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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.​

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.

​Qatari foreign policy presents a challenge for students of international relations. Whereas major theories within the field tend to privilege structural factors in explaining the action of states, and particularly small states, in the case of Qatar, the quality of leadership and the strategies that leadership employs to navigate through the structural constraints—primarily geography—are equally important. One of the main findings of this paper is that the strategies adopted by the Qatari elite since 1995 did alleviate many of the structural constraints which the country would otherwise have faced. Moreover, during the short-lived Arab Spring of 2011-2013, Qatar tried to reshape the political landscape in the Middle East to its favor, challenging the two regional hegemons Saudi Arabia and Iran, in Egypt and Syria respectively. Yet, the paper concludes, geopolitical factors and the relative capabilities of states remain instrumental in assuring a state’s sustained capacity to continue playing a key role. This is particularly true in a region where elite thinking continues to be defined by realpolitik.

Since the mid-1990s Morocco has traversed several stages of political and constitutional reforms. These were characterized by a restructuring of the political field in keeping with constitutional methodology and political consensus and were the precondition for the process of rapprochement between political actors. However, if this rapprochement or political openness transformed the electoral process into something diminished in practical terms, it in turn intensified the expansion of the protest arena, the accumulation of skills and experience among protesters, the development of more independent coordination capabilities, and the weakening of the regime's polarizing tendencies. This development imposes upon the political class a renewal of its discourse and means and modalities of communication, in the short and medium terms, to prevent continued erosion of its credibility.

The European General Court (EGC) decision on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam case cast a shadow so long that it has influenced the Court’s more recent decision to delist Hamas as a terrorist organization. This paper goes back to examine how Hamas movement was initially listed as a terrorist organization, and why this move failed to bring down the party. It then examines Hamas’ appeal to the EGC, the group’s use of soft power to wage political battle with Europe, and the nature of the Court’s decision, as well as the ongoing politicization of the Court as part of a larger move to shift how courts interact with groups like Palestine’s Islamic movement. Based on the EU’s appeal against the Court’s initial decision, the paper discusses EU options in case its motion is denied.

This study investigates the causes beneath the absence of non-Western theorizing efforts in the field of International Relations (IR), aiming to shed light on intellectually and politically defectiveness of the Arab World in the field, as manifested since the outbreak of the Arab Spring revolutions. To this end, the study discusses the position of the Arab World in IR and illustrates how the North (the Centre) deliberately ignores knowledge production on international relations from the South (the Periphery) through abstraction, reductionism, and exclusion. Finally, the study scrutinizes how the situation in the Arab World reflects the continuation of colonialism in two evident forms: epistemologically through the knowledge-power nexus; and by subjugation or keeping states, even those that are nominally independent, subservient to the Great Powers in international politics.

Transboundary rivers have been a source of increasing disputes due to growing populations and economies, as well as the consequences of environmental change. With the increase in river flow utilization, concerns about potential violent interstate conflicts have arisen in public debates. However, academic literature argues for more nuanced and evidence-based views of transboundary water conflicts and proposes problem-solving tools based on water diplomacy and cooperation. Using the Eastern Nile conflict as a case study, this paper identifies eight common misconceptions regarding the conflict surrounding the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). The paper contextualizes the GERD conflict within the broader transformation of river utilization towards greater competition for water use. The ongoing Eastern Nile conflict goes beyond technical affairs related to the dam operations and involves broader issues of rights to water use, national development, and climate variability and change. It is also embedded in complex regional hydro-politics that involves new actors. Recent academic evidence shows that Eastern Nile riparian countries (Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia) face unique negotiating realities and diverse environmental impacts as a result of the GERD conflict. The Eastern Nile conflict presents an opportunity to facilitate benefit-sharing in the Nile Basin. Water cooperation remains the only realistic option to resolve transboundary water conflicts in the region.

​This paper agrues that although the Arab Gulf is strategically located and of economic importance to China, the Gulf states did not fall along the original routes demarcated by the Belt and Road initiative roadmap. Nevertheless, both China and these states have begun to engage with the initiative and its projects by signing strategic partnerships, and to enmesh these projects with perspectives on national development in the Gulf. This has unsettled the United States and its allies, some of whom have begun to view this expansion as a serious challenge. As a result, there has been an attempt to impede the initiative's projects through debt-trap debate, geopolitical alliances, and putting forth alternative economic proposals. This study argues that the Gulf is of great concern to China and the requirements of the Belt and Road initiative, identifying where the Arab Gulf states are located on the initiative map and illustrating the way in which each state has gradually become involved in associated projects. It considers Western mechanisms and alternative projects in response to respond to and impede the initiative and the degree to which these mechanisms may apply to the Gulf states. The paper presents deductive observations as to China's likely approach in the event that the initiative is obstructed and its interests undermined. Will it modify its foreign strategy – and will this impact the Gulf?

Despite high levels of mass mobilization in the past, Palestinian society today finds itself polarized and demobilized. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has gained control as a governing apparatus and has become increasingly authoritarian in nature. But the PA does not have complete control over the territories. This variation in control allows isolation of the effect of the PA's authoritarian nature on mobilization patterns and social dynamics. The study argues that mobilization has systematically declined in places where the PA has more direct control. Counter-intuitively, political mobilization today is more prevalent in areas under direct Israeli occupation. Findings suggest the PA has a direct role in this dynamic, using selective cooptation and repression. Overall, authoritarian strategies in the Palestinian territories have led to decreased capacity for mobilization.

China's economic growth led to a concomitant expansion of its interests across the globe, and the Middle East and North Africa s today vital to the sustainability of that growth.