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Since the outbreak of the Arab uprisings in 2010-2011, the teaching of public administration has been constantly evolving. Cases from Morocco, Qatar, and other countries in the Arab region have demonstrated the need for more robust cultural competency approaches on all major disciplines in public administration at the master's degree level. The Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) and the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA) have also intensified their focus is on preparing students and faculty for culturally diverse workplaces and establishing departments for effective public administration in the Arab region. Through applying qualitative analysis of documents and content in presenting relevant research published in the English language in the past two decades, this study examines the impact of the value added by the inclusion of cultural competency skills in public administration programs in the MENA region on good governance. It also suggests possible avenues for future US-Middle East partnerships to address training and educational gaps.

A recent opinion poll by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies examined Arab public attitudes towards US foreign policy during the first year of the Trump presidency. Survey questions sought to ascertain Arab public perceptions of Trump based on a number of key indicators. Specifically, respondents were asked to evaluate specific Trump Administration policies relevant to the Arab region, including support for democracy, the approach to the Iranian nuclear deal and the combatting of extremism and terrorism. Finally, the survey included questions on how respondents viewed Trump’s policies towards a number of specific sites of conflict: Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Palestine.

Academic studies on Somalia lack focus on analyzing the gaps and problems facing the state-building project. Drawing on an in-depth literature review of post-war and conflict state-building frameworks and models, this study highlights the structural gaps that continue to hinder Somalia's state-building project by seeking to identify and describe them, in addition to discussing their root causes and impacts on the future of the state-building project. The study concludes that these gaps can be summarized into three categories: 1 -Political: As a result of the problematic aspects of both the tribal quota system 4. 5 and the federal system, 2 -Social: represented in the weakened role of civil society in the process of state-building, and 3 -Economic: driven by the controversial business interests of influential businessmen, and the impact of foreign assistance on economic recovery. Thus, the success of the state-building project in Somalia depends on all relevant actors' abilities to deal with these structural gaps.

This paper discusses the findings of a special opinion survey undertaken by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies on Arab attitudes towards the November, 2016 presidential election in the United States. American domestic politics and its impact on the Arab region have increased significantly in the new millennium, with the US invading and occupying Iraq in 2003, and becoming involved in the internationalization of conflicts in Yemen, Libya and Syria. The results presented here examine Arab public expectations of American foreign policy towards these issues and more following the 2016 elections.

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.

The study aims to investigating the matter of constructing a statistical index to measure the level of political culture in the Arab countries, based on methodological triangulation; that is, using more than one tool to identify the characteristics of political culture and its component elements, as well as collecting and classifying data and determining the optimal statistical method to calculate the sub-indices with a focus on quantitative measurement. Depending on the results of the exploratory study, the level of the political culture indicators in concerning the cognitive and affective dimensions is slightly below average (50 points out of 100), which is an encouraging outcome in a context characterized by low educational level and rural concentration. On the other hand, the political culture index concerning the evaluative dimension recorded a rather low score (37 points out of 100), reflecting an insufficiency of interest in making judgments and attitudes towards political institutions and issues in the community study.

This study examines the ability of network technology to challenge despotism regimes. It thus applies two theoretical approaches. The first is the "Prisoner's dilemma" and the "despot/jailer's dilemma" and the second is the "case study", which studies a number of cases of "network technology", whether used by protest groups or by authoritarian regimes, to determine the extent (and direction) of their impact in practice. The study concludes that network technology — through challenging the logic of the "prisoner's dilemma" and reversing it to become the "jailer's dilemma" — can, theoretically, pose an element of weakness for despotism regimes. However, in reality, network technology can be used by these regimes with the same effectiveness, to respond to mass protests supported by technology. This indicates that network technology can be seen as a neutralizing factor, the impact of which should be studied relative to the impact of other factors.

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 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.

​The study is premised on the assumption that the US-Iranian tensions under the Trump administration represents a new chapter in the crisis in the US-Iranian relationship. This extreme hostility was related to US domestic politics and the bordering on personal rivalry of President Trump with his predecessor, President Barack Obama, in domestic and foreign policy. One of the most important policy manifestations of this administrative divergence concerns the Nuclear Agreement with Iran, signed in 2015. Opposition to the Nuclear Agreement united Gulf players such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, who considered shared hostility towards Iran as a bridge to strengthen their relations with the US on the one hand; while also forming a strong front, in the presence of Israel, to weaken the Iranian regime without necessarily replacing it.