Latest Articles

Book Title: The Palestine Crisis: its Political and Military Secrets [Arabic]

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

This article aims to contribute to the academic debate underway over the concepts of political modernity and modernization, and in particular to address the theories and theses that deal with the problematic in terms of its epistemological premises and foundations. There is then a focus on the main contributions of the various schools of political science while evoking the complexity inherent in the subject and the overlap between the field of philosophy and political theory in this area. The justification for this choice is not limited to the nature of the topic and developments under the influence of the assumptions of western liberalism that represent the various contemporary schools of political science, but transcends this to include the variety of historically successful experiences, and how social values represent the avenue for raising conceptual problems and constructing new problems for the political power that is the custodian of the historical experience of those societies.

On April 30, 2014 the first Iraqi parliamentary elections since the American withdrawal in 2011 were held. These were the third elections since the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, and had special importance because of the impact they will have in determining the structure of the political system in Iraq with its future implications for the Iraqi state. The alliances of the political forces competing in the elections will also have a major impact on society, positive or negative, given that they come after the popular uprising in Anbar and the sharp increase in the conflict between the Iraqi army and ISIL. This paper tries to explain the dimensions of the political conflict in Iraq by means of the results of the 2014 parliamentary election and a comparison with previous elections. It explains the circumstances in which the elections were held, the nature of the electoral blocs, the results, and the possibilities for forming a government.

The fall of Mosul on June 10, 2014 following the assault by armed factions, with ISIL at the forefront, represented a major point of transformation for the political scene in Iraq, particularly following the withdrawal of the Iraqi military and police, and the succession of cities in northern and western Iraq that fell to ISIL. This paper looks at the accelerating developments in the Iraqi crisis since 2014. It tries to understand and describe the event, and presents two current narratives: the first is that ISIL is the only actor responsible for the planning and implementation of what happened and is happening; and the second observes the revival of the Sunni opposition movements in the context of the Anbar uprising against the Iraqi government. The paper reviews the positions of the forces active internally: the Iraqi government and its allies, the armed factions and their allies, and the Iraqi political forces participating in the political process, and externally in the region and on the global scene.

Book Title: The Women of Palestine in the Struggle to Live [Arabic]

Book Title: National Intellectual Capital and the Financial Crisis in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand Author: Carol Yeh-Yun Lin, Leif Edvinsson, Jeffrey Chen, Tord Beding Year of publication: 2014 Publisher: Springer, New York Pages: 100

Yemen’s Comprehensive National Dialogue document presents a key moment in the nation’s contemporary political situation. This paper examines the document with the aim of answering questions like: What are the document’s real outcomes? To what extent does the National Dialogue document meet the objectives of February 2011 revolution and the ambitions of the Yemeni people of building a civil democratic modern country? What are the winning and losing powers in this dialogue? To what extent can the damaged powers hinder the implementation of the dialogue’s outcome? To what extent can the political and social beneficiaries apply pressure on different official and unofficial actors to implement the outcomes of the conference? What are the outcomes that might be implemented and those of which implementations might face obstacles? Giving background to the document and the situation in Yemen, the paper makes an analysis of the document and forecasts its chance of success.​

The Iranian nuclear agreement was the result of a pressing domestic need. This paper discusses the factors that pushed Iran to sign a nuclear deal and argues that the circumstances under which Hassan Rouhani became Iranian president meant he had to achieve a political détente in foreign relations within 100 days in office. Moreover, this pressing détente had to address the issue of sanctions. The successive rounds of US and Western sanctions drained the “resistance economy” and pushed it to resort to “heroic flexibility in diplomacy” whose lines were drawn by Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei. This paved the way for a change in politicians’ rhetoric and performance vis-à-vis relations with the US.

The Gulf States enjoy a strategic location and economic power, owing that to their oil wealth. The paper examines the contributing factors of the Gulf Cooperation Council states that help in measuring their strength. One of the main goals of the study is to state the points of strength and weakness of these states so that decision-makers in the GCC countries can better understand the contributing factors. The findings show that the points of strength differ from one state to another. It is difficult to accurately evaluate the points of strength that make one state more powerful than the other, but one can deduce that the state's power does not rely on one factor. Based on the study indicators, Qatar emerged the strongest, followed by the UAE then Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain came in sixth place.