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It is difficult to imagine an influential presence for Salafism in Turkey despite the talk of the "spread" of Salafism there. This must be accompanied by methodological questions that articulate the challenges related to the intellectual environment of the Turkish society. It also relates to the historical context and political competition amongst the Sunni community. One question is "How could Salafism have such a powerful presence in a Sufi society, whose empire had adopted the 'opinion approach' of Abu Hanifa and Maturidi and whose modern republic had adopted the philosophy of the West and secularism?" Both are contrary to the Salafi approach based on tradition and the literal commitment to the texts of the Quran, Hadith and the sayings of 'al-Salaf a-Saleh'. Another question is "How can Salafism overcome the historical and psychological barrier in Turkey that formed as a result of Ottoman-Saudi disputes at the beginning of the nineteenth century and whose intellectual effects have continued until a recent time?"

The notions of superpower and unipolarity are seriously questioned by heavy trends: non-fungibility and dissemination of power; complexity of transnational interactions and interdependencies. The article argues that because of these mutations, China's rise, achieving the rank of "emerging potential superpower", and the narrowing of the gape on global power resources, the United State, who still have unmatched capacity, will probably be the last superpower in a Cold war era sense. The article concludes that unipolarity is not challenged because the operating interstate dynamics, in which involved actors which are supposed to work for building a multipolar world, contribute in fact to reproducing unipolarity.

This study breaks from the prevailing discourse portraying minorities as victims, presenting them as multi-dimensional historical actors and analysing their relationship with political modernity and national construction. It demonstrates how sectarian differences were sharpened and Ottoman culture facilitated the manipulation of minority groups by religious elites and the ruling clan. The Assad regime, supported by Alawi clientelism, fuelled fear of Sunni Islam. In addition, the revolution that began in 2011, accompanied by severe violent repression, has turned into a civil war. The Assad employs sectarian vocabulary that targets the Sunni majority in favour of the Shia minority and Iran. It views Damascus as the capital of minorities, seeking to restore demographic change in Syria. The study discusses factors to encourage a pluralist future Syria and focuses on the issue of the state model that must be redefined, taking into account the existence of all sects that share the same political culture, and all of them, including the Sunnis, demand guarantees.

​This article analyses the development of civil-military relations in Ethiopia and how they are affected by politics, culture and ethnicity whilst drawing on compatibility theory. It explores a fundamental issue: to what extent does ethnic and cultural diversity influence civil-military relations in Ethiopia? The article begins with the hypothesis that the military's interests and political affiliations arise from their vision of the nation-state's interest, and may conflict with the attitudes of civil institutions, complicating the separation between civil and military institutional mandates. The article demonstrates how the social structure and distribution of tribes has had an impact on the reform processes of successive political systems in Ethiopia. Moreover, it concludes that consensus in civil-military relations and civilian control of government will continue in the future if slogans of centralization and citizenship are actualized through legal and democratic methods based on the principles of justice and equality in rights and duties among all constituents.

Interest Iranian foreign policy in Africa could be treat back to the sixties of the last twentieth century, when African states attained their independence.

An increasing number of countries are turning to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to resolve their water disputes. This is a positive development, as it allows the court to establish and improve standards for the use of waterways and help resolve conflicts related to water. The court's decisions reflect the tension between sovereignty and international law. Some decisions prioritize sovereignty and treaties, while others give more weight to moral principles and social theories. However, the court chose not to address water as a human right. This paper focuses on the ICJ''s role in developing a body of international water law and argues that the court still values sovereignty in its interpretation of laws, which often limits protections for the rights of non-state groups.

Ukraine occupies a highly sensitive position between Russia and the Nato-member states because it is currently the main buffer state between them and also occupies more than half the extent of the eastern gateway to Europe, via which threats to Europe have passed throughout history. The continuation of European and Nato actions to incorporate and form partnerships with other states aims to curtail Russian influence in this region and reinforce control over it. Russia, deeply disturbed at the encroachment of Western influence to its wider immediate neighborhood, cannot abandon Ukraine to become part of the West's security and economic order. For, in addition to Russian nationalist feeling for Ukraine, it is part of its "special interest zone" and the final strategic stronghold buffering it from the West and its allies. The global tensions caused by the Ukraine crisis and the threat it poses to relations between two major global actors call for a discussion over the wider context to Ukraine's place in Western and Russian strategic thinking.

Current Russian policy is based on a nationalism that rests on state capitalism, and that speaks to nationalist sentiment built on the rejection of Western exploitation. This patriotic nationalist position becomes evident through the lack of any ideologically derived principles driving Russia’s position: state interests including national security are what drive current policy. The drivers for this new Russian policy mean that Russia can simultaneously suppress a separatist movement by armed force in one region and champion another separatist movement with armed force in another. In this sense, the Russian Federation has no fixed positions but only fixed interests, and even its interests can change. In Syria, critics suggest that the proximate aim of Russia’s policy is to defend the Assad regime, Moscow’s ally, from collapse. Saving the regime is not, however, an end in itself. Rather, it is a means of self-assertion and another step toward the goal of becoming a global superpower, this time in the Middle East. If the Syrian regime believes its rescue is the exclusive objective of Russia’s intervention, it is wrong. The exertion of Russian influence will at most provide a temporary respite. The mere fact of Russia’s military presence in Syria means that the regime is no longer master of its own destiny and no longer even a player on the international stage, since Russia is now its proxy at any international negotiations.

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 seminal article is one of the founding texts of Critical Theory in International Relations. In this article, Robert Cox advances a critical alternative to traditional International Relations theory by foregrounding the dialectical relationship between social forces, forms of state, and structures of world order, rather than limiting analysis to interactions among states as isolated units. Cox further distinguishes between problem-solving theory, which takes the existing order as a given and seeks to preserve and improve its functioning, and critical theory, which questions the historical conditions that produced that order, exposes its underlying power relations, and illuminates the possibilities for its transformation. He develops the concept of historical structures as continually evolving configurations composed of material capabilities, ideas, and institutions, and reconceptualizes hegemony as a congruence between power, ideology, and institutions, rather than as the mere material preponderance of a single state.