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The debate continues over the "Arab Spring" revolutions and the evaluation of their results continues, especially within the framework of the "success-failure" dichotomy, based on sociological analysis tools that generally emphasize their shortcomings. This study argues that these revolutions have reformist goals with value-oriented and normative contents touching on the core of the political question, which are no less important than material goals such as regime overthrow. Attempting to provide an alternative interpretation of the Arab situation through a different epistemological approach, this study aims to demonstrate the non-material political content of the Arab revolutions by incorporating normative and sociological ideas and conceptions into a new conceptual and methodological approach. Accordingly, the study adresses the political dimensions of revolutionary demands: the decisive rejection of authoritarianism and affirmation of political rights. While attempting to refute the assessment of the Arab revolutions as a failure to achieve democratic transition, it posits that the non-material revolutionary purpose is to highlight a "return to politics" as a basis for future political and democratic change. This is a call to rethink all aspects of Arab politics and to establish new foundations for a contractual relationship between the state and society that meets the conditions of the time.

Book Title: The Yemeni Revolution: Background and Prospects [Arabic]

Globalization and extremism or radicalism are two important phenomena attracting unprecedented attention. They conquer an ever expanding space in traditional and modern media outlets today. Moreover, they have become major topics of research, academic studies, scholarly conferences and seminars, and specialized reports in think tank and policy-making circles. This fact raises important questions. Is there any relationship between globalization and radicalism in the world today? And if so, as this paper contends; what is its nature? What are the mechanisms behind it? And how does it manifest itself? These are major questions the paper attempts to answer. But before engaging in that, we need to consider the concepts themselves. What is Globalization and how it has come to be? What is Extremism, and what are its sources and consequences? What is radicalism, and how it relates to extremism? In what fields these two phenomena can be best observed.

This study reassesses the experience of political openness in Algeria within the analytical and explanatory categories of political economy. It is built on the premise that the transition from a totalitarian authoritarian regime to a democratic one presupposes the transition from a rentier economy linked to the external market and dominated by rentier groups, to a productive economy based on the national bourgeoisie exploitation of local labour to create wealth. The study argues that the experience of democratic transition in Algeria faltered due to the failure of the rentier groups to undergo capitalist transformation that could have allowed the emergence of the two main sides of the democratic equation: the bourgeoisie and the working class. The political elites that control the rentier economy were willing to accept political but not economic reforms that could have led to a reconsideration of the hegemonic relations within society and liberated it from the grip of power. In this regard, the failure of the economic reforms introduced by the Hamrouche government (1989 - 1991) was a prelude to the disruption of the democratic transition and prevention of the development of a civil society capable of gaining its independence from authority and, on the other hand, the independence of the Algerian state from the global market.

Early in the transitional justice process during and after the Tunisian revolution, the need arose to develop a full-fledged legal framework guaranteeing the rights of victims and, at the same time, of perpetrators. However, no sooner was transitional justice legislation ratified than progress towards the objective faltered. In an atmosphere of partisan political turbulence, the legislation resulted in weak outcomes. This led to the conclusion that the foremost problem of transitional justice does not lie in an absence of political will as much as in the philosophy on which it is founded. This philosophy adheres to liberal democratic values in facing the painful past and restoring rights to victims of despotism – by stipulating a set of rights that put the victim and the executioner on the same footing, without the slightest consideration of the balance of power between them. Consequently, perpetrators and torturers tend to dodge justice and recognition of truth, equating reconciliation with accountability.

This article examines what analytical eclecticism can offer to qualify IR to overcome the Grand Theory crisis. It debates analytical eclecticism’s basic promises relying on its main characteristics which distinguish it from the dominant research traditions/paradigms: fostering research pragmatism; expanding the scope of the research issues and involving more aspects of social reality complexities in world politics; and producing complex causal statements. The article is divided into six parts. First, it provides an introduction to eclectic philosophy through Paul Feyerabend’s reflections on methodological/epistemological relativism. Second, it conceptualizes analytical eclecticism and examines its promises. Third, it explores an example of eclectic literature in the field of international studies. Fourth, it debates the relationship between the promises of eclecticism and the complexity of social causality. Finally, it seeks, in parts 5 and 6, to position analytical eclecticism epistemologically, through examining the main assumptions of Critical Relaism and its promises to move the dominant debate away from the positivist/postpositivist binary opposition.

The current Sinai issue poses many questions on the nature of the escalating violence there, the reasons for its emergence

This study reads the performance of Egyptian political forces from the time of Mohamed Morsi’s election as president of the republic to the coup against him on July 3, 2013. In its first section, the study concludes that the behavior of all political actors can be understood as a search for allies from within the old regime’s centers of power; this despite the fact that these forces were the targets of the January 25 Revolution. Nonetheless, political parties seek out old guard forces hoping they will provide leverage for a position of power. This reality allowed the old regime – with its enormous capabilities—to rejoin the map of political forces instead of being held accountable. In its second section, the study tries to read the map of the protest movement on June 30, comparing this new map with one of the nation’s politics during the crisis of the constitutional declaration in November 2012. It concludes that the most important development in the nation’s political sphere has been the ability of the “deep state” to learn the skills of popular mobilization in the street. This came after it had failed to do so in the previous 36 months. Using its connections with a wide spectrum of social groups through networks of patronage and influence, which it had not thought of using in the spectacular “battle of the squares,” the “deep state” was able to become an active and influential political player capable of taking matters back to square one.

This article traces the different paths taken by constructivism in International Relations, from its emergence as a critical social theory in the 1980 s, in response to the third debate between positivist rationalists and post-positivist reflectivists, to Alexander Wendt's project to seize a middle ground and to bridge the rationalist–reflectivist epistemological gap. The article, then, examines the intra-debates among conventional and critical constructivists on Went's project, as well as the rise of the new constructivism after Wendt left the constructivist research program. The article explores the Wendtian project's epistemological tensions and demonstrates how such tensions led to a plurality within constructivism: modernist conventional and postmodernist critical (reflectivist). It highlights that Wendt's leaving constructivism and his shift to a quantum approach have not caused constructivism to decline, but instead, it continued to thrive through the efforts of a new generation of constructivists. The article argues that three main developments in International Relations over the past twenty years have contributed to its ongoing thriving: the decline of epistemological polarization among IR theories; the rise of critical realism as a philosophy of science in International Relations, and the emergence of analytical eclecticism.

This study deals with transnational Shiism and the dynamics of relations between the Shiʿi religious establishment and the post-colonial state in Iraq. It sheds light on two aspects of transnational Shiism. First, the evolution and internal dynamics of religious authority, especially in terms of adapting its transnational domain to the Iraqi national context. The study argues that the relationship between Shiʿi religious establishment and the state was often characterized by tension, as the state sought to consolidate its power within its borders. Yet, after 2003, the nature of relations between the two has significantly changed, leading to new configurations of authority. Second, the increasing polarization between activist transnational Shiism, which is today led by the Iranian state, and Iraq-centric Shiism became a key factor in shaping power relations in post-2003 Iraq.