Latest Articles

Beginning in 1995, Qatar underwent a major transformation in its foreign policy, adopting an independent and neutral foreign policy as a result of being located in an important vital, geopolitical and economic region, with tensions between the influential regional powers. Given the importance of mediation in resolving disputes and bringing peace to a region raging in conflict, Qatar adopted a foreign policy approach of dialogue, good offices, mediation, and preventive diplomacy, and worked to settle disputes and crises peacefully, remaining impartial and independent, in accordance with the provisions of international law and the Charter of the United Nations. This study explores Qatar policy and experience in mediation and dispute settlement and highlights its active role and contribution over the past twenty years, by clarifying the features of its foreign policy, strategy, and principles, and highlighting case studies of previous Qatari mediation.

​This paper deconstructs Muslim Brotherhood perceptions about the political rights of Copts in Egypt. It argues that the group has an ambiguous understanding of the concept of citizenship generally, which is reflected in their perceptions of the political and civil rights of religious, political and sectarian minorities. This study proposes a socio-political approach to understand this ambiguity. It argues that this position can be interpreted through several considerations, the most important of which are: ideological commitment, maintaining organizational cohesion, constraints on social acceptance and competition with conservative religious forces. The paper deconstructs these factors in order to explain and interpret the Brotherhood stance on Copts in Egypt. The study uses discourse analysis to examine statements by Muslim Brotherhood members and leaders about the Copts from 1981-2013.

Book Title: La Chine-monde et Le Nouvel Homme [French]

This text was fundamental to the crystallization of structuralist theory in international relations. It addresses one of the discipline’s major dilemmas: the dialectic of the relationship between actor and structure. It reveals the shortcomings of the interpretations offered by the prevailing structuralist theories (neorealism and world-system theory), which failed to grasp the mutually constitutive nature of human agents and system structures, reducing the international system either to constraints imposed on actors or to structures generating behavioral patterns. However, by employing the “structuration theory” borrowed from sociology, US political scientist Alexander Want offers an expanded perspective that avoids reducing system structures to state actors (as neorealism does) or their reification in world- system theory. The scientific realist/structuration approach thus investigates the properties and dispositions of state actors and the system structures in which they are embedded, contributing to the reformulation of theoretical debate in the field of international relations, opening up broad horizons for understanding international dynamics and establishing a new research agenda that combines philosophical-scientific analysis with political-historical analysis.

Book Title: Syria’s Via Dolorosa to Freedom: An Attempt at Contemporary History [Arabic]

This is the second section of a study examining the application of good governance in Egypt and Tunisia. The first section, published in issue 42 of the Siyasat Arabiya journal, provided an in-depth theoretical framework for assessing the dynamics of administering governmental affairs, establishing the prerequisites of effective governance, and combatting corruption. This second section argues that administrative corruption is an important obstacle to the quality of public services provided by central government in Egypt and Tunisia, despite various laws and codes calling for tackling corruption and corrupt individuals. This study recommends governmental decentralization; gradually permitting legislative bodies to review the work mechanisms of public administration; adopting organizational philosophies that can serve to improve the process of providing public services; and finally, activating e-government and information and communications technology to achieve more effective public administration operations and services provision and thereby contribute to expanding economic growth.

Specialists in the philosophy of social sciences preach simplicity in choosing variables during research design, the aim of which is to avoid the complexity of abundance, reducing the clarity and logical consistency of the thesis. The rule of using limited variables is based on the methodological rule called the "Principle of Parsimony" which means that the most acceptable explanation is the simplest and stipulates the use of the lowest possible number of variables in order to explain the maximum possible number of phenomena. This study introduces this principle and examines the reasons for its absence from political research by assuming that the reason for the lack of parsimony in political research, and the tendency of researchers to use multiple variables, is the widespread "methodologist" tendency, which emerges as a type of excessive confidence in the reliability of the method.

Book Title: The Spirit of Democracy: Fight to Build Free Societies [Arabic] Original Title: The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World Author: Larry Diamond Translation: Abdelnour Khorafi Year of publication: 2014 Publisher: Arab Network for Research and Publication, Beirut Pages: 208

Rights to equality and non-discrimination in international law form the core of this paper. It begins with a preliminary study of the legal codes including the historical development of these principals in international and regional legal human rights instruments. It looks at the question of segregation, exclusion, derogation, and preference as elements that make up discrimination. It relates this to the standards of differentiation between legitimate discrimination and unlawful or prohibited discrimination. It goes on to present international standards that identify the meaning of equality and non-discrimination, and investigates the basis of prohibited discrimination in particular among the groups that are subject to it. Applying this context to Arab countries, the paper examines the need for a modern law on equality and non-discrimination that could be better enforced than current legal frameworks.​

Algerian Security Policy: Determinants, Fields and Challenges [Arabic]