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The question of post-revolutionary transitional justice is a novel feature of Arab political and legal culture. During the early stages of what came to be known as the “Arab Spring”, human rights organizations at home and abroad presented principles of transitional justice not only as an essential means to address violations of human rights of the past through legal and judicial channels, but also as an important stepping stone to accomplishing the broader aim of a democratic transition in the Arab region. The extent to which political actors adopted these demands varied with the revolutionary zeal of the moment in question. Ultimately, however, revolutionary zeal and the maximalist demands of the revolutionaries prevented the implementation of lessons learned from earlier post-revolutionary transitions around the world. This paper will illustrate the above by examining examples of transitional justice in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and compare these to experiences in non-Arab countries. It affirms that social reconciliation, peace and prosperity will only be possible through the establishment of both “truth” and justice.

Discussions regarding the relative success of Tunisia's democratic transition, argues Ladrissi, remain premature. His paper examines the extent to which particular Tunisian specificities could explain the relative success of Tunisia to date when compared to other Arab Spring states: the role of women in society; the legacy of founding president Bourguiba; and the role of Tunisian civil society. The paper asks if Tunisia will ultimately succeed in sowing the seeds of a permanent and lasting democracy. It sets out from the assumption that a functioning democratic system is predicated on three main factors: political dialogue; social homogeneity; and an organic state. Later, the author moves on to examine three distinct, if seemingly interdependent, aspects of transitional justice: the political responsibility of the previous political leadership; the criminal liability of those leaders for violations of human rights; and responsibility in questions of bribery and corruption. Finally, the paper summarizes three major threats to the Tunisian democratic experiment: the country's economic crisis, the weakening of the Tunisian state and terrorism.

The premise of this study is the belief that there is a crisis in contemporary liberal democracy resulting from the tension between two traditions: one democratic and the other liberal. The spread of right-wing populism in the West is not a new phenomenon, but rather a new manifestation of what may be called a permanent crisis of democracy. The study distinguishes populism from totalitarian ideological movements that gain popular support through demagogy and incitement against the other and reviews existing tensions in the structure of liberal democracy. The paper finds that populist rhetoric is channeled through tensions in the structure of liberal democracy and translates social anger into criticism of the democratic system itself, by using one component of a complex democratic system against another.

Held by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies on June 2, 2014, this special one-day symposium examines the crisis in the Ukraine caused by Russian annexation of the Crimea, and the repercussions of this crisis on the Arab region.

This study explores the concept of "deep cultural genocide" in the context of the Israeli war on Gaza in 2023 - 2024. It seeks to expand this concept to encompass tangible cultural genocide, which includes the systematic destruction or appropriation of heritage and cultural symbols, the erasure of identity, and dehistoricization. In addition to the deep cultural genocide aimed at depriving one party in the conflict of narrating events and presenting its narrative to the world, The study examines how this narrative facilitated the genocide, attempted to justify it, and contributed to the prolonged silence surrounding its continuation for many months.Utilizing a critical perspective grounded in cultural and media studies, the study incorporates the concepts of "c ultivation," "c ultural bias," and "m anufacturing consent." The findings reveal that during this war on Gaza, Israel transitioned from practicing slow cultural genocide, a method driven by colonial powers for over a century, to executing a "deep cultural genocide." This approach not only involved the systematic and direct destruction of Palestinian heritage and culture but also extended to efforts to extinguish the Palestinian narrative and prevent its dissemination to a global audience.

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 article examines the "intuitive knowledge" as one of the most important sources for understanding the trajectories of the Arab revolutions, despite the scarcity of studies that focus on it. We explore intuitive knowledge by examining its observable manifestations, such as its role as an alternative to "ideology" in expressing social and political views, its practical application in shared traditions, its flexible interpretation of relational life emphasising its habitual and voluntary aspects, its pragmatic evaluation of social and political phenomena, and its expression of distrust in "elites" who distance themselves from ordinary people's lives. Building on these premises, we explore the relationship between intuitive thought and charismatic phenomena or volatile populism, as well as the formation and dissolution of loyalty relationships, particularly in the neoliberal era. In this context, we emphasise the importance of viewing intuitive knowledge as a starting point for analysing the relationship between political and social revolution. We argue that the separation of these two types of revolution has created additional opportunities for counter-revolution.​

Victimization narratives compose a principle element in creating of sub-national identities in societies afflicted by divisions and communal disputes. Little wonder then that narratives of victimization abound in Kirkuk province, which lies at the heart of Iraq’s “disputed internal areas” problem. This paper starts of by analyzing the nature of victimization narratives and how they make use of the past to serve political projects spearheaded by political elites. It then turns to surveying and deconstructing the contending narratives propagated by communal elites in Kirkuk regarding the victimization, whether real or imagined, endured by the province’s demographic components – Kurds, Turkmens, Arabs and Christians. By analytically surveying the narratives of victimization of these four communities, this paper seeks to ascertain the workings of these narratives and to explicate the role they play.

Despite the great pains made over the years since the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership passed the European Neighborhood Policy to support programs for democratic reform in the phase following the Arab uprisings. The EU's conditional policies to support democratic transformations in the Southern Mediterranean Countries have revealed many structural imbalances. These countries did not gain the desired political and democratic momentum that the Eastern European countries. There was also a growing trend towards European Countries prioritizing security considerations at the expense of supporting democracy, especially after the increased security cooperation to combat terrorist threats and irregular migration. These uprisings thus formed an experiment and a real challenge to the credibility and effectiveness of the EU's conditional democratic policies. To what extent have the European policies associated with democratic conditionality succeeded in supporting the dynamics and interactions of the Arab uprisings? Does maintaining security and stability and combating terrorism void European democratic conditionality at its hard core?

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.