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This report highlights some of the major milestones of the Arab democratic transition. The countries covered include Tunisia, Egypt, Libya,Syria and Yemen.

This paper seeks to ascertain the extent of positive Arab public attitudes—or lack thereof—towards the Arab popular revolutions, after more than a year since the revolutions first broke out. The results show an overall positive attitude towards the Arab revolutions among the Arab public. When asked to provide reasons for their positive disposition towards the revolutions, respondents spoke of an "Arab Awakening" which laid the foundations for democratic governance in the Arab region by restoring the democratic rights of Arab citizens. Opposition to the Arab revolutions and their impacts accounted for only 25% of Arab public opinion. A majority of respondents who disapproved of the Arab revolutions blamed the failure of these popular movements to achieve their aims, as well as the resulting economic and political instability. In addition to broad overall support for the Arab revolutions, the Arab public credits the recent revolutions with improved treatment of the public by the police and other government officials in the Arab region.

Multiple International Relations theories brand the international system as anarchist. What is meant by anarchy here is the absence of a central authority at international level to settle conflicts between actors in the international system. This is why states always seek to attain more power, but to do so they cannot adopt idealist policies in the global arena. This theory applies to the way international powers dealt with the Arab revolutions in 2011. International interests in some cases played a key role in the revolutions' development and outcomes. This study characterizes the nature of the international system on the eve of the Arab revolutions and analyzes the degree to which these revolutions interacted with the international system and their outcomes based on the characterization it infers.

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.

Trends in Arab public opinion regarding the role of the external factor in democratic transition show a great deal of importance, in spite of the fact that citizens of the Arab region do not believe that the external factor is the fundamental impediment to democratic transition there. This paper presents trends in public opinion on the Arab Spring revolutions, focusing on Arab citizens' evaluations of the revolutions themselves and their subsequent standstill. It also presents trends in assessment of the policies of world and regional powers by analyzing the results of polling regarding the USA, Russia, Turkey and Iran, with the aim of investigating Arab citizens' opinions on issues of democratic transition.

This study examines how the 2023 Gaza War reshaped maritime security dynamics and geopolitical rivalry in the Red Sea, particularly in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, through a complex interplay between great powers and non-state actors. It demonstrates that the Houthi (Ansar Allah) attacks on commercial vessels –framed as support for Gaza – transformed the strait into a global flashpoint that exposed the vulnerability of international supply chains. The study also shows how these developments reactivated U.S.–China rivalry in the Red Sea: the United States adopted a military–security approach in support of Israel's war on Gaza and to reaffirm its role as guarantor of the maritime commons, while China favored a cautious strategy centered on economic influence, calculated non-involvement in military operations, and securing the passage of its vessels through discreet diplomatic channels. The study concludes that the Red Sea has become a space where U.S. naval dominance intersects with China's rising economic power, and where non-state actors increasingly shape regional and global security.

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

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.