Latest Articles

An academic workshop to be hosted by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies will examine the regional implications of a long-term drop in oil prices on oil producing states in the Arab region. Made urgent by a sharp decrease in the global benchmark oil price, from US$110 per barrel to $40 per barrel in the 12 months leading up to September, “A Drop in World Oil Prices: Implications for Oil-Exporting Countries” will be held at the Al Mukhtasar Hall in Doha’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Saturday, November 7, 2015. While participation in the event will be limited to selected experts, attendance will be open to the media and the general public.

This article discusses the challenges facing the government of Haider al-Abadi in Iraq, and outlines what ought to be expected in the coming stage, particularly after the fall of Mosul to ISIL. The paper reviews the failure of the regime post 2002 to insure equal participation of all segments of Iraq in the institution of power following the sectarian polices adopted by Nouri al-Maliki who exercised control over all the levers of the political regime and the public political institutions, and systematically harassed other politicians and parties – Sunnis in particular. The paper also reviews the American position, the intervention of the international coalition, and the establishment of the national guard. It looks at the other challenges facing the effort to keep Iraq together and help it emerge from its problems, including the threat of ISIL, sectarian division, the security situation, and the economy. The paper also reviews the regional overlap with the Iraqi situation, particularly the Iranian aspect, and what is transpiring as a new regional equation.

This study aims to deconstruct the Algerian security approach towards the Sahara and Sahel region in Africa which is a concern that currently exemplifies a corne stone in its foreign policy, because of its considerable importance to Algeria’s security, as well as to its national interests. Algeria insists on maintaining an autonomous approach in engineering its security strategy in the region while remaining in cooperation with others. By identifying Algeria’s contribution to security arrangements in Africa, the study provides practical examples that reflect Algeria’s security vision on both: the regional and the continental fronts. This study aims to work as a base for future evaluation of Algeria’s contribution to building African security while preserving autonomy.

India-Qatar relations have come a long way since the two nations established diplomatic ties in 1973. Despite a slow start, relations between the two countries have improved significantly in recent years, driven by shared economic interests and increasing cooperation in areas such as energy, defence, and culture. This article examines the trajectory of India-Qatar relations and the factors that have shaped their development. Within the broader theoretical framework of Complex Interdependence, this study analyses the economic and geopolitical factors driving India's engagement with Qatar, as well as the role of cultural and people-to-people ties in strengthening the relationship. It also considers the challenges that have impeded progress in India-Qatar relations, including regional tensions and political differences. Despite the promising growth in India-Qatar relations, this article argues that the relationship remains largely stagnant in the political and strategic domain, with Qatar's independent policymaking contributing to India's inhibitions to pursue a relationship more forcefully beyond economic transactions.

International protection for internally displaced persons, who far exceed the number of refugees, has become a major issue in recent years. This is reflected in the international community's search for solutions, by providing them with internal humanitarian assistance so that they do not have to seek help beyond the borders of their states, affirming their right to remain in their country in security and dignity and not to become refugees. However, reality has shown that the international community's attention to the protection of internally displaced persons is not so much a humanitarian consideration as it is an inevitable consequence of state reservations to welcome refugees on their territory. European states in particular have attached urgency to protecting internally displaced persons arbitrarily to justify the closure of their borders to refugees.

The paper investigates and analyzes the regional and international interactions with the conflict in Libya, focusing on the period following the December 2015 political agreement in Skhirat, Morocco. The paper argues that this agreement is the result of a limited consensus among domestic and regional forces. These forces have moulded their foreign policies, over the course of the conflict, based on a balance between concerns over the political and economic effects of the Libyan democratic transition and their interests and ambitions for greater control and influence. The conflict of interests between the external forces was a substantial factor along with other internal determinants that have contributed to obstructing the democratic transition process. Therefore, this paper explores a series of research questions, mainly focusing on the role and behavior of the influential external forces in Libya's domestic politics.

Sponsored by the “Safer World” foundation, based in the United Kingdom, this meeting held at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies examined possibilities for the spreading of peace and stability across conflict hotspots around the globe.

The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and its capture of vast territories in the Fertile Crescent, has confounded the political calculations of a number of all major political players invested in the Arab region, including regional and global powers. With the failure of regional actors to contain the group, the United States was forced to backtrack on its military withdrawal from the region—when it pulled its troops out of Iraq—and become involved, anew, in the Middle East.

This article draws from structurationist and symbolic interactionist sociology, seeking to build a bridge between the realist–liberal and rationalist–reflectivist debates in the field of international relations. In doing so, it argues against the neorealist claim that self-help is given by anarchic structure exogenously to process. It further argues that self-help and power politics do not follow either logically or causally from the anarchic structure of the international system, but are generated by process rather than by structure. There is no logic of anarchy apart from the practices that create and instantiate one particular structure of identities and interests rather than another. Self-help and power politics are institutions, not essential features of anarchy – anarchy is what states make of it. The article explores three ways in which identities and interests are transformed under anarchy: by the institution of sovereignty, by an evolution of cooperation, and by intentional efforts to transform egoistic identities into collective identities.

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.