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Palestine Over Two Months 1/5-30/6/2020

This paper presents Arab public opinion trends on the Palestinian issue, through data collected by the ACRPS-conducted Arab Opinion Index. It assesses whether Palestine is a pan-Arab issue or one that concerns Palestinians alone. It also evaluates Arab regional attitudes towards recognition of Israel and towards the positions and policies adopted by some international or regional powers towards Palestine. The paper demonstrates that Arab public opinion strongly leans towards dealing with Palestine on the basis that it is a pan-Arab issue, not specific to the Palestinian people alone. It also shows that public opinion in the region is almost unanimous (at a rate of 88%) in rejecting any national recognition of Israel and that the assessment of Arab public opinion of regional or international powers in the region is determined by their policies towards the Palestinian issue.

This article is an attempt to study the legitimization of the Moroccan political system by constitutional jurisprudence, considered as a concrete process within the science of constitutional law, and a social field that has witnessed struggles over epistemic authority. The structure and dynamism of this scientific field, and the appropriate political context, led to its transition from profane thought to traditionalism in the wake of the conservative revolution spearheaded by moroccan young researchers. This revolution, which constituted the kingdom of the constitutionalists, will shift from a counter field to a hegemonic one. This enabled the pioneers of traditionalism to participate in the process of legitimizing the political system in Morocco, through the production of constitutional documents broadcast and infused in symbolic violence through the constitutional lesson that will turn them, with the backing of the constitutional document and academic mentoring, into a scientific habitus.

This study conducts research on the traditional academic methods used in the Arab scholarly community. Specifically, it employs the case of legal science when addressing the following questions: Is the Arab academy in its field suffering from academic dependency? What forms does this take and what are the reasons behind it? Where does reviewing theoretical or conceptual frameworks of legal science fall in this? This study focuses on law as a method of social control in the methodological crisis undergone by the social sciences. This study refers to two crises examined by Arab legal science: identity crisis and functional crisis. These are illustrated by two main indicators: The gap between the quantitative growth of the number of law students and the weak production of legal research knowledge, the gap between the quantitative development of the educational institutions of law and of legal structures.

This report reviews Algerian public confidence in the army based on the results of the Arab Opinion Index from 2011- 2019/2020 and places the respondents’ opinions in their historical context, which roughly spans the second half of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s rule and the rise of the Hirak popular movement in February 2019. It concludes that the army still enjoys the confidence of the majority of respondents, and that levels of confidence are governed by the societal perception of a role played by the army in the transition process, in addition to the absence of repression. Comparing trust in the army with other institutions, the report reveals that respondents express a lack of confidence in political parties, elected institutions, and the government in contrast to high confidence in the judiciary.

The Arab Opinion Index 2019/2020 data on the Algerian Hirak shows the consolidation of the phenomenon of taking to the streets to protest as the dominant form of expression of political, economic, and social demands at a time when forms of institutional political participation, such as party and trade union membership, are declining. The Index results confirmed that tyranny, monopolisation of power and corruption are the main factors that led people to protest and gave the movement the great dynamism that characterises it. Although the Algerian street movement succeeded in forcing Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the former President of Algeria, to resign, preventing him from running for a fifth term as president and raising hopes for an improvement in economic and social indicators, these hopes quickly faded after the conviction grew that the regime had not changed and that the general situation remained as it was before.

The contemporary Yemeni state is characterized by strife and complications involving all aspects of the state and society. These complexities go back to the era of its inception and continue today, leaving serious implications for the political, geographic and social unity of Yemen. There are very clear intersections between the internal (political, economic, social) and external components, which contribute to the sustained crisis in the Yemeni state. Successive Yemeni governments have failed to fulfill their assumed duties and functions, thus preventing them from dealing with all kinds of foreign interventions. Moreover, tribal and sectarian roles in Yemen have historically prevailed over other Yemeni political roles, which have not succeeded in transferring Yemen to civil rule. Nor have they managed to build a democratic model that achieves stability and allows Yemenis to participate actively in the political and economic process, consolidate the concepts of citizenship and the rule of law, and safeguard the various rights and freedoms of all members of Yemeni society.

The current political scene has warned that Yemen could face huge threats in the coming years. The worst of these is the collapse of the country itself, in facing a comprehensive civil war. However, there is optimism that the outcomes of the national dialogue conference—which gained acceptance from core parties—will be entirely implementable. With optimism that the political scene is on a stable track, the economic situation is the next concern, with a distinct possibility that the country’s economic situation will get worse, with a spillover effect on the political situation. This paper presents Yemeni political history and describes the nation’s acting forces. The study shows the challenges of development that Yemen faces and the impacts of the 2011 uprising on this development, as well as the factors that led to the uprising. It then outlines the challenges to be faced by Yemen in the coming stages, and gives suggestions that might help in overcoming the difficulties facing stability and chances of comprehensive development.

This text presents public opinion trends towards a set of public policies in Arab countries, using Arab Index data. This text focuses on citizens' evaluations of their governments, due to the importance of this evaluation itself, in addition to what it reflects about the trends in the nature of the relationship between the citizen and the state in the Arab countries. This assumption is tested through a wide range of questions that measure the level of confidence in the three state authorities, the extent of confidence in the basic executive bodies, and the use a set of detailed indicators that address the evaluation of the performance of the legislative councils in carrying out their roles and the performance of governments in providing basic services. The text uses the two indicators of the priorities of Arab citizens and the priorities of spending in the state budget from the point of view of public opinion, and the evaluation of government performance.

This study tackles the structure of the Yemeni state, focusing on the potential for federalism (or the "unionist" model) in the country. The first of five sections conceptualizes the federal state, the second deals with early demands to change the state structure while the third reviews the crystallization of these demands, and the fourth presents different political forces' visions of the state structure in the comprehensive National Dialogue Conference. The final section addresses the concerns and challenges regarding the transition to federalism. The author concludes that any political settlement to the conflict in Yemen will inevitable move the structure of the Yemeni state towards federalism and recommends that for the transition to the federal state to be successful, it must be gradual and win unanimous support from across Yemeni society.