Latest Articles

The latest report in this series covers the milestones in the democratic transition across various Arab countries from the period between May 1 and June 30, 2017.

This paper explores attitudes among Syrian refugees and displaced persons towards the presidential elections held in their country on June 3, 2014. Respondents came from refugee camps located in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan as well as internally displaced persons camps along the Syrian-Turkish frontier. Survey questions also asked respondents about their views of the existing regime and its institutions in addition to their prescriptions for an “ideal solution” to the Syrian crisis. Answers to the latter question came in three distinct categories. A clear majority (64%) which supports a change of regime as the path to an ideal solution to the Syrian conflict, in contrast to a mere 6% who support the total defeat of the opposition by the regime as an ideal end to the crisis. A third group, accounting for 23% of respondents, held that the ideal solution to the Syrian conflict would be peaceful, based on a dialogue which brought together the regime and the opposition.

Morocco's participation in the Saudi-led coalition was formed to confront the expansion of Houthi rebel control over the Yemeni state. This study gives an overview of the factors that led to the expansion of the geopolitical and geostrategic depth of the Gulf States to include a number of Arab countries, all the way to the Kingdom of Morocco. The paper discusses the gains Morocco made as a result of joining Operation Decisive Storm. Morocco faces similar challenges from extremist groups, making participation in the operation an opportunity it can benefit from later in the event it needs to tackle similar militias in the Sahara. In addition to the economic and political reasons for joining the coalition, the geostrategic shifts in the Arab region and the rise of the threat of extremist ideological forces in the region has prompted Morocco and the Gulf States to develop a new vision for relations on the basis of cross-border national security. The paper finally tackles the shift Morocco's participation has represented, examining King Mohammed VI's preference for more rapprochement with the European neighborhood.

​It was mostly British colonisers who came to consolidate the political, economic and military interests of the motherland and did what they used to do: play football. Apart from spending their time, football worked as a colonial instrument both "civilising" and "disciplining" the colonised populations. The first clubs in North Africa and the Levant restricted membership for non-Westerners and non-whites, but soon football also became a transnational transmitter of independence movements, the stadiums becoming important social spaces on the local and national levels. Such was the emancipatory force of football that it has been preserved across the region ever since the colonial era, prominent again in the Arab Uprisings. However, the massive wealth of the Gulf States and their decision to invest in football's soft power has changed the equation. The article thus describes emancipatory and counter-emancipatory trends in MENA football history from a longue durée perspective.

A recent opinion poll by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies examined Arab public attitudes towards US foreign policy during the first year of the Trump presidency. Survey questions sought to ascertain Arab public perceptions of Trump based on a number of key indicators. Specifically, respondents were asked to evaluate specific Trump Administration policies relevant to the Arab region, including support for democracy, the approach to the Iranian nuclear deal and the combatting of extremism and terrorism. Finally, the survey included questions on how respondents viewed Trump’s policies towards a number of specific sites of conflict: Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Palestine.

​This report highlights some of the major milestones of the Arab democratic transition from 1/5/2016 to 29/6/2016

يرصد هذا البابُ أبرز الوثائق السياسية ذات الصِّلة بالتحول الديمقراطي في الوطن العربي. وننشر، هنا، الوثائق الخاصة بالحراك الاحتجاجي في السودان، التي أنتجتها الأطرافُ الفاعلة فيه، خلال شهري شباط/ فبراير وآذار/ مارس 2019.

​This study explores the concept of a traditional balance of power based on realism, which, for several reasons, is unsuitable to explain the relations between the US and the Gulf States. First, competition between the main regional powers, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran, is not characterized of direct confrontation, but rather manifests through proxy interference in civil war-torn countries (Syria, Yemen, and Iraq). Second, since the greatest threat to the region that has resulted from this competition is an unintended escalation, the final endgame must be collective security and stability, not a balance of power. Third, balance of power in the conventional sense is unrealistic given the actual quantitative and qualitative conventional military superiority of the GCC countries compared to Iran's military capacity.

​Milestones in Democratic Transition in the Arab World

It is not easy to talk about the future of the Houthi movement given the current circumstances in Yemen. The facts on the ground are changing rapidly, making it difficult to predict the course of events and the future of the actors. Making things more difficult is the complexity of the landscape, the opposing agendas of internal and external actors, and the nature of the Houthi movement itself, which has mysterious objectives and organizational structure as well as limited experience and secret internal and external alliances. Accordingly, what can be said about the future of the Houthi movement cannot go much beyond theoretical opinions, whose conclusions could change as a result of events that are not taken into account. Therefore, this paper will develop scenarios that could benefit future studies where the level of certainty is very low. This approach gives us the ability to forecast the future with a high level of coherence within the prevailing conditions, despite some apparent contradictions.