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Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s call for national dialogue marks a critical turning point in the nation’s recent politics. This paper presents the conditions that led to Bashir’s call for the first time after his nearly 25-year rule, and describes the serious and genuine nature of this call, as well as the positions of the opposing parties. It then goes on to explain some of the challenges that might hinder the success of Bashir’s call for dialogue, in particular the extent of concessions that president Bashir and his ruling party will have to make in order for the dialogue to be successful. It further examines the extent of the flexibility that the civil and armed oppositions should maintain if this last opportunity is not to be missed to save the country from falling into a state of turmoil. This internal Sudanese situation is read within the context of the regional and international conflicts that impact the call for dialogue. Finally, the paper sets out the possible negative and positive impacts of the international situation regarding the possibility of Sudan’s recovery from its current deteriorating situation.

This study analyzes the path of Egypt’s January 25 Revolution and its missed opportunity for regime change. In making this case the paper begins by examining the early conflict between political parties, and the role of the former regime’s armed forces in lending legitimacy to different actors. The study also addresses the structure - or lack thereof - of the transitional phase, including the role of the Islamist movement, and the predicament that the Muslim Brotherhood faced while in power. Continuing to trace the path of the stymied revolution, this paper assesses the failures, in particular of the political parties that “inherited” the young revolutionary generation, to comprehend the meaning of the transitional phase. As such, it shows how these parties failed to make progress towards democracy, and to understand the role assigned to them immediately after the January events. The study reasserts the meaning of the terms “revolution” and “coup,” exposing the ongoing confusion around the characterization of what happened in the post-transition phase in July 2013. It also analyzes the efforts of counterrevolutionary forces to pit the “legitimacy of the street” against the “legitimacy of the people.” The paper finally comes to forecast the direction the Egyptian revolution might take, given the July 3rd ouster of Mohamed Morsi, and the events that followed.

By studying Tunisian foreign policy in the decade after the 2010 popular uprisings, this article contributes to Role Theory by explaining how regional audience expectations influence foreign policy roles. The article first demonstrates how achieved roles develop expectations among regional states as the audience. Then it explains how these expectations condition role enactment. The article shows how Tunisia developed and established a foreign policy posture of strategic distance, defined by neutrality in regional conflicts, adherence to legalism, and pursuit of economic interests. Strategic distance came to be expected by North African states.

For months, the transitional phase in Tunisia underwent a critical historical period that almost foiled efforts to establish a newly-born democratic state and undermined the foundational work of the post-revolution state. In fact, the increasing violence, the high living cost, the raging conflict over power, the intermittent rise of partisan, ideological and religious tensions, the return of the old regime media, the emergence of the harbingers of a counter-revolution and the decrease in Tunisia’s sovereign ranking showed followers of the situation that the Arab Spring in its first cradle was at risk. Citizens felt afraid, and they longed for stability and reassurance. The deteriorating political situation based on polarization and dispute between the ruling troika and the opposition added insult to injury. The paper sheds light on the situation of the prominent influential political parties in Tunisia and on the complexities of the political crisis. It also explores the prospects of the upcoming phase.

Since the time of President Thomas Jefferson, and on through the presidents of the 20th century, the United States has talked about itself as the propagator, protector, and defender of democracy around the world. Yet America has never showed any qualms of forming military and political alliances with authoritarian regimes in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The US justifies these international alliances on the basis that “not all dictatorships in the world are enemies of the United States, but all the United States’ enemies are dictatorships.” The US therefore adopted a two-track diplomacy: while working to spread democracy (directly or by means of international organizations and NGOs) the US has no issue in supporting autocratic governments when its interests are involved. How did US policy apply to the democratic transformation in the former Eastern bloc states in Europe on the eve of the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and subsequently, when American values and interests went hand in hand, and how did it then apply to the Arab Spring of 2011, when US values and interests were congruent in some cases and out of sync in others, according to the situation in each country and its strategic importance from America’s perspective? What are the results of these policies and what differences emerge from such a comparison of the Arab and East Europe cases.

This study limits its aim to a discussion of the water policy of Egypt and Ethiopia. It will first lay out the Ethiopian view and the nation's reaction to the escalation of Egyptian media coverage calling for a direct war against Ethiopia after the country's insistence on the construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam on the Nile, which would disrupt the flow of water to Egypt. With Egypt regularly in control of 85% of the Nile's water, the dam would create a massive change in the water situation in the country. This paper shows the history of the conflict over the water of the Nile between Ethiopia (an Upstream Country) and Egypt (the only Downstream Country) and the position of Ethiopia on old agreements between the parties. The paper presents Ethiopian writings published since the revolution of January 25, 2011 by way of understanding the nation's viewpoint on the issue. ​

Following the ouster of President elect Mohamed Morsi after only one year in power, this paper looks at the future of elections in Egypt. Without any political party that holds the support of the masses, or the possibility of making up for this by building strong partisan alliances, the paper examines the rules of political practice and the nature of legislations based on the 2014 constitution in order to find a way forward amid a current deadlock. It finds a current legal and legislative condition that has restored Mubarak-era rules, characterized by weak partisan influence and a lack of the necessary political pluralism that accompanies democracy. It finds that, despite accelerating steps towards building partisan alliances and electoral consensuses, there are still structural obstacles hindering the establishment of a genuine parliamentary system, partly due to the weakness of political parties and the limitation of their legislative and procedural structure.

Rights groups and social movements in Egypt, including the April 6 Youth Movement developed the Transitional Justice Law based on previous experiences worldwide such as the South African one. Tunisia, which was the starting point of the Arab revolutions, beat Egypt to it by cooperating with the Ministry of Justice in South Africa. In 2003, Morocco established the Equity and Reconciliation Commission to look into human rights abuses from 1956-1999. This paper discusses the possibility of implementing the notion of transitional justice in Egypt and tries to use an approach that puts the national reconciliation and transitional justice mechanisms in their wider framework, i.e. democratic transition and institutional reform based on negotiations with political forces. The paper explores the philosophy of transitional justice, the organizational qualities that contribute to its success and the conditions that help overcome any arising challenges or possible resistance.

The current Sinai issue poses many questions on the nature of the escalating violence there, the reasons for its emergence

​This paper examines the state of Political Science in Egypt, suggesting that the Egyptian school of Political Science is facing a crisis and analyses the reasons why. It particularly focuses on the experience of the Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Economics, Cairo University, as the first specialized school for Political Science in Egypt, in view of the increasing roles played by its graduates in the public sphere. The study focuses on three key dimensions: the perceptions of this scholarly community regarding the role entrusted to political science in Egyptian society and politics, the changes in academic curricula, and the ideological and political contexts influencing teaching and research in political science in Egypt. The study concludes that the crisis of political science in Egypt is twofold: the crisis within the field in general and specific issues within the Egyptian context itself.