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Has the 2011 Constitution Stalled the Democratic Transition of Morocco?

This study investigates the circumstances under which military governments leave power. It shows that there is no single path to get the military out of power, as there are no general rules for all cases. Nevertheless, several lessons are learned of which the most important is that military officers never relinquish power on their own. Rather, they are usually forced to leave it. In most cases, forcing the military to hand over authority requires a democratic opposition bloc that reaches a national consensus and agrees on a clear political strategy with an explicit goal. This will get the military out of power and establish a civilian government. A consensus or democratic bloc enables reformist democrats to change the balance of power for the benefit of democratic transition.

The major turning points of the Syrian revolution, beginning with the earliest public demonstrations on March 15, 2011, are here examined. The author revisits speeches made by President Bashar Al Assad in the early days of the uprising, in which he was quoted as discounting the likelihood of a revolution affecting Syria the way it did other Arab countries on the grounds that his government’s policies were in line with public sentiment. The paper then revisits the regime’s excessively violent repression of the first peaceful protests, which led to the militarization of the revolution. The author holds the international community, including the Arab League and the United Nations culpable for ensuing large scale slaughter of Syrian civilians, standing idly by even as it became apparent that Assad was mercilessly killing his own people. Meanwhile, Syria has become the site for a number of world and regional powers—including the United States, the United Kingdom, France Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China, Iran and Russia—to advance their fundamentally incompatible policies. As a consequence of these competing foreign interventions, the author contends that the return of normalcy in Syria will be impossible for the foreseeable future.

​A one-day academic symposium hosted by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies will bring together experts from Russia, the Arab world and the region to examine Moscow’s latest military intervention in Syria, on Saturday, October 24, 2015. While Russia’s decision to intervene directly in the conflict in Syria comes as the culmination of more than four years of diplomatic and military support for the Assad regime, the move by the Kremlin to deploy its military forces has come as a surprise to many observers, becoming a turning point not only in the militarized revolution within Syria, but also in the broader Middle East and indeed in a larger global arena. To better study the circumstances which gave rise to the Russian maneuver and the outcomes likely to result from it, the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies will convene “Russian Military Intervention in Syria: Motives, Objectives and Repercussions”. In the highly volatile climate which the Middle East is presently witnessing, selected participants at the meeting will be asked to examine the fallout of Russia’s actions on the future stability of the region.

The war against ISIL is a critical US national security interest. It not only threatens to create a major center of terrorism and extremism in a critical part of the Middle East, and one that could spread to threaten the flow of energy exports and the global economy, but could become a major center of international terrorism. It is important to understand, however, that ISIL is only one cause of instability in the region, and only one of the threats caused by spreading sectarian and ethnic violence. Iraq is a key case in point. No defeat of ISIL can bring Iraq security or stability, or give it the unity and independent strength to resist pressure from Iran and threats based in Syria and Turkey. No military course of action can—by itself – create a stable regime and economy, and reduce tension between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites, and Arabs and Kurds, to workable levels. Like Syria, Libya, and Yemen, military action must be joined to political and economic action and the creation of some form of viable governance.

This study addresses a manifestation of the crisis within contemporary Arab political theory by examining the status of justice and analyzing the methodologies employed by selected theorists in constructing their political visions relative to this concept. We highlight the importance of a philosophical perspective and the imperative for political thought to confront aspects of this crisis. The central thesis defended here posits the necessity of shifting the discourse on justice from an abstract, transcendental perspective, often encapsulated by the question, what is justice? towards a relative vision. This alternative vision considers how justice, as a value, becomes embedded within Arab moral and political consciousness. Such a reorientation requires recognizing the significance of justice, its cultural contextualization, and its integral relationship with the concept of justification.

The paper investigates and analyzes the regional and international interactions with the conflict in Libya, focusing on the period following the December 2015 political agreement in Skhirat, Morocco. The paper argues that this agreement is the result of a limited consensus among domestic and regional forces. These forces have moulded their foreign policies, over the course of the conflict, based on a balance between concerns over the political and economic effects of the Libyan democratic transition and their interests and ambitions for greater control and influence. The conflict of interests between the external forces was a substantial factor along with other internal determinants that have contributed to obstructing the democratic transition process. Therefore, this paper explores a series of research questions, mainly focusing on the role and behavior of the influential external forces in Libya's domestic politics.

Politicians are increasingly adopting populist rhetoric that is appealing to people's emotions and biases rather than their rational judgments. This rhetoric includes claims of representing the people (us) as opposed to the establishment and the traditional elite (them). Anti-elitist populism manifests in its opposition to facts, with populists becoming the main players who distort facts and spread disinformation. Therefore, populism and disinformation reinforce one other, creating a cycle of manipulation that undermines democracy. By conducting a comparative qualitative analysis of the speeches of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Egypt and Kais Saied in Tunisia, this study argues that there are four tactics, rely on disinformation, used by authoritarian populists to legitimize the obstruction of constitutional and institutional constraints and suppress the opposition: (1) constructing the people by creating the enemy; (2) attacking the media and democratic institutions; (3) creating illusion by amplifying achievements; and (4) employing conspiracy theory and misinformation to justify failure at fulfilling promises.

​This paper examines the state of Political Science in Egypt, suggesting that the Egyptian school of Political Science is facing a crisis and analyses the reasons why. It particularly focuses on the experience of the Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Economics, Cairo University, as the first specialized school for Political Science in Egypt, in view of the increasing roles played by its graduates in the public sphere. The study focuses on three key dimensions: the perceptions of this scholarly community regarding the role entrusted to political science in Egyptian society and politics, the changes in academic curricula, and the ideological and political contexts influencing teaching and research in political science in Egypt. The study concludes that the crisis of political science in Egypt is twofold: the crisis within the field in general and specific issues within the Egyptian context itself.

This research paper analyzes the internal and regional political context of the fifth Algerian presidential elections in an era of party pluralism. It observes the political phenomena witnessed during the elections by giving an interpretation of their political signification and their implication for a democratic transition. The author offers an analysis of the results and interprets the factors that governed the behavior of Algerian voters, who favored continuity over change.