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This study attempts to understand the concept of the "deep state" given its increasing use in political literature and analysis. This happens especially in comparative studies and, specifically, when multiple political systems are addressed. Through an analysis of the literature in which the term is used, it is clear that the concept of the "deep state" is ambiguously understood and applied. This study is based on a critical view of the concept. It assumes that the vagueness of its definition is tinged with secrecy. Its fragmented usage in a variety of political systems (democratic, semi-democratic and authoritarian), render it an analytical tool that is not useful nor capable to expand knowledge of comparative political science. In lieu of this hypothesis, the study reveals discrepancies in the usage of the concept of "deep state", in an attempt to refine the concept.

This study examines the redefinition of civil–military relations in Sudan, arguing that the prevailing approach in the country reduces these relations to the issue of military reform and reduces that reform to preventing the army from carrying out a coup, removing it from politics, or restricting its economic activity. The study begins with a critique of Samuel Huntington's traditional theory and presents alternative approaches that advocate integrating the military into society and expanding its roles under civilian control. It also offers a typology of armies based on four models according to their political and economic engagement, applying this framework to the Sudanese army and its transformations since the independence (1955). The study concludes that building a more sustainable relationship requires rethinking the framework that shapes civil–military relations in Sudan. It calls for involving military personnel in formulating national policies and regulating their economic activities through governance in ways that strengthen national security and support the political process.

This study assesses the discipline of International Relations in the Arab World, first by characterizing its current state-of-affairs and considering its challenges, then exploring its transformations. The study is based on a purposive sample of IR professors at Arab universities with faculties or departments teaching political science and IR. To survey the discipline by way of this sample, a three-part questionnaire was devised. The first section explores IR teaching at Arab universities; the second sheds light on the research interests of specialists in the field and their theoretical and practical orientations with regard to the study of international relations ir phenomena; and the third considers Arab academic institutions and knowledge production in the field.

This study monitors the role of external factors in the stability of Moroccan authoritarianism and controling the liberalization methods pursued by the government over two stages: the final years of the Cold War and the 2011 Arab Spring. As much as these factors contributed to widening the margin of liberalization in the Moroccan political arena, they also contributed to limiting this liberalization (September 11, the post-2013 counterrevolutionary movement), especially given the lack of internal will to mature it. While it is true that these factors have made an impact, this remained within certain limits that allowed actors abroad (the United States, the European Union and donor institutions) to control the transformations of Moroccan politics and to manage contradictions, thus creating an environment hostile to democratic transition in Morocco.

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 study discusses successive Palestinian governments and provides a reading of their features, focusing on the 15th, 16th and 17th governments, five years after Rami Hamdallah became prime minister. The first section examines the emergence and development of governments since 1994. The second section gives an overview of the three cabinets in question and their agendas while the third section examines the failures of these governments and the impact of that failure on the Palestinian political scene. The final section examines the traditional operating assumptions of the political system. The study argues that the origin of the problem lies in the political system that has emerged since 1994 which restricts the operations of Palestinian governments, and that the formation of "technocratic" cabinets has only exacerbated the Palestinian political crisis.

This review discusses the background of Technocracy Rising, and transformations in economics, governance, law, sustainable development and global order

Antoine Nasri Messarra (b. 1938), a pioneer of Constitutional and Political Science in Lebanon and the Arab region, outlines a selection of the fundamental political ideas he developed over the course of his academic career. Messarra focuses on his critique of Arab political science in its reliance on a diasporic political culture that adopts European theories of nation building and applies them to Middle Eastern societies, without bringing to bear Arab-Islamic heritage in dealing with pluralism in those societies. Messarra argues that Arab production in political science has been dominated by two approaches. The first are diaspora approaches that draw on European Jacobite models , which have consequently failed to understand the Arab social dynamics. These include sectarianism studies that overlook ethnoreligious diversity and secularization research that rejects the Islamic constitutional tradition. The second (smaller) group are authentic approaches, which Messarra argues are grounded in reality and draw on the region’s heritage.

Media studies remains the weakest link in political and social research dealing with the Arab region. The research that exists in this discipline remains limited in terms of research questions, restricted in some form to the question of freedom, and set in a defensive position lacking any originality. This study sheds light on the political press, focusing on the Moroccan Francophone journal, Le journal, issued from 1997-2010. The study aims to provide a new conceptual approach to the power of the media that crystallized within the framework of a network of interdependent concepts. These include the concepts of efficiency, independence and leadership. The study hypothesizes that epistemological-methodological liberalization evades the dominant reading of freedom adopted by both journalists and researchers in foreign and Western research on Arab media.

Civil society rests on the principle of economic independence from politics, deemed to be a long-standing precondition to limiting the despotism of a political authority and its ability to wreak havoc on society. The paper poses the question of why civil society has thus far failed to materialize in Algeria, despite the existence of political pluralism in the country dating to the 1989 Constitution. The author contends that the persistence of rentierism in the Algerian economy has enabled the country’s government to prevent the rise of a genuine civil society in Algeria, despite the de jure acceptance of political pluralism in the country. The government has been able to use the levers of a rentier economy to subdue the political elites and dominate society, effectively controlling the political fallout of economic liberalization. The paper goes on to survey the political economic context, which led to the failure of a democratic transition in Algeria, by exploring how private capital was unable to echo the catalyzing role played by the European bourgeoisie in the democratization and political modernization of their continent.