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This article discusses Moroccan-African relations in light of the recent visit undertaken by the Moroccan king to Mali, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon, and how this differed from previous visits. The visit led to the signing of a number of strategic agreements with the above-mentioned states. In this context, the study looks at the historical constants that have governed relations between Morocco and West and Sub Saharan Africa. The paper also looks at the political, economic, and religious variables of the two sides using inference, analysis, comparison, and interpretation. What is the nature of the historical relationship between Morocco and the West African states? What are the variables that have contributed to the more intensive Moroccan presence in the region? What new elements have been added by Moroccan political, economic, and security initiatives? What are the difficulties that might impede Moroccan ambitions on the African continent? These issues are dealt with in the paper.

Why is the GCC, which is now in its fourth decade, still a weak defensive organization? This paper tries to explain the dilemmas of collective security in the Arab Gulf region. The paper first elucidates the concept of collective security, which forms the theoretical framework for this study. It then reviews the main sources of threat to Gulf security. It then offers a discussion of security dimensions and defense cooperative between the GCC states, and a detailed analysis of the dilemmas of collective security in the GCC, as well as of the features of the proposed collective security system.

Book Title: The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies [English]

The phenomenon of armed groups operating in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is a growing one. This paper presents the history of this phenomenon as well as factors leading up to the violent encounters with state forces from former president Hosni Mubarak to Mohamad Morsi and the military coup led by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. It examines different factors that led to the severe clash between groups and state forces, and the causes that saw the clash become widespread and even violent. The paper examines the role of state forces in escalating the conflict, and takes into account the religious authorities that these groups stem from, as well as the factors that affected their political views. It further examines what seemed an Egyptian-Israeli rapprochement and efforts at coordination to fight these groups. Based on personal interviews of groups in the Sinai and collected testimonies, the paper makes a core contribution to understanding the current events in the Sinai and their wider political context. ​

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.

This study analyzes the path of Egypt’s January 25 Revolution and its missed opportunity for regime change. In making this case the paper begins by examining the early conflict between political parties, and the role of the former regime’s armed forces in lending legitimacy to different actors. The study also addresses the structure - or lack thereof - of the transitional phase, including the role of the Islamist movement, and the predicament that the Muslim Brotherhood faced while in power. Continuing to trace the path of the stymied revolution, this paper assesses the failures, in particular of the political parties that “inherited” the young revolutionary generation, to comprehend the meaning of the transitional phase. As such, it shows how these parties failed to make progress towards democracy, and to understand the role assigned to them immediately after the January events. The study reasserts the meaning of the terms “revolution” and “coup,” exposing the ongoing confusion around the characterization of what happened in the post-transition phase in July 2013. It also analyzes the efforts of counterrevolutionary forces to pit the “legitimacy of the street” against the “legitimacy of the people.” The paper finally comes to forecast the direction the Egyptian revolution might take, given the July 3rd ouster of Mohamed Morsi, and the events that followed.

This paper offers insights into the Crisis of Liberal International Order by combining Ibn Khaldun's theory of change with scholarship on liberalism and race. We argue that the crisis emerges from the incongruence of two features of liberal order: a binding feature (or 'assabiyya) of white supremacy and liberalism's principles of equality. The crisis is an outcome of a normative political order that can no longer balance a material and discursive reality of racialised hierarchy with ideals of equality. The crisis cannot be reduced to bad leadership or a technical failure to enact liberal values. Instead, attempts to think beyond the crisis must acknowledge the incongruence between white supremacy and liberal equality. Through this diagnosis, we gesture towards the constructive use of "non-Western" theory in the discipline of International Relations.

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 article examines the "intuitive knowledge" as one of the most important sources for understanding the trajectories of the Arab revolutions, despite the scarcity of studies that focus on it. We explore intuitive knowledge by examining its observable manifestations, such as its role as an alternative to "ideology" in expressing social and political views, its practical application in shared traditions, its flexible interpretation of relational life emphasising its habitual and voluntary aspects, its pragmatic evaluation of social and political phenomena, and its expression of distrust in "elites" who distance themselves from ordinary people's lives. Building on these premises, we explore the relationship between intuitive thought and charismatic phenomena or volatile populism, as well as the formation and dissolution of loyalty relationships, particularly in the neoliberal era. In this context, we emphasise the importance of viewing intuitive knowledge as a starting point for analysing the relationship between political and social revolution. We argue that the separation of these two types of revolution has created additional opportunities for counter-revolution.

This article traces the different paths taken by constructivism in International Relations, from its emergence as a critical social theory in the 1980 s, in response to the third debate between positivist rationalists and post-positivist reflectivists, to Alexander Wendt's project to seize a middle ground and to bridge the rationalist–reflectivist epistemological gap. The article, then, examines the intra-debates among conventional and critical constructivists on Went's project, as well as the rise of the new constructivism after Wendt left the constructivist research program. The article explores the Wendtian project's epistemological tensions and demonstrates how such tensions led to a plurality within constructivism: modernist conventional and postmodernist critical (reflectivist). It highlights that Wendt's leaving constructivism and his shift to a quantum approach have not caused constructivism to decline, but instead, it continued to thrive through the efforts of a new generation of constructivists. The article argues that three main developments in International Relations over the past twenty years have contributed to its ongoing thriving: the decline of epistemological polarization among IR theories; the rise of critical realism as a philosophy of science in International Relations, and the emergence of analytical eclecticism.