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Following the ouster of President elect Mohamed Morsi after only one year in power, this paper looks at the future of elections in Egypt. Without any political party that holds the support of the masses, or the possibility of making up for this by building strong partisan alliances, the paper examines the rules of political practice and the nature of legislations based on the 2014 constitution in order to find a way forward amid a current deadlock. It finds a current legal and legislative condition that has restored Mubarak-era rules, characterized by weak partisan influence and a lack of the necessary political pluralism that accompanies democracy. It finds that, despite accelerating steps towards building partisan alliances and electoral consensuses, there are still structural obstacles hindering the establishment of a genuine parliamentary system, partly due to the weakness of political parties and the limitation of their legislative and procedural structure.

Sponsored by the “Safer World” foundation, based in the United Kingdom, this meeting held at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies examined possibilities for the spreading of peace and stability across conflict hotspots around the globe.

The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and its capture of vast territories in the Fertile Crescent, has confounded the political calculations of a number of all major political players invested in the Arab region, including regional and global powers. With the failure of regional actors to contain the group, the United States was forced to backtrack on its military withdrawal from the region—when it pulled its troops out of Iraq—and become involved, anew, in the Middle East.

​The splitting, renaming and merging of factions can lead to the start of new rivalries, or in some cases, end existing ones. A new faction may inherit the original faction's previous rivalries with other groups, and if a faction name change results in a total restructure, it may signal the end of the rivalry. However, this was not the case when Jabhat al-Nusra renamed itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, and later Tahrir al-Sham. It was considered a 'cosmetic' and superficial change because it did not develop a new structure. This article will shed light on exclusionary politics and the political ramifications of sectarianism caused by certain jihadist movements, such as Jabhat al-Nusra (presently known as Tahrir al-Sham), enabling us to analyse its practices, especially towards minorities, and sectarian ideologies present in Idlib, and which ultimately led to the expulsion of many who fled outside the governorate. The article also calls attention to the roles of regional and international powers in Idlib against the backdrop of opposition factions, and their physical and ideological influence on Islamist forces that frequently facilitated displacement within and outside the city.

The basic hypothesis of the study is summarized in Israel's ongoing efforts to maintain its monopoly on nuclear weapons in the Middle East for as long as possible, and its various political, diplomatic, security, military, and economic activities to prevent Iran and any other country in the Middle East from obtaining nuclear weapons. The study examines Israel's policy, which calls for imposing the maximum international economic sanctions on Iran, manifested in its complete abandonment of the nuclear project or the overthrow of the Iranian regime. It presents Israel's policy towards the negotiations to return to the Iranian nuclear deal and the strategic confusion in which Israel finds itself due to many mistaken assumptions adopted by the Benjamin Netanyahu government regarding the Iranian nuclear project. It also discusses Israel's goals in the "war between wars" it wages against Iran and the major strategy against Iran advocated by the Israeli military establishment, as well as Israel's efforts to establish an Israeli-Arab-American military alliance against Iran. The study also presents the Israeli vision of the Israeli military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and the risks and problems it faces.

The study examines wealth and power in the US energy policy in the Gulf region using the international political economy approach, which proposes a relationship of mutual influence between the market and foreign policy. The study is based on two main analytical approaches: economic liberalism and economic realism. By tracking the course of US energy policy in the Gulf, the study extrapolates factors determining US energy security interests between twofold economic and political objectives; creating wealth and maximizing power. It also looks at the weighting factors of one at the expense of the other or the extent to which they are merged. It also aims to assess the future of the US approach to the region given Washington's energy independence strategy. The study argues that the critical impact of energy, especially oil, on economic development and the well-being of nations cannot be ignored.

​This paper will present a study of the challenges posed by the Tunisian transitional phase since the country's successful popular revolution; specifically, it will examine the problem from the perspective of the Tunisian General Labor Union. Any appropriate discussion of the Tunisian post-revolutionary transitional phase would call for an understanding of the theory of transitional phases, the author has chosen to focus primarily on the conceptual framework of civil society. He did this, however, only after highlighting some of the theoretical limitations of the concept of a civil society. With this in mind, Tunisia's General Labor Union remains one of the most significant pillars of Tunisian civil society. For the purposes of this paper, "civil society" is defined as those social forces which defend the ideals of justice and dignity and which fight to undo the subcultures and structures which have hindered political freedoms in Tunisia.

This study explore the concepts of populism and “the people,” linking them to ideology, hegemony, and the making of modern sport in Western liberal-capitalist democracies. While populism is widely seen as a useful way to understand oppositions between “the people” and elites, This study particularly interested here in what happens when self-styled populist political leaders actually govern, ostensibly on the people’s behalf. To illustrate this, the study consider two examples of self-styled populist leaders from different eras – Benito Mussolini and Donald Trump – that have used sport to promote narrow, ideologically laden, conceptions of “the people.” Through these examples the study argue that the concept of populism on its own does not provide a comprehensive understanding of political and cultural struggles in sport today, nor does it provide adequate guidelines for oppositional political strategies.

The study defines the "external factor" and determines its impact on the transition process. The study notes that the role of these factors in transition is different from that of "democratization" if the external influence of the revolutions is minimal. This is especially so in the case of spontaneous popular revolutions where the external factor may be influential in the democratic transition, although its impact is decisive only when accompanied by facilitating domestic factors. The study shows the relationship between the external factor and the geostrategic location of the Arab state whereby the external factor becomes more important according to the importance of the state. The study follows the evolution of the principle of supporting democracy in US politics, which has been linked to US interests and has ended up supporting regime stability. It also monitors a regional and international trend of "promoting autocracy".

This study explores the challenges facing Indian foreign policy in West Asia, especially the attempt to balance the forces in the Arab Region in light of competition between West Asian states to spread their influence. It argues that Arab countries have demonstrated a willingness to see India undertake a greater role in maintaining peace and stability in the region. But Indian strategies seem limited, not only requiring bilateral collaboration, but also to rationalize their competitive relations at the regional and global levels. The study argues that India must redraw its strategic vision of the region, as well as its regional and global partnerships with China, Pakistan, Russia and the United States, a process that will undoubtedly have repercussions for India's traditional reluctant West Asia policy.