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This study monitors the role of external factors in the stability of Moroccan authoritarianism and controling the liberalization methods pursued by the government over two stages: the final years of the Cold War and the 2011 Arab Spring. As much as these factors contributed to widening the margin of liberalization in the Moroccan political arena, they also contributed to limiting this liberalization (September 11, the post-2013 counterrevolutionary movement), especially given the lack of internal will to mature it. While it is true that these factors have made an impact, this remained within certain limits that allowed actors abroad (the United States, the European Union and donor institutions) to control the transformations of Moroccan politics and to manage contradictions, thus creating an environment hostile to democratic transition in Morocco.

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?

In September 2018 it will have been thirteen years since the referendum on the reconciliation plan in Algeria. This paper considers the details and achievements of the plan by investigation of the concept and objectives of national reconciliation and the historical framework of the Algerian crisis, critiquing the plan in order to establish new horizons for reconciliation. It examines the historical context of Algeria's national reconciliation, and then the chronology of the path to national reconciliation. It then moves on to study the Algerian journey of reconciliation through a thorough reading of the draft Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation. Finally, the paper determines the extent of the advances made in establishing peace and coexistence in the Algerian homeland and also identifies some of the gaps in the reconciliation experience, and suggests ways to unlock potential achievements.

This paper explores the difficulties of the city and governorate of Kirkuk, specifically the problems from its diverse composition. Kirkuk has been described as a “microcosm of Iraq”, in recognition of the ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious diversity in the region. This gives added impetus to finding a resolution to the difficulties of governance in the governorate-city: a solution to the problems in Kirkuk could have positive reverberations for the rest of Iraq.The governorate’s problems began in the wake of the discovery of oil there, with a gradual effort towards “Arabization” of the population there undertaken by the then-government of Saddam. This led to the formation of clear ethnic fault lines, which became clearer following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. At that point, Kirkuk became even more polarized, serving to further entrench the problems of governance in the region. Based on the existing literature on Kirkuk, on the Iraqi constitution and the experience of government in Iraq since 2003, this paper proposes consociational democracy as the preferred approach to resolving Kirkuk’s long-outstanding issues, including the disputes resulting from religious and ethnic differences typical of pluralist societies.

In recent years, phrases such as “migrant crisis” and “illegal migration” have gained increased currency as means of describing larger waves of migration to Europe. International law rests on the assumption that refuge and asylum are always “legitimate”, thus failing to provide a justification for the use of terms such as “illegal migration”. As a response, in this paper the author adopts the term “illicit migration” to refer to undeclared migration which does not pass through official channels, and which, he argues, is a clearer expression of the phenomenon currently underway, in which large numbers of migrants seek to secretly enter the borders of their destination countries. The topic under discussion has particular importance due to the reflexive way in which European countries tie migration to extremism. This has spurred European nations to increase reliance on an “iron shield” erected to isolate themselves from those landing on their shores from the southern end of the Mediterranean, and with no distinctions made between refugees legitimately seeking refuge from armed conflict and those seeking to “ride the wave”.

The 2011 Arab uprisings sparked hopes for positive change in the regional politics of the Middle East. The uprisings not only challenged the authority of states at the domestic level but seemed poised to disrupt regional geopolitics and alter the position of the Middle East in the international system. With the outbreak of civil wars in Syria, Libya, and Sudan, military interventions in Bahrain and Yemen, and the unprecedented proliferation of armed non- state actors in the region, the uprisings seem to drive important changes in the nature of the state and its regional and international role. Despite its artificial inception and its puzzling survival throughout the 20 th century, the Arab State faces challenges in the post- 2011 era and its vulnerabilities have been exposed. While the uprisings may have weakened Arab states, changes at regional and international levels created permissive conditions to challenge the regional state system. Hamas's 7 October 2023 operation and Israel's ensuing wars in the region have further exacerbated state erosion and reinvigorated post- 2011 regional dynamics. This paper examines how structural international and regional conditions have reshaped statehood and agency in the region post- 2011. It also explores how the responses of Arab states to international conditions and the regional reverberations of the uprisings have further generated disintegrative effects for the Arab state.

The recently announced discovery of gas off the coast of Palestine will turn Israel from an importer of gas into a producer or even an exporter. This study casts light on the likely geopolitical implications of these discoveries for Israel, for the Middle East, and for the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In light of a comprehensive overview of the regional energy map, the study considers the main regional implications of these discoveries, including economic and financial effects for Israel, its strategic position in the region, the effect on the dispute between Lebanon and Israel over maritime borders, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Another significant effect concerns the dispute between Turkey and Cyprus which has led to economic, political, and military rapprochement between Israel, Cyprus, and Greece in recent years, and has the potential to develop into a new strategic axis between those three states. The study also deals with the American-NATO dimension and the efforts of the United States to dampen down the crisis in the region. There is also a Russian dimension reflected in the concern of Russian energy companies with these discoveries and their efforts to participate in exploiting them. In conclusion, the paper puts forward a vision of the future around the importance of Arab coordination to confront the future challenges arising from these discoveries for the Arab region and for the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Today, India is actively engaged in projecting its influence beyond its geographic proximity. It has a proactive policy based on national interests and driven by its growing needs, particularly for energy imports, and an ambition to achieve a position of global prominence. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is of great geopolitical importance to India's strategy because of its geographic proximity, the abundance of energy resources, the great financial assets, and as the place with the largest Indian immigrant community. Nevertheless, many regional contenders may challenge India's interests in the region. This article discusses the geopolitical and economic importance of the GCC states and their current position in India's strategy. It explores the driving forces behind novel strategic partnerships between them. It also analyses how third-party relations with the GCC states or India may affect their relationships, such as China, Pakistan, and Iran. It also focuses on the new containment policy of India and China and their geopolitical contest over the Gulf and the GCC's hydrocarbon and financial assets.

This study attempts to determine the latest changes in the US-Saudi alliance and reflect on its destabilization. Specifically, it aims to determine whether the current crisis in US-Saudi relations might actually lead to a rift. Alternatively, the current events could be nothing but a temporary breakup depending on each country’s vision of its interests, after which relations could resume. The study reached some important results. It concluded, for example, that the speculation of a collapse of the US-Saudi alliance and its replacement with the US-Iranian alliance is farfetched and lacks depth. It is politically impossible and strategically inoperable for the US to side with Iran at the expense of Saudi Arabia amid the current polarization.

​In this section you will find the most important documents on democratic change in the Arab world. In this issue, we publish documents highlighting the political movement in Tunisia demanding democracy and look at the main political changes in Sudan, Iraq and Jordan in March and April 2022.