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This paper discusses international competition in Latin America between the United States, Russia, and China. Whilst the United States aims to maintain its traditional influence in the region based on the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 , which made Latin America a zone of exclusive influence for the US due to its geographic and economic significance. Russia and China instead seek to challenge this influence, on the one hand in the face of American expansionism in their respective vicinities, and on the other to bring about a multipolar global order. Moreover, the region is of economic importance to those states. The study arrives at the basic conclusion that the US still has the greatest military and economic presence in Latin America, but Russia and China have managed to penetrate the region by establishing military relations with anti-US regimes, most prominently Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Moreover, China has become an important trade partner to countries such as Brazil and Argentina, surpassed the US in trade volume with these states.

​This report documents the most significant Palestinian events and developments related to the Arab-Israeli conflict between July 1 and August 31, 2024.

This study advances a new approach to theorizing the Arab state after the popular uprisings. It does this in two steps. Suspending the western European model of state formation and bringing the Arab world's experience in conversation with other parts of the Global South, it examines alternative state formation and state building sequences, trajectories, and temporalities in the making of Arab states. It thus historicizes the process of state formation and state building in the Arab world as compared to the western European one and other regions in the Global South. This first step liberates us from explicit and implicit comparisons with the European model of state formation. The second step surveys alternative theorizations of the Arab state after the uprisings. Tracing the causal assumptions embedded in these theories reveals how much they rely on the European model of state formation and state building as an implicit point of analytic departure and critical comparison. This survey unpacks the assumptions these theories make about the state, the difference between states and regimes, state and non-state actors, the private and public realms, and the formal and informal sectors. The objective of this study is to not only de-exceptionalize states in the Arab world, but, more importantly, borrowing from Gurminder Bhambra, 'unmake' our understandings of state formation and state building in the Arab world and thus contribute, following Walter Mignolo, to a knowledge production that serves a form of 'epistemic reconstitution' of alternative historical trajectories and possibilities.

Several scholars studying the so-called authoritarian elections argue that the primary motivation for citizens to vote in the Arab world is the pursuit of individual (mostly material) interests driven by clientelism that may take the form of explicit vote-buying or granting services and privileges to electors. However, research overlooked the potential impact of citizens' evaluation of the regime's democratic level on electoral participation. The goal of this study is to fill this gap. The analysis of the eighth round of the Arab Opinion Index (2022) across nine Arab countries—Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, and Mauritania— reveals that individuals who perceive their country as more democratic are more likely to vote, regardless of objective indicators suggesting the undemocratic nature of the political system.

​This paper proposes an approach to studying the impact of the Internet on political culture through the concept of collective memory. Departing from the traditional approaches that confine political culture to knowledge, orientations, and behavior, to constructive and interpretive frameworks that define it through the process of "meaning-making," collective memory emerges as an essential component of political culture with its meanings, symbols, and narratives about political life. The paper concludes – from examining the case of the Egyptian Revolution of January 25, 2011 – that the development of the Internet may limit the role of the state and the elite in shaping political culture and collective memory, but it may also increase the severity of political and social polarization and weaken the culture of tolerance towards the other, and the chances of achieving social reconciliation, which is what we call the "paradox of collective memory".

This paper presents an overview of trends in public opinion in four Arab countries—Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine (covering the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) towards events in the Syrian crisis. The data presented in this paper draws on opinion polls, comprising of face-to-face interviews with representative samples within each of the countries named above, and conducted as part of the 2012 Arab Opinion Index. The results of the survey demonstrate that there is no sharp divide in public attitudes towards the Syrian crisis, with firm majorities across all countries believing that an ideal solution to the Syrian crisis lies in the overthrow of the current regime. Only 8% of respondents held the view that the best solution to the crisis in Syria would lie in the total vanquishing of the opposition.

This report includes documentation of the key milestones of democratic transition in the Arab world during the period from 1 January to 28 February 2026.

This report documents the most significant Palestinian developments and events related to the Arab-Israeli conflict during the period from November 1 to December 31, 2024.

​يتضمّن هذا التقرير توثيقًا لأبرز محطات التحول الديمقراطي في الوطن العربي في المدة 1 أيار/ مايو - 30 حزيران/ يونيو 2021.

​يرصد هذا الباب أبرز الوثائق السياسية ذات الصلة بالتحول الديمقراطي في الوطن العربي. وننشر في هذا العدد توثيقًا لأهم الوثائق في المدة 1 أيار/ مايو - 30 حزيران/ يونيو 2021.