Latest Articles

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.

This study advances a new approach to theorizing the Arab state after the popular uprisings. It does this in two steps. Suspending the western European model of state formation and bringing the Arab world's experience in conversation with other parts of the Global South, it examines alternative state formation and state building sequences, trajectories, and temporalities in the making of Arab states. It thus historicizes the process of state formation and state building in the Arab world as compared to the western European one and other regions in the Global South. This first step liberates us from explicit and implicit comparisons with the European model of state formation. The second step surveys alternative theorizations of the Arab state after the uprisings. Tracing the causal assumptions embedded in these theories reveals how much they rely on the European model of state formation and state building as an implicit point of analytic departure and critical comparison. This survey unpacks the assumptions these theories make about the state, the difference between states and regimes, state and non-state actors, the private and public realms, and the formal and informal sectors. The objective of this study is to not only de-exceptionalize states in the Arab world, but, more importantly, borrowing from Gurminder Bhambra, 'unmake' our understandings of state formation and state building in the Arab world and thus contribute, following Walter Mignolo, to a knowledge production that serves a form of 'epistemic reconstitution' of alternative historical trajectories and possibilities.

This study examines the role played by the youth of Morocco, turning this generational group into a political and social force capable of proposing alternative solutions to Morocco's political impasse, introducing dynamism and alternatives along the path to democracy. The question which frames this study is: to what extend did Moroccan youth contribute to the reshaping political culture in the country? How do Moroccan youth conceptualize the transition to democracy, and what happened to their demands? The author adopts a sociological definition of a "generation," meaning that it does not define a generational cohort as a homogenized social group but rather represents a set of people with a shared set of anxieties surrounding their position in relation to other (previous) generations.

This paper analyzes the impact of the results of the legislative elections on the political process in Tunisia during the period from 2011 to 2021. It discusses the negative impact of the electoral system on the results of the legislative elections in general, and on the political process as a whole in particular. Due to the difficulty of the political parties that won first place in the legislative elections to obtain the required majority that enables them to bear responsibility for the political process alone during the parliamentary period. This created a state of parliamentary fragmentation that affected the Assembly of the Representatives of the People in three electoral cycles in 2011 , 2014 , and 2019 which led to the disruption of the legislative and electoral role of the Assembly, and the multiplicity and instability of governments. This paper also discusses proposals to amend the Tunisian Election and Referendum Law, which include a proposal to adopt an electoral threshold, and the impact of applying the electoral threshold on the representation of political parties in the Tunisian Assembly of People's Representatives, and on the political process.

​In this interview, Cheikh Rached Ghannouchi recounts his experiences of working with his “brothers” in the Ennahda movement,who, he claims, criticized his “ad hominem” attacks on ousted president Benali, in contrast to party policy—at the time—which forbade direct criticism of the former president. Cheikh Ghannouchi also reasserts his previous position that Islamists should avoid taking the reins of power—even when they win elections. This is to acknowledge, he says, the regional and global orders whichs imply would not tolerate Islamists in power.

​يتضمــن هــذا التقريــر توثيقًــا لأهم الوقائــع الفلســطينية والأحداث المرتبطــة بالصــراع العربي - الإسرائيلي في المدة 1 آذار/ مارس - 30 نيسان/ أبريل2018.

The conflict over demography and geography is at the heart of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict. During the last century, there have been shifts in the state of Palestinian and Israeli demography, which have brought about geopolitical changes, swings in power relations and the distribution and control of resources between them. The study deals with the concept of demographobia and projections for Jerusalem, in order to deduce the state of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict. The study presents the demographic reality in Jerusalem and analyzes it according to national, ethnic, cultural, religious and geopolitical affiliations. The paper discusses the relationship between demographics, geography, and democracy, and how they are utilized in spatial planning and resource control. The paper also seeks to forecast the future outlook and discuss its consequences by monitoring and critically analyzing quantitative data collected from Palestinian and Israeli sources.

In September 2014, US President Barack Obama announced a “comprehensive strategy” to degrade and destroy ISIL. Obama stated, “I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.” But despite this announcement, questions over the nature, goals, and instruments of US policy towards ISIL still continue to be asked in the context of a debate between those who think that the US is not doing enough to take on ISIL and those who think it would be better for the US not to expand its military involvement in the conflict. This debate has been influenced by internal American political polarizations in the form of the critical position taken by leading Republicans such as Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who view the Obama policy as weak, and Middle Eastern regional rivalries over the position towards ISIL and the nature of the political choices that must frame the confrontation with it.

This article deals with the changes to the demographics of Israeli settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem from 1967 to 2013. It reviews the demographic data on the Jewish settler population, population growth, net migration, and ethnic distribution, and discusses the direct and indirect factors influencing the increase in settler numbers and in migration to the settlements. It also presents forecasts for the growth in the settler population until 2048. The article asserts that the rise in the number of settlers is a result of two factors: migration to the settlements and very high natural population growth among the settlers. The first factor can be explained by policies that promote migration to settlements and provide economic conditions and social services to support migration. The second (very high natural growth) can be explained by the nature of the settlers and their levels of religiosity and right-wing/nationalist ideology. The article clarifies that the relative importance of these two factors has varied according to the various political stages. In the early settlement period, migration was the main factor accounting for increasing numbers of settlers, while the high birth rate accounts for the increase in settler numbers witnessed over the last 20 years in the West Bank, but not in Jerusalem.