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Although the Justice and Development Party (AKP) victory in the 2015 Turkish municipal elections was generally expected, the percentage of votes surprised many, including the leaders of the party. This paper suggests that, despite the best efforts of opposition parties to manipulate a series of crises for the AKP, the voters were able to see past the political maneuvering and took action at the ballot box. By first examining the many factors that had been expected to impact the results, not least of which was its political timing, and the general sense that Turkey’s ruling party was set for victory, this paper explores the political situation in Turkey at the time of the elections, and probes the events leading up to the vote. It begins with events of the year prior, which had witnessed a series of crises for the AKP including: events in Gezi Park and Taksim Square, a series of leaked voice recordings that put leaders in compromising positions, allegations of corruption against some AKP ministers, and most importantly, an ongoing conflict between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his former ally and leader of the Gulen (Service) movement Fethullah Gülen. Each of these was expected to affect the AKP’s chances of maintaining a strong political position, and was used by the ruling party to bolster its own stance; a tactic that ultimately failed.

العقلاني. ومثاليًا، يتمتع الناس بدرجة معينة من الاختيار فيما يتعلق بالمنطق الذي يريدون استخدامه لتحقيق أهدافهم بأفضل طريقة ولتحقيق مصالحهم". Gero Erdmann & Ulf Engel, "Neopatrimonialism Revisited: Beyond a Catch- All Concept," GIGA Working Paper , no. 16 (2006), pp. 18-19. 32 Peter Pawelka, "Der Orientalische Staat im 21. Jahrhundert: Zur Reinkarnation des vormodernen Staates in einer globalisierten Welt," in: Peter Pawelka (ed.), Der Staat im Vorderen Orient: Konstruktion und Legitimation politischer Herrschaft (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2008), pp. 42-38; B rownlee, p p. 35-36 ; Schlumberger, Autoritarismus in der arabischen Welt , pp. 110-116. 33 Hazim Beblawi, "The Rentier State in the Arab World," in: Hazim Beblawi & Giacomo Luciani (eds.), The Rentier State (London/ New York/ Sydney: Groom Helm, 1987), p. 62; Michael L. Ross, "Does Oil Hinder Democracy?" World Politics , vol. 53, no. 3 (April 2001), pp. 356-357; Rolf Schwarz, "The Political Economy of State-Formation in the Arab Middle East: Rentier States, Economic Reform, and Democratization," Review of International Political Economy , vol. 15, no. 4 (October 2008), pp. 599-600; Schlumberger, Autoritarismus in der arabischen Welt , pp. 116-132. 34 Schlumberger, Autoritarismus in der arabischen Welt , pp. 123-129.

Following the transformations in the Levant’s regional system since the beginning of World War II to the rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, this paper examines the new context of the region with regard to Washington’s resumption of direct military intervention. It finds that the Levant – as a soft area easily subject to geopolitical influences – has always been subject to changes based on shifts in world order, from the Cold War, followed by unipolarity, to the relative decline of US power. Thus, while the main actors of the Levant’s regional system were Arabs during the Cold War, the region has become a battleground for non-Arab parties – namely Turkey and Iran – following the invasion or Iraq and the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutions.

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.

​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.

Examining the dimensions of the constitutional crisis in Libya, this paper begins by explaining the situation of the country’s political factions. On this backdrop, it looks at how the interim Constitutional Declaration of Libya’s 17 February revolution – which has seen seven amendments – has led to large-scale changes in the legal positions of political institutions and has caused a disturbance in the state’s constitutional framework. Analysis shows how the declaration has disrupted the country’s transitional path, and outlines the ways that this has taken place including: the diverse results from the National Congress’s legislative elections where no political party or movement secured an absolute majority, the growing disputes following the adoption of the political and administrative isolation law, and the emergence of alternative proposals for a third transitional period. This paper tackles the factors leading up to the amendments of the interim Constitutional Declaration, issued on August 3 2011, and their impact on Libya’s political crisis. Analyzing the constitutional framework allows a closer look into the role of Libyan political actors and an understanding of the elements that helped shape the path of the transitional period. It shows that the conflict over the constitutional framework has led to an armed conflict among parties to the Libyan revolution.

The dominant-party system as theorized by political literature is examined through the case of Israel. At first glance, the 2015 elections in Israel reinforce the view that the country is in transformation to a dominant party system, rather than a stage where a dominant party governs it. This confirms the theoretical political literature, which also makes this distinction. The paper argues that the current stage may be a prelude to the dominant-party stage, especially if Israeli policies continue down their current path. The path in question undermines the democratic foundations of the Israeli political system, cementing right-wing discourse as the dominant position in both state and the public sphere. This trend is likely to continue so long as opposing camps remain entrenched. Regional and international climates reinforce the right's discourse; which Netanyahu has strengthened during his years in power. If his successful policy of managing the conflict with the Palestinians without reaching a solution or paying a price continues, this trend will become further entrenched. In four sections, this paper overviews the theoretical debate regarding the notion of the dominant-party system, analyses the results of the general election in Israel, then presents a sociological analysis of the election results. It concludes with a discussion of the results in the context of the concept of the dominant-party system.

This review discusses the background of Technocracy Rising, and transformations in economics, governance, law, sustainable development and global order

Case studies as a research method are drawing increasing interest from social sciences and humanities researchers, but they pose challenges regarding the ability to generalize and make conclusions that can be applied to other cases. Is it possible to generalize the results of one case, and to apply them in other cases that have not been studied? To answer this, several advocates of qualitative research have developed "in-case" analysis methods that enable inference and respond to critics of the case study method. One of the notable contributions from the evolution movement was what researchers called "Process Tracing." This study aims to consider the methodological contribution that this "tracing" has made to qualitative research related to the case study method in the social sciences. The paper is motivated by the new methodological contributions of the Process Tracing, which have taken qualitative research, especially the case study method, to new horizons.

This study explores a major predicament afflicting political science, focusing on the impact of ideology on knowledge. The study examines the influence of the "teleological" or ideological dimension, whether associated with the emergence of political science as a field of knowledge in the late eighteenth century, or one which continued during the Cold War era, on the knowledge and methodological structure of political science. The study argues that there is a cognitive predicament facing political science because it has become a "teleological" science in which the relationship between power and knowledge is clearly manifest. Therefore, it seems clear that ideology has an impact on the cognitive and methodological structure of political science. The study is divided into five parts: the first discusses epistemological and conceptual problems, the second describes the controversy and manifestations of the concept of ideology, the third studies the movement of political science between the ideological and knowledge, the fourth presents critical theses on the relationship between the ideological and cognitive in political science, and the fifth forecasts "post-ideology" political science.