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This article traces routes taken by social and political research to explain the state's role in relation to economy and society, and in explaining policies and government activities. Pluralist and structural functionalist approaches commanded the landscape of political science and sociology in the 1950s and 1960s in the United States, and before that in nineteenth century Europe, all centering around society. But a shift occurred with the "Keynesian revolution" culminating in current research that emphasizes the state as a powerful and influential actor in political and social processes, by virtue of its policies and typical relationships with social groups. The emphasis of contemporary study on the state is a theoretical reclamation of the role it played in familiar works of leading German scholars such as Max Weber and Otto Hintz. This article discusses the role and capacity of the state, as detailed through various texts.

This study advances a new approach to theorizing the Arab state after the popular uprisings. It does this in two steps. Suspending the western European model of state formation and bringing the Arab world's experience in conversation with other parts of the Global South, it examines alternative state formation and state building sequences, trajectories, and temporalities in the making of Arab states. It thus historicizes the process of state formation and state building in the Arab world as compared to the western European one and other regions in the Global South. This first step liberates us from explicit and implicit comparisons with the European model of state formation. The second step surveys alternative theorizations of the Arab state after the uprisings. Tracing the causal assumptions embedded in these theories reveals how much they rely on the European model of state formation and state building as an implicit point of analytic departure and critical comparison. This survey unpacks the assumptions these theories make about the state, the difference between states and regimes, state and non-state actors, the private and public realms, and the formal and informal sectors. The objective of this study is to not only de-exceptionalize states in the Arab world, but, more importantly, borrowing from Gurminder Bhambra, 'unmake' our understandings of state formation and state building in the Arab world and thus contribute, following Walter Mignolo, to a knowledge production that serves a form of 'epistemic reconstitution' of alternative historical trajectories and possibilities.

The Gulf states, collectively and individually, no longer enjoy the luxury of stability and security they did over the three decades that preceded the outbreak of the Arab Spring. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) now faces new kinds of threats more serious than any since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime at the hands of American forces in 2003. Notably, to date the GCC States have been among the states that have benefited most from the fall of dictatorial regimes in countries such as Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. The UAE, for instance, has benefited in particular, becoming the favored destination for direct foreign investment in the region. The growing spread of regional instability however has created what could be called an unstable backyard for the Gulf, as its security and stability is threated in unprecedented fashion on a number of fronts, locally, regionally, and internationally. The GCC states must therefore adjust and change their political and strategic practices and policies so as to become more capable and more flexible in confronting and managing conflicts and crises. Ultimately, it is not just their security which is under threat but their very existence.

Beginning with a review of existing theories of international relations that discuss policies of penetration, this study examines current politics of the Arab regional order. Four different aspects of penetration are reviewed, including intra-Arab threats, rivalry between Arab states to occupy a central position, historical legacy, and multinational companies. The role of Arab elites in processes of penetration by means of their links with international powers and interests is also considered. The study looks at ‘soft’ penetration through an analysis of language, education, media, and civil society organizations, as well as “blatant penetration” like the occupation of Iraq and the spread of foreign military bases. Beyond Arab state actions, the paper also considers intervention by neighboring regional states. The paper finds that variation in the development of political, social, and economic systems has a corresponding influence on the levels of foreign penetration, infiltration, or influence. It also finds that analyzing the Arab region as a single regional system reveals a deep level of military, social, and economic penetration on all levels.

International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity [Translated into Arabic]

This article deals with the post-2003 consociationalist experiment in Iraq. It examines the reasons why this experiment has failed in producing a reasonably coherent governing formula. It argues that, because of their emphasis on identity politics and not on making mutual concessions in the interest of serious statebuilding, the main players in this experiment (Shia, Sunni and Kurdish political elites) failed to appreciate the complexity of the consociationalist arrangement, let alone use it for public interest. The article focuses on the central role that the Shia Islamist parties played in making this failure happen, highlighting, as reasons, their insistence on an essentially sectarian rhetoric and their attempt to enforce it as a national identity. The article finally proposes a different rhetoric that can accommodate Iraq's ethnic and religious diversity.

The right to be digitally forgotten is one of the rights that emerged as a result of the digital revolution, which included a transformation in the nature of rights and mechanisms of regulating them. This right which is considered an individual's right to erase his personal data previously created on the internet, aims to prevent a person's past from being used randomly in public. This right is took on its final meaning and unique nature with the development in the relationships in the digital world and the recognition of the risks arising from misusing the personal data in the business world. This rights turns out to be essential to avoid any threats related to human dignity, stability and social security. Initially, this right was intended to protect the users' privacy. Later on, it was extended on the purpose to apply the prescription right of corporates' rights in order exploit the users' personal data. Nowadays, it gives the users the right to retract their consent from previous contract. The right to be forgotten is no longer merely a link between the past and the present of the individual, but it is included in the margins of personal authority over information. Putting forward this right is essential to create balance among all stakeholders on the internet and to limit their active powers. In addition, regulating this right is no more under the State exclusivity. The positive law has been reinterpreted in light of the voluntarist and realistic theories. Soft law has become a competitor to formal laws in achieving the desired balance.

This paper highlights the role of the armed forces and their impact on the process of political transition, and discusses civil-military relations in their various aspects: the state, society and the armed forces per se, in order to reveal the main pillars that constitute a balance between the power of political institutions (legislative and executive) and the military power of the army. Such a balance would lead to the subduing of the army to the civil authority, and confine military activities to security and defense. The paper focuses on the common characteristics shared by states that have succeeded in building democratic armies. To conclude, the author presents a set of recommendations addressed to activists and democrats, on what ought to be done and what should be avoided in the security-defense field during the process of democratic army building.

Developments in the international system have led to a diminishing role of nations within international affairs.

​​​​This study explores the trajectory of state disintegration in Sudan from 1821 to 2025, starting from a central question: does the April 2023 war constitute a revealing variable that exposes a process of structural disintegration whose foundations accumulated over time? Or is it an explanatory variable that, in itself, drives the deepening of this disintegration? Drawing on a historical sociology approach, the study analyzes the interaction of five main variables addressed in the literature on state disintegration: war, elite conflict, geostrategic intervention, erosion of legitimacy, and the pressures of globalization. The study shows that successive wars and resource depletion, along with ethnic/regional elite divisions and international competition over the Red Sea, have undermined the state’s monopoly over the legitimate means of violence, leading to a hybrid pattern of disintegration in which the center retains international recognition while power is effectively distributed among local armed networks. The study concludes that existing models of state disintegration explain important aspects of the Sudanese experience, but require further development to accommodate forms of multiple sovereignties and managed disintegration​​