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This study discusses Saudi-Iranian rivalry in the Persian Gulf, focusing on political, economic, strategic, historical, and religious dimensions. It details the escalation of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran since 1979 up until 2019, before delving into the agreement to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries in March 2023. The study concludes that countries in the international system tend to maximize their capabilities and enhance their power; which sometimes leads to escalation in hostilities and the pursuit of an arms race. Iran's security strategy also includes enhancing its power and capabilities in pursuit of regional hegemony. Saudi Arabia sees Iran as its greatest security threat, whereby Iran poses multiple air, sea, and cyber security challenges to the Kingdom.​

This study investigates the role of the police apparatus in Egypt during the 2011 revolution and the subsequent counter-revolution following the 2013 coup. It begins by examining the relationships between the Military Council, President Mohamed Morsi, and the police apparatus. The study then explores how the Ministry of Interior and its security agencies reverted to their previous repressive practices, including extrajudicial killings and torture. The research highlights that the security apparatus remained fragmented, marked by overlapping authorities and a focus on resource competition rather than coordination. However, the existential threat posed by the 2011 revolution compelled the apparatus to unify against the tangible threat of popular unrest. Following 2013 , the military, security and intelligence agencies furthered the suppression of opposition in various forms, largely evading accountability.

Globally, many countries are implementing decentralization programs as a means of promoting both democratic and developmental objectives. Unfortunately, however, scholarship has yet to offer a comprehensive framework within which to assess and reform central-local relations. This article seeks to overcome the "division of labor" that has long separated analyses of administrative and political structures, and to provide stronger conceptual vocabulary for describing and analyzing the complexities of centralization and decentralization in both administration and politics. After developing two distinct continua of administrative and political centralization/ decentralization, the paper then combines them in a single matrix able to highlight the wide range of strategies and outcomes that emerge from the complex interplay of the two spheres. Depending on where a country lies within the matrix, it is argued, decentralization strategies may do more harm than good. Devolution strategies are especially problematic in settings with strong local leaders, and should never be attempted without careful analysis of the preexisting character of central-local ties.

This critique contests Francis Fukuyama's ideas in the first volume devoted to the study of political evolution from pre-human times until the French and American revolutions. The second volume follows the same story and follows the development to this day.

The premise of this study is the belief that there is a crisis in contemporary liberal democracy resulting from the tension between two traditions: one democratic and the other liberal. The spread of right-wing populism in the West is not a new phenomenon, but rather a new manifestation of what may be called a permanent crisis of democracy. The study distinguishes populism from totalitarian ideological movements that gain popular support through demagogy and incitement against the other and reviews existing tensions in the structure of liberal democracy. The paper finds that populist rhetoric is channeled through tensions in the structure of liberal democracy and translates social anger into criticism of the democratic system itself, by using one component of a complex democratic system against another.

Given the unrest boiling in the region, this paper considers the possibility of partitioning the countries of the Levant. Given the state of affairs and current political indicators in Syria and Iraq, which suggest the Kurds have started to regain their national unity and awareness, the group is now the only faction in the Levant fighting on nationalist or ethnic bases. What makes it easier for them to establish a viable Kurdish entity, at the local level, is the fact that they have huge economic, political, human, and military potential. This paper examines local and international contexts and obstacles to the establishment of a Kurdish state. It also argues that it will be unlikely, meanwhile, that sectarian entities could be created in Syria and Iraq given current local and international circumstances. Indeed, sectarian tension is nothing more than social tension that is the result of imbalance in the distribution of wealth and power, and the result of political authoritarianism. Therefore, the warring groups are not part of the framework of separatist tendencies; though they are liable to turn into sectarian nationalisms due to foreign intervention and agendas.

Where the Cold War crises took place in the context of a bilateral international system represented by the Western and Soviet entities, the recent Ukrainian crisis is played out on an international stage where the US remains the world’s unipolar power. This paper discusses the major differences between these contexts with the aim of better understanding the possible outcomes and ramifications of the crisis. Such an understanding seems vital, for if the Ukrainian crisis continues without reaching a political or diplomatic solution, the cost will be higher for Russia and EU countries than it will be for the United States. The paper shows how European countries will pay a higher price for the crisis, compared with others in the region with different foreign policy priorities due to the EU’s current political and economic interests that tie it to Russia.

The study criticizes the general framework that has governed the broader current of the researchers in civil-military relations, their method of thinking about the military institution since the inception of the field, the paper presents the theoretical and practical gaps in that literature, in particular the researchers of "Coup-Proofing". The study shows the weakness of the explanatory capabilities of the field in extrapolating and analyzing the historical era that the research seeks to reveal its theoretical and historical ambiguities, which is the phase of political pluralism in Syria between 1954 - 1958 , which the researchers viewed as a democratic phase. The paper examines why did the army step down from the presidency and allowed civil forces to engage in political action at the time, in spite of that phase is in the midst of two series of coups. The paper is based on a basic premise that the army as a military institution do represent wings, sectors, units, brigades, and power relations, before it is an expression of any other social segments, which is in contrast to what the literature says in examining the sociological backgrounds of the officers.

The visibility of public health in world politics has increased due to epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, and tensions between public health and international trade, including those related to patents and access to essential medicines. Advocacy for raising the profile of public health on diplomatic agendas raises fundamental theoretical questions about public health: why should public health be higher on global diplomatic agendas? How should the pursuit of better public health globally be structured and implemented? This article explores answers to these questions provided by traditional theory on public health and analyzes the problems the anarchical context of international relations poses for such answers. A major part of this analysis utilizes theories from the discipline of international relations – using realism, institutionalism, liberalism, and social constructivism to illuminate theoretical challenges global health advocacy faces in making public health more important in world politics. These theories help identify a theoretical conundrum faced by public health, and the article considers various ways in which to handle this in light of the desire to increase the role public health plays in international relations.

Beside the military and external challenges, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are facing serious domestic non-conventional challenges, i.e., the demands of political reform, social mobilization, demographic imbalance, environmental deterioration, resource depletion, the transformation and diversification in post-oil economy, terrorism and radicalization etc. In particular one of these new kinds of threats has started to be significant in the last decade. The massive immigration and demographic imbalance between local citizens and foreign residents in countries like the U.A.E, 10 percent; Qatar, 15 percent. This imbalance and the massive immigration into the GCC countries increased the vulnerability of these states, especially since it relates to other critical security issues such as human security (food security for example, in UAE is an example, the country import almost 95 percent of its food consuming) radicalization, energy security, and domestic unrest especially after 2011.