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The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, in Doha, organized two seminars dealing with the reality of the popular movement and its prospects and the mechanisms of democratic transition in Sudan and Algeria within the framework of a series of seminars held by the Center for Political Studies at the Center.

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.

Israel is following the strategic changes in the region arising from the Arab revolutions with great anxiety. It is aware that its chances to control the process of change underway, and all the changes arising from it, are limited. Despite this, it is trying its utmost to minimize the negative effects of these changes on its standing in the region. This article deals with Israeli positions towards these geostrategic changes, foremost among them the fall of a number of dictatorial regimes, some of which Israel relied upon to guarantee its security. The establishment of democratic regimes in a number of Arab states threatens to disrupt the balance that was tipped in favor of Israel's security. Examined in this study is the decline of American influence in the Arab region, the prospect of change in Israeli-American relations, as well as the possibility of Israel losing its monopoly over non-conventional weapons because of the Arab Spring. To conclude, a review of the Israeli position on the revolution in Syria is also offered.

​The fourth annual Conference on the Arab Democratic Transition was convened by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Tunis, Tunisia. The 2015 meeting was devoted to theme of violence and politics in contemporary Arab societies. In total, 45 academic papers were rpesented over two days from 12 to 13 September. It came at a time when the Arab region, and particularly those countries within it that witnessed the Arab Spring, was engrossed in massive violence.

​This study discusses several hypotheses proposed by political culture literature, especially those that adopt a structural approach to understanding the relationship of social structures and institutions to actors, and the values generated by the nature of this relationship that inspire political action. The paper posits that research into the pattern of political culture arising from the relationship between social structures and actors is not limited to studying this direct relationship, but rather requires an examination of intermediary factors. Hence, the study outlines a supportive conceptual interpretive framework, through Pierre Bourdieu's Social Theory. It begins by reviewing the concepts discussed by Bourdieu to explain the relationship between social structures and actors. The second section presents a comparative analysis of concepts taken from political culture and those of Bourdieu that explain the emergence of political culture through the reciprocal relationship between social structures and actors. The third examines the outcomes of this comparison in light of the 2007 Palestinian political division.

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.

The Syrian regime opted to hold presidential elections on June 3, 2014. It did this in spite of the dire social catastrophe and sharp political crisis which the country has faced since March of 2011. The race was contended by three candidates, including incumbent president Bashar Al Assad.

​This study is about the state-building impasse in the Arab World in General, and in Libya in particular. These states have suffered, since the beginning of the Arab Spring, from lack of political prospects, eruptions of civil wars, and obstacles of political settlements among different actors in the public space. These elements have inhibited the achievement of state building, the formation of a pluralist political system and the realization of an integrated national identity. This study endeavors to analyze the obstacles that have obstructed state-building in Libya until now. It focuses on tribalism and regionalism as main obstacles to that process. In addition, it analyzes the role of external factors and actors in the light of tribalism and regionalism. It argues that state-building in Libya has stumbled and has not followed a gradual path of modern state-building and formation, and it has not gone through the necessary stages of political transition. The former has trapped Libya within narrow loyalties which are short of the wider loyalties necessary for the national state.

This study distinguishes between three Interrelated theoretical approaches prevalent in writings of researchers seeking to understand the emergence of the Islamic Resistance Movement, "Hamas". The first of these approaches examines the movement from the portal of ideology, stressing the importance of international and regional dimensions and the rise of political Islam after the "setback" (Naksa) of the 1967 Six Day War. The second approaches Hamas as representing a social movement seeking to revisit the historical narrative of Palestinian society. The third considers it to be the heir of the Palestinian national liberation movement, attributing its rise to transformations witnessed in Palestinian identity and the Palestinian community's definition of itself. Although the three readings do not contradict each other, a focus on one of them can lead to oversimplification or exaggeration: emphasis on the first approach is at risk of overlooking transformations in the movement in its later stages and a marginalization at the micro level of local dimensions; emphasis on the second approach can result in the overestimation of the effectiveness of collective action; exaggerated emphasis on the third approach deprives social actors of their effectiveness. Hence this study proposes situating Hamas in the ​intersection of these three approaches.

This study breaks from the prevailing discourse portraying minorities as victims, presenting them as multi-dimensional historical actors and analysing their relationship with political modernity and national construction. It demonstrates how sectarian differences were sharpened and Ottoman culture facilitated the manipulation of minority groups by religious elites and the ruling clan. The Assad regime, supported by Alawi clientelism, fuelled fear of Sunni Islam. In addition, the revolution that began in 2011, accompanied by severe violent repression, has turned into a civil war. The Assad employs sectarian vocabulary that targets the Sunni majority in favour of the Shia minority and Iran. It views Damascus as the capital of minorities, seeking to restore demographic change in Syria. The study discusses factors to encourage a pluralist future Syria and focuses on the issue of the state model that must be redefined, taking into account the existence of all sects that share the same political culture, and all of them, including the Sunnis, demand guarantees.