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This paper elucidates Arab public opinion towards the international aerial campaign against ISIL (the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant”) in Iraq and Syria, based on the findings of a dedicated opinion survey. The survey included representative, randomized samples in seven countries: Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, in addition to communities of Syrian refugees in three host countries (Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey). Respondents were asked the extent of their support for the aims of the international campaign as well as the conduct of the airstrikes. Survey questions also take in respondents’ views on a number of related issues. The findings show that the vast majority of Arabs are firmly opposed to ISIL, with only 11% of respondents expressing views which are positive, to varying extents, towards the group.

This paper elucidates Arab public opinion towards the international aerial campaign against ISIL (the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant”) in Iraq and Syria, based on the findings of a dedicated opinion survey. The survey included representative, randomized samples in seven countries: Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, in addition to communities of Syrian refugees in three host countries (Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey). Respondents were asked the extent of their support for the aims of the international campaign as well as the conduct of the airstrikes. Survey questions also take in respondents’ views on a number of related issues. The findings show that the vast majority of Arabs are firmly opposed to ISIL, with only 11% of respondents expressing views which are positive, to varying extents, towards the group.

This paper observes the course of the recent Tunisian elections, analyzes the results, and on the basis of those results explores the coming course of Tunisian democracy. The paper sets out four possible scenarios for the form of alliances that could develop as a result of the inability of the winning party to obtain a comfortable majority. The paper also reviews the significance of the elections in having laid the foundations for a pluralistic political system where power rotates peacefully and which is based on the acknowledgement of the other and not their exclusion, thereby offering a model for the Arab states. The paper highlights the willingness of the parties with an open Islamic frame of reference to become part of the democratic system and participate in supporting and developing it.

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

​Events in Mosul, which was captured by ISIL on June 9, 2014, cannot be viewed in isolation from the severe political crisis afflicting the post 2003 Iraqi political regime. Generally speaking, radical groups cannot be separated from the political environment that fostered them. They are the product of a structurally imbalanced political situation. The growth of such groups in Iraq, from Al Qaeda to ISIL, provides a textbook lesson of this. They are the expression of an imbalance political situation, even if they develop and assume an independence from the political context that gave birth to them. They grow, develop, and draw oxygen from these imbalances and from sharp political and social divisions. Hence, it is not possible to defend the idea that these groups have autonomous power, rather their power derives from the acceptance of their social incubator in a political context that this incubator allows to play a role in correcting the balances of power, as a tool or revenge, pressure, influence, or the like.

Why is the GCC, which is now in its fourth decade, still a weak defensive organization? This paper tries to explain the dilemmas of collective security in the Arab Gulf region. The paper first elucidates the concept of collective security, which forms the theoretical framework for this study. It then reviews the main sources of threat to Gulf security. It then offers a discussion of security dimensions and defense cooperative between the GCC states, and a detailed analysis of the dilemmas of collective security in the GCC, as well as of the features of the proposed collective security system.

This paper explores attitudes among Syrian refugees and displaced persons towards the presidential elections held in their country on June 3, 2014. Respondents came from refugee camps located in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan as well as internally displaced persons camps along the Syrian-Turkish frontier. Survey questions also asked respondents about their views of the existing regime and its institutions in addition to their prescriptions for an “ideal solution” to the Syrian crisis. Answers to the latter question came in three distinct categories. A clear majority (64%) which supports a change of regime as the path to an ideal solution to the Syrian conflict, in contrast to a mere 6% who support the total defeat of the opposition by the regime as an ideal end to the crisis. A third group, accounting for 23% of respondents, held that the ideal solution to the Syrian conflict would be peaceful, based on a dialogue which brought together the regime and the opposition.

Oil is not just related to economics but is also connected to political development. This paper looks at the effect of oil on democracy by relying on a theoretical and empirical study using the tools of descriptive statistics, regression analysis, and statistical tests in the light of political economy in the form of the “resource curse.” It studies how authoritarian regimes have used hydrocarbon resources to prevent democratization by means of a range of mechanisms such as the tax impact, group formation, the effect of spending, and repression. The statistical analysis reveals that there is a statistically-significant inverse relationship between democracy and oil production. It can be said therefore that the oil states are less likely to become democratic. Although most Third-World states have been afflicted by the resource curse, it is not possible to view it as inevitable, but rather the result of dependence on the track represented by the inability to diversify resources or weakness in doing so. The resource curse does not apply to all states rich in natural resources, such as Norway.

The revolutions in the MENA region were accompanied by many political shifts. These, in turn, led to what might be called primary outcomes; produced before the revolutions have come to an end. These outcomes came as the result of an absence of leaders once described as historical and eternal, and to the leadership of opposing political forces in some of MENA countries. These forces, as the shifts and struggles in the nations of the region continue, are leading political decisions in the wake of the fall of the dictators that seem to enforce marginalization and exclusion. However, these fateful shifts were not the only path available, as seen in the region’s history. Morocco is one example of a country that faced a different political reality, with many observers noting that the monarchy in Morocco- contrary to what some circles expected- became stronger after the Arab Spring.

​The Arab Spring caught its breath in Tunisia after political, syndicalist, and legal forces reached a series of agreements that shaped the features of a second republic. In these matters, Tunisians made great strides on the path of establishing democracy for their country. This has been manifested through the practice of peaceful alterations of power and the transformation from rule based on electoral legitimacy to one based on consensual legitimacy and the formation of a new constitution. This will put the country on par with developed countries at least in terms of normative constitutional matters. However, the new democratic experience faces many economic and social difficulties that should be taken into consideration in order to avoid the possibility of losing all of these gains. The aim of this paper is to observe these concerns and explain them through description and analysis. First by examining important features of the Tunisian transitional prototype, and then presenting the important difficulties facing this new experience.