the rise of the Islamic State group in 2014. In addition to the Najaf-based supreme Shia religious authority led by ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shia parties represented in government since 2003, the paper shed light on the increasingly powerful Iran-backed armed groups Popular Mobilization (Hashd Sha'abi) and how their appeal, visibility and influence had changed after the fall of Mosul. The question of the Iraqi national identity and how it interacts with the Shia identity is addressed in the paper in light of the discourse of the Shia powers and relations between Shia Iraqis and other communities.

This article deals with the post-2003 consociationalist experiment in Iraq. It examines the reasons why this experiment has failed in producing a reasonably coherent governing formula. It argues that, because of their emphasis on identity politics and not on making mutual concessions in the interest of serious statebuilding, the main players in this experiment (Shia, Sunni and Kurdish political elites) failed to appreciate the complexity of the consociationalist arrangement, let alone use it for public interest. The article focuses on the central role that the Shia Islamist parties played in making this failure happen, highlighting, as reasons, their insistence on an essentially sectarian rhetoric and their attempt to enforce it as a national identity. The article finally proposes a different rhetoric that can accommodate Iraq's ethnic and religious diversity.

The changing structure of International Law has always been a contentious issue because of the analytical and practical contradictions imposed by the concept of Solidarity whether its international or humanitarian sense.

This study explores the concept of "deep cultural genocide" in the context of the Israeli war on Gaza in 2023 - 2024. It seeks to expand this concept to encompass tangible cultural genocide, which includes the systematic destruction or appropriation of heritage and cultural symbols, the erasure of identity, and dehistoricization. In addition to the deep cultural genocide aimed at depriving one party in the conflict of narrating events and presenting its narrative to the world, The study examines how this narrative facilitated the genocide, attempted to justify it, and contributed to the prolonged silence surrounding its continuation for many months.Utilizing a critical perspective grounded in cultural and media studies, the study incorporates the concepts of "c ultivation," "c ultural bias," and "m anufacturing consent." The findings reveal that during this war on Gaza, Israel transitioned from practicing slow cultural genocide, a method driven by colonial powers for over a century, to executing a "deep cultural genocide." This approach not only involved the systematic and direct destruction of Palestinian heritage and culture but also extended to efforts to extinguish the Palestinian narrative and prevent its dissemination to a global audience.

​This study is about the state-building impasse in the Arab World in General, and in Libya in particular. These states have suffered, since the beginning of the Arab Spring, from lack of political prospects, eruptions of civil wars, and obstacles of political settlements among different actors in the public space. These elements have inhibited the achievement of state building, the formation of a pluralist political system and the realization of an integrated national identity. This study endeavors to analyze the obstacles that have obstructed state-building in Libya until now. It focuses on tribalism and regionalism as main obstacles to that process. In addition, it analyzes the role of external factors and actors in the light of tribalism and regionalism. It argues that state-building in Libya has stumbled and has not followed a gradual path of modern state-building and formation, and it has not gone through the necessary stages of political transition. The former has trapped Libya within narrow loyalties which are short of the wider loyalties necessary for the national state.

This study aims to define the interests and goals of the United States in the Arab region by answering two main questions: how does the Obama administration differ from its predecessors in view of its promises of change, particularly following the tragic transformations raging in the Arab region at present? And to what extent does the strategy of this administration reflect its public diplomacy regarding democracy, freedom, and justice in the region? The study explains how Obama raised the ceiling of expectations when he did not limit his promises to a change in American policy only, but included putting an end to the mentality that had pushed the United States into war. Despite the difference in style and method between the Obama and Bush Junior administrations, the overall goals and the regional strategy can be summarized in terms of three key interests: the priority of ensuring free access to energy supplies in the region; maintaining American supremacy over all other global powers; and the containment of all Arab objections to ensure the dominance of the US strategic agenda in the Arab region, including the guarantee of Israel's security.