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This paper seeks to ascertain the extent of positive Arab public attitudes—or lack thereof—towards the Arab popular revolutions, after more than a year since the revolutions first broke out. The results show an overall positive attitude towards the Arab revolutions among the Arab public. When asked to provide reasons for their positive disposition towards the revolutions, respondents spoke of an "Arab Awakening" which laid the foundations for democratic governance in the Arab region by restoring the democratic rights of Arab citizens. Opposition to the Arab revolutions and their impacts accounted for only 25% of Arab public opinion. A majority of respondents who disapproved of the Arab revolutions blamed the failure of these popular movements to achieve their aims, as well as the resulting economic and political instability. In addition to broad overall support for the Arab revolutions, the Arab public credits the recent revolutions with improved treatment of the public by the police and other government officials in the Arab region.

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.

​​​The debate continues over the "Arab Spring" revolutions and the evaluation of their results continues, especially within the framework of the "success-failure" dichotomy, based on sociological analysis tools that generally emphasize their shortcomings. This study argues that these revolutions have reformist goals with value-oriented and normative contents touching on the core of the political question, which are no less important than material goals such as regime overthrow. Attempting to provide an alternative interpretation of the Arab situation through a different epistemological approach, this study aims to demonstrate the non-material political content of the Arab revolutions by incorporating normative and sociological ideas and conceptions into a new conceptual and methodological approach. Accordingly, the study adresses the political dimensions of revolutionary demands: the decisive rejection of authoritarianism and affirmation of political rights. While attempting to refute the assessment of the Arab revolutions as a failure to achieve democratic transition, it posits that the non-material revolutionary purpose is to highlight a "return to politics" as a basis for future political and democratic change. This is a call to rethink all aspects of Arab politics and to establish new foundations for a contractual relationship between the state and society that meets the conditions of the time.​

The environment within which the new Egyptian president and his supporters are operating is facing a series of crises and challenges emerging on both domestic and foreign levels.

​The Muslim response to colonialism has varied country to country and region to region. The dawn of colonialism created ruptures in Muslim political reasoning, forcing them to find and reconfigure an Islamic response to the changing political realities. The Indian subcontinent never came under an Islamic Caliphate of the Umayyad or Abbasid Empires. Most military expansionist ambitions in India stemmed from the volatile Central Asian Khanates who played a major strategic role between the Caliphate and Indian subcontinent, preventing the Caliphate from controlling India directly and maintaining an advanced independent politics. This paper profiles the political context of Muslim political thought and its response to the rise of nation-state, which was shaped more of political realism, setting aside the Islamic vocabularies of Dar al Islam or Dar al Harb. This paper concludes that, the South Asian Muslim mind had accepted nation-state either in its composite or in a distinctively Muslim format which resulted in the two nation-states of India and Pakistan. Both formats have evolved within a strong Islamic context that challenges Pakistan's "Islamic credentials" against India.

For months, the transitional phase in Tunisia underwent a critical historical period that almost foiled efforts to establish a newly-born democratic state and undermined the foundational work of the post-revolution state. In fact, the increasing violence, the high living cost, the raging conflict over power, the intermittent rise of partisan, ideological and religious tensions, the return of the old regime media, the emergence of the harbingers of a counter-revolution and the decrease in Tunisia’s sovereign ranking showed followers of the situation that the Arab Spring in its first cradle was at risk. Citizens felt afraid, and they longed for stability and reassurance. The deteriorating political situation based on polarization and dispute between the ruling troika and the opposition added insult to injury. The paper sheds light on the situation of the prominent influential political parties in Tunisia and on the complexities of the political crisis. It also explores the prospects of the upcoming phase.

The youth revolution in Yemen at the beginning of 2011 kindled a ray of hope that the walls of tyranny could be broken down and the country could be pulled back from the clutches of narrowly defined identities. It sharpened the will that formed a “historical bloc” capable of rendering democratic transition successful. However, the youth revolution never transcended the ecstasy of a romantic revolutionary act to reach the stage of building institutions capable of enforcing respect for the law and accommodating ethnic, tribal, sectarian and political pluralism. This study addresses the impact of the Saudi-Iranian role on Yemen's transition. It is premised on considerable importance attached regional factors, which perhaps have even greater influence than domestic factors on the outcome of the Yemeni revolution. The study stresses that the effects and limits of regional factors are related to several variables, such as the vicissitudes of international politics; international and regional balances and interests; as well as the strategic location of the country subject to interference; its resources; its internal dynamics; the maturity of local elites; the weight of political opposition; and the quality of institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to study the Algerian experience with the Arab spring by identifying the nature of the protests movements in Algeria, to search the adaptation mechanisms of the Algerian political regime with the protest act and to answer the question: why the change in Algeria is so hard to happen? Next, this paper will expose a range of the most important political bets to understand better the Algerian exception by searching the roots of the crisis which has been overcomed in searching a radical and real reform. Finally, this paper will be concluded by addressing the prospects of political, institutional and economical changes and by exposing a future scenarios of the hard transition in light of internal and external challenges.

One of the most important gains of Tunisia’s revolution has been that elections are no longer subject to interior ministry supervision. A look at these elections reveals a process managed by a permanent constitutional body, the Independent High Authority for Elections, which in itself marks a revolutionary success. These events are read within the context of the assassination of Constituent Assembly member Mohamed Brahmi, which caused many to worry that the democratic path would be hindered, as in other Arab Spring countries. More than the elections mechanism, this paper argues that success can also be attributed to the Troika alliance, especially the Ennahda party. It shows how the neutrality of the military institution and the great role played by the country’s General Labor Union in bridging the gap between Tunisian opponents through national dialogue, have largely contributed in the success of the elections.

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.