Latest Articles

The youth revolution in Yemen at the beginning of 2011 kindled a ray of hope that the walls of tyranny could be broken down and the country could be pulled back from the clutches of narrowly defined identities. It sharpened the will that formed a “historical bloc” capable of rendering democratic transition successful. However, the youth revolution never transcended the ecstasy of a romantic revolutionary act to reach the stage of building institutions capable of enforcing respect for the law and accommodating ethnic, tribal, sectarian and political pluralism. This study addresses the impact of the Saudi-Iranian role on Yemen's transition. It is premised on considerable importance attached regional factors, which perhaps have even greater influence than domestic factors on the outcome of the Yemeni revolution. The study stresses that the effects and limits of regional factors are related to several variables, such as the vicissitudes of international politics; international and regional balances and interests; as well as the strategic location of the country subject to interference; its resources; its internal dynamics; the maturity of local elites; the weight of political opposition; and the quality of institutions.

The Gulf states, collectively and individually, no longer enjoy the luxury of stability and security they did over the three decades that preceded the outbreak of the Arab Spring. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) now faces new kinds of threats more serious than any since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime at the hands of American forces in 2003. Notably, to date the GCC States have been among the states that have benefited most from the fall of dictatorial regimes in countries such as Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. The UAE, for instance, has benefited in particular, becoming the favored destination for direct foreign investment in the region. The growing spread of regional instability however has created what could be called an unstable backyard for the Gulf, as its security and stability is threated in unprecedented fashion on a number of fronts, locally, regionally, and internationally. The GCC states must therefore adjust and change their political and strategic practices and policies so as to become more capable and more flexible in confronting and managing conflicts and crises. Ultimately, it is not just their security which is under threat but their very existence.

This report includes documentation of the most important Palestinian facts and events related to the Arab-Israeli conflict in the period from Septemper 1 to October 31, 2022.

In 2015, Lebanon witnessed the emergence of a massive contentious movement, known as "You Stink", in response to the unfolding of the waste crisis when the main landfill known as "Naameh" was closed. Though other opposition movements preceded it in the post-war period, "You Stink" succeeded in positioning itself as a threat to the continuity in power of the informal pillars of political power- the "politically relevant elites". Accordingly, the aim of the paper is to identify first those who are influential in framing national political agendas, hence targeted by the movement itself. Second, based on semi-structured interviews conducted with key activists within "You Stink", the paper provides an exploratory analysis of the zu'ama's receptivity to it, unpacking the strategies employed to neutralize the movement. It concludes that in addition to obstructive strategies put into play by the zu'ama, certain operative caveats within the movement itself, acted as "political opportunities" to the former's capacity to neutralize and weaken the movement.

The paper focuses on transnational human rights activism and its efforts to influence the human rights landscape in Egypt. It argues that the global human rights system has provided a space for resisting authoritarianism in Egypt and that its significance has grown amid the widespread restrictions on civil and political rights, as well as the forced or voluntary relocation of many human rights activists and political actors into exile. The paper further reveals that the extent of the Egyptian government’s response to pressures from transnational networks is shaped by domestic, regional, and international conditions and factors—including the impact of counter- discourses and strategies that enable authoritarian regimes to contain and weaken the effects of transnational networks. The paper draws on a diverse set of primary and secondary sources, including publications from international and local human rights organizations, government statements, and media reports, in addition to semi- structured interviews with a group of Egyptian human rights defenders.

This study discusses Saudi-Iranian rivalry in the Persian Gulf, focusing on political, economic, strategic, historical, and religious dimensions. It details the escalation of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran since 1979 up until 2019, before delving into the agreement to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries in March 2023. The study concludes that countries in the international system tend to maximize their capabilities and enhance their power; which sometimes leads to escalation in hostilities and the pursuit of an arms race. Iran's security strategy also includes enhancing its power and capabilities in pursuit of regional hegemony. Saudi Arabia sees Iran as its greatest security threat, whereby Iran poses multiple air, sea, and cyber security challenges to the Kingdom.​

This section lists the most prominent political documents related to the democratic transition in the Arab world. In this issue we publish documents related to the reaction of Tunisian political currents on the issue of dissolving parliament and dismissing the government, the reaction of the coordination framework of Shiite forces rejecting the election results in Iraq, and the reaction of the Sudanese government and the Sudanese Association to the coup measures taken by the President of the Sudanese Sovereign Council, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan . We will stop when the documents are published between September 1 and October 31, 2021.

The study presents the problems of structural politicization in political studies, and the danger of methodological debates transforming into political confrontations, a situation that has been repeated in the ongoing debate between the advocates and opponents of secularism. The study demonstrated that the necessity of the political dimension, and/or the political dependencies of every "scientific" approach to politics does not necessarily mean acceptance of unrestricted politicization. It is possible to acknowledge the political content of treatment without slipping into politicization. From this standpoint, criticism of underlying or structural politicization, as in Edward Said's criticism of Orientalism and Western Centralism, cannot be compared to the way that Israel's supporters crudely politicize US Middle East studies in their battle to hold it hostage to the interests of Israel and the extreme right. In the same vein, the study critically addresses the opinion that "area studies" in political science is marked by theoretical poverty and academic inferiority. The study itself leans towards the opinion that so called "theoretical studies" are in fact "area studies" that take western countries as the testing ground for political experiences and seek to generalize the results in the form of "theories" that enjoy universal validity.

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?

Since the outbreak of the Arab uprisings in 2010-2011, the teaching of public administration has been constantly evolving. Cases from Morocco, Qatar, and other countries in the Arab region have demonstrated the need for more robust cultural competency approaches on all major disciplines in public administration at the master's degree level. The Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) and the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA) have also intensified their focus is on preparing students and faculty for culturally diverse workplaces and establishing departments for effective public administration in the Arab region. Through applying qualitative analysis of documents and content in presenting relevant research published in the English language in the past two decades, this study examines the impact of the value added by the inclusion of cultural competency skills in public administration programs in the MENA region on good governance. It also suggests possible avenues for future US-Middle East partnerships to address training and educational gaps.