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This paper relies on the academic literature on rebel movements and armed rebellions to better the insurrection presently underway in the Egyptian provinces of the Sinai. The paper seeks to understand the implications for counter-insurgency policies, asking why the insurgency has proven so resilient, and at times expanded. The military capabilities and resources available to the militants will also be scrutinized, along with the Egyptian Army's blundering attempts at counterinsurgency and the prevailing political environment. The paper then moves to studying the tactical patterns and the overall strategy of the ISIL affiliated group active in the Sinai. The author concludes that the failure of counterinsurgency efforts, the continued absence of national reconciliation, the failure to review and revise counterinsurgency policies serve to make the Sinai region fertile ground for insurgents.

This study discusses the possibility of bridging the gap between IR (International Relation) and Foreign Policy Analysis when studying the interaction between memory and apology in foreign policy. By dealing with apology as an expressive practice, not just as a tact between statesmen, this study argues that apology is an act used by states to express their attitudes toward their past memories. It presumes that examining the interaction on the theoretical level between concepts such as narrative identity, ontological security, and discursive representations would bridge the gap between the two fields through two versions of social constructivism. Those two versions are then used to understand the motives behind Germany's apology to Israel, and Turkey's resistance to apologize to Armenia despite international pressure to do so. The study concludes that "critical constructivism" approach by Nizar Messari can explain the German case. It considers the role of foreign policy as a tool in reconstructing national identity through transforming representation of the Jewish/Israeli "other" from a "different other", who is an enemy of the self, to a "similar other", who is a part of its moral responsibility. As for Turkey, it concludes that Ted Hopf's "practical/societal constructivism" suggests that the reasons behind Turkey's unwillingness to apologize to Armenia is due to an ontological need best understood as "a need to preserve the routine of its narrative identity, and the need to preserve it heroic memories".

This study examines the constitutional management of political transition in Algeria following the popular protests of February 2019 (the Hirak). After setting out the basic tenets of Transitional Constitutionalism, the study investigates the extent to which peaceful political change can be achieved through constitutional mechanisms or arrangements derived from inherited texts. In contrast to similar Arab cases, the Algerian experience was characterized by the adoption of a political plan to manage the transitional phase, based on constitutional measures derived from the texts in force. But it was not convincing for a large segment of the Hirak, who believed that these arrangements would restrict the path of change to reproduce the existing system at the expense of achieving peaceful political change. In this sense, managing the transitional political phase according to the applicable constitutional texts did not set a precedent. Rather, in Algeria, a kind of precedent was set in the restriction of the concept of constitutional solution to the literal requirements of the functional constitutional text, without partial constitutional amendments, nor a fundamental revision of the inherited legislative structure.

Alongside two constitutions, an old one brought down by a revolution and a new one drawn up by the "constituent power", the state enters a transitional phase during which it is usually ruled by "interim constitutions", enforced by the "transitional constituent" to act as a bridge between the two major constitutions in temporarily regulating the transition and the relationship between authorities. Since the "transitional constituent" wields "authority" outside of constitutional legitimacy, and since contingency and intentionality are inherent features of interim constitutions, a question arises about the extent of the "transitional constituent's" impact on shaping the constituent power, and the legacy of the interim constitutions in drawing up the permanent constitution. The study explores this question, addressing the Egyptian and Tunisian experiences in a comparative context, within a timeframe that begins with the regime collapse in early 2011 and ends with the entry into force of the current constitution in both countries in early 2014. The study seeks to understand the repercussions of the constitutional designing of the transition on the foundational process, and the constitutional regime that it has produced today in the two countries.

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.

​عنوان الكتاب الأول بلغته الأصلية: The End of American World Order. عنوان الكتاب: نهاية النظام العالمي الأميركي. المؤلف: أميتاف أشاريا Amitav Acharya. دار النشر: Polity. سنة النشر: 2018. عدد الصفحات: 138. عنوان الكتاب الثاني بلغته الأصلية: Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order. عنوان الكتاب: اللفياثان الليبرالي: أصول وأزمة وتحول النظام العالمي الأميركي. المؤلف: جون إكنبري Gilford John Ikenberry. دار النشر: Princeton University Press. سنة النشر: 2011. عدد الصفحات: 372.

Despite the dire situation in Syria, the International Organization for Migration states that about one in ten Syrian refugees is returning home. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees predicts that hundreds of thousands of refugees may soon voluntarily return to their devastated homeland. The fear is that this will happen without any prior planning, especially since the Syrian crisis may be relatively unique in terms of its size and the difficulty of predicting its trajectories. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to identify the lessons learned from the experiences of refugee return, whether voluntary or forced, which illustrate the most important factors for ensuring the sustainable return of Syrian refugees. The study is based on an extensive literature review, consultations and interviews with experts and stakeholders, supported by the researchers' accumulated experience in the field of post-war reconstruction and refugee studies. The study does not aim to analyze the current political or military situation in Syria, or to evaluate any ongoing or planned political talks, nor does it evaluate any proposed political solution.

This study examines the ability of network technology to challenge despotism regimes. It thus applies two theoretical approaches. The first is the "Prisoner's dilemma" and the "despot/jailer's dilemma" and the second is the "case study", which studies a number of cases of "network technology", whether used by protest groups or by authoritarian regimes, to determine the extent (and direction) of their impact in practice. The study concludes that network technology — through challenging the logic of the "prisoner's dilemma" and reversing it to become the "jailer's dilemma" — can, theoretically, pose an element of weakness for despotism regimes. However, in reality, network technology can be used by these regimes with the same effectiveness, to respond to mass protests supported by technology. This indicates that network technology can be seen as a neutralizing factor, the impact of which should be studied relative to the impact of other factors.

There is no supranational authority that can solve international water disputes; thus, the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UN Watercourse Convention) may be the answer. However, as is shown in this article, when it comes to the Eastern Nile water dispute, namely between Egypt and Ethiopia, both sides can use different articles of the UN Watercourse Convention to support their legal arguments. As a result, there is little that the UN Watercourse Convention can offer to solve this dispute. This article summarizes the relevant articles of the UN Watercourse Convention and discusses the contentious, historical treaties that allocated the rights to the Nile River water over the past century. The paper also discusses how both Egypt and Ethiopia can use principles from the international water law to support their legal position rendering the dispute difficult to be solved legally. Thus, we turn to a discussion of the current state of the recent initiatives to solve the ongoing water dispute between the riparian countries in the Nile River Basin. The article concludes with the current state of dispute after the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile.

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.