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Case studies as a research method are drawing increasing interest from social sciences and humanities researchers, but they pose challenges regarding the ability to generalize and make conclusions that can be applied to other cases. Is it possible to generalize the results of one case, and to apply them in other cases that have not been studied? To answer this, several advocates of qualitative research have developed "in-case" analysis methods that enable inference and respond to critics of the case study method. One of the notable contributions from the evolution movement was what researchers called "Process Tracing." This study aims to consider the methodological contribution that this "tracing" has made to qualitative research related to the case study method in the social sciences. The paper is motivated by the new methodological contributions of the Process Tracing, which have taken qualitative research, especially the case study method, to new horizons.

This paper discusses the proposition of the rise of social Islam in Morocco by studying the country's two largest political Islam movements, the Justice and Charity Association (jamāʿat al-ʿadl wa-l-iḥsān) and the Unity and Reform Movement (ḥarakat al tawḥīd wa l-iṣlāḥ). It focuses on the concept of social Islam which implies the provision of financial and in-kind assistance and healthcare, education, athletic, artistic, and pedagogical services to a variety of social strata. The study proceeds from the rise of social Islam, how it relates to the concept of the urban poor under the development "crisis" Morocco has faced since the 1980s, and highlighting the social implications for the most important social stratum: the lower middle class and the poor. The study shows that the Islamist movements under study have managed to form new and old bonds of solidarity on a religious or tribalist basis, which have replaced traditional forms of solidarity that previously used to embrace the lower and lower middle classes.

Specialists in the philosophy of social sciences preach simplicity in choosing variables during research design, the aim of which is to avoid the complexity of abundance, reducing the clarity and logical consistency of the thesis. The rule of using limited variables is based on the methodological rule called the "Principle of Parsimony" which means that the most acceptable explanation is the simplest and stipulates the use of the lowest possible number of variables in order to explain the maximum possible number of phenomena. This study introduces this principle and examines the reasons for its absence from political research by assuming that the reason for the lack of parsimony in political research, and the tendency of researchers to use multiple variables, is the widespread "methodologist" tendency, which emerges as a type of excessive confidence in the reliability of the method.

This study examines the explanatory power of realism in the context of the Grand Renaissance Dam crisis between Egypt and Ethiopia, drawings on concepts from deterrence theory, and the counter hegemonic challenges posed by revisionist states. It adopts a broader understanding of hegemony incorporating the concept of hydro- hegemony, where Ethiopia's behaviour is seen as a direct challenge to Egypt's established hegemony in the Nile Basin. The study concludes that the dam crisis illustrates both the strength and weaknesses of the realist perspective. On one hand, it affirms realist assumptions regarding the significance of power dynamics, alliance building, conflict of interests, relative gains, and the influence of the international system on state behavior. Conversely, the crisis also reveals the limitations of realism, particularly its to overlook internal factors and the importance of non-material sources of power in advancing states' interests and reinforcing their hegemony.

​This study fits into a broad category of scholarship concerned with transitional periods in various political systems. Specifically, it examines the political transition in post-revolutionary Tunisia since 2011. It does so by comparing the legal provisions of the post-revolutionary transition - the major texts, which define the transitional stage - and the political realities, which take the shape of events, actions and political discourse. A point of particular focus is the 2011 elections to the National Constituent Assembly, which the author analyzes through the rubric of "electoral engineering". One more conclusion of the paper is that electoral engineering remains a feature of Tunisian politics, although it has gone from "authoritarian electoral engineering" to "democratic electoral engineering," reflecting changes which have taken in the country as a whole.

The study aims to investigating the matter of constructing a statistical index to measure the level of political culture in the Arab countries, based on methodological triangulation; that is, using more than one tool to identify the characteristics of political culture and its component elements, as well as collecting and classifying data and determining the optimal statistical method to calculate the sub-indices with a focus on quantitative measurement. Depending on the results of the exploratory study, the level of the political culture indicators in concerning the cognitive and affective dimensions is slightly below average (50 points out of 100), which is an encouraging outcome in a context characterized by low educational level and rural concentration. On the other hand, the political culture index concerning the evaluative dimension recorded a rather low score (37 points out of 100), reflecting an insufficiency of interest in making judgments and attitudes towards political institutions and issues in the community study.

This article deals with the post-2003 consociationalist experiment in Iraq. It examines the reasons why this experiment has failed in producing a reasonably coherent governing formula. It argues that, because of their emphasis on identity politics and not on making mutual concessions in the interest of serious statebuilding, the main players in this experiment (Shia, Sunni and Kurdish political elites) failed to appreciate the complexity of the consociationalist arrangement, let alone use it for public interest. The article focuses on the central role that the Shia Islamist parties played in making this failure happen, highlighting, as reasons, their insistence on an essentially sectarian rhetoric and their attempt to enforce it as a national identity. The article finally proposes a different rhetoric that can accommodate Iraq's ethnic and religious diversity.

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.

This review examines complexity theory in international relations, assesses the lessons of complexity theory, and explores why complex thinking is marginalized in international theory.

Although the academic study of International Relations (IR) in the Arab world has been ongoing for almost seventy years, there remains a dearth of information regarding its origins that can be attributed, in part, to a lack of research on the state of the field. The present study seeks to address this gap by conducting an examination of the state of IR in the Arab World over the course of a century. Additionally, this study proposes a novel method for evaluating the current state of the field and assessing its scientific output. To achieve these objectives, the study applies sociological generational analysis to three generations of Arab IR scholars, then examines their contributions to four key aspects of the field: the scientific production cycle, the formation of the scientific community, the development of its institutional structure, and relative autonomy from political science.