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​This report highlights some of the major milestones of the Arab democratic transition from 1/5/2016 to 29/6/2016

​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.

At the beginning of August 2014 clashes broke out in the Lebanese town of Ersal between armed factions fighting in Syria, among them jihadist groups such as ISIL and the Nusra Front, and the Lebanese army. These clashes continued for five days and ended with the withdrawal of the Syrian fighters from the town as part of an initiative under the auspices of the Association of Muslim Ulema in Lebanon and the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (LIFE). In view of the contradictory accounts and the mutual recriminations, this paper looks at what really happened in Ersal, the background that led the crisis to develop, the positions and calculations of the various sides, and the repercussions in Syria and Lebanon.

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.

This paper seeks to ascertain the extent of positive Arab public attitudes—or lack thereof—towards the Arab popular revolutions, after more than a year since the revolutions first broke out. The results show an overall positive attitude towards the Arab revolutions among the Arab public. When asked to provide reasons for their positive disposition towards the revolutions, respondents spoke of an "Arab Awakening" which laid the foundations for democratic governance in the Arab region by restoring the democratic rights of Arab citizens. Opposition to the Arab revolutions and their impacts accounted for only 25% of Arab public opinion. A majority of respondents who disapproved of the Arab revolutions blamed the failure of these popular movements to achieve their aims, as well as the resulting economic and political instability. In addition to broad overall support for the Arab revolutions, the Arab public credits the recent revolutions with improved treatment of the public by the police and other government officials in the Arab region.

How is International Relations (IR) taught in the Arab World? What happens to what was once labelled an 'American Social Science' when it enters classrooms in the Arab world and is taught in Arabic? Despite the predominance of Western approaches and theories on the teaching of IR in the Arab World, there is tension between the need to train students in the classical theories as a prerequisite for knowledge production, and the need to adapt them to various political, social, and economic contexts across the globe. This study examines the different approaches to how IR is taught in Arab universities, and how Western theories are considered critically by the teaching of alternative approaches. The paper argues that the different approaches to teaching IR are more versatile theoretically than the range of published papers in leading academic journals in the West. As such, they may prove to be the starting point for new forms of knowledge production that better reflect the realities of international relations in the Arab world.