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The study centers on a major problem related to rational choice theory and its applications in international relations and foreign policy. It asks whether the selection process is subject to the principle of maximizing benefit according to this theory, or is subject to other principles, psychological processes and cognitive biases. The study reached conclusions that confirm that the selection process is in fact subject to a non-standard process; that is, it is not subject to continuous choices to benefit maximization, but there are other factors that lead to the selection of risk over gain, and here the psychological aspects overlap with the rational aspects in influencing the choice. This reveals that it is not possible to separate the school that focuses on the psychological aspects of the decision maker and the school that focuses on rational calculations, but rather that the two can be combined together within the framework of alternative theories complementary to rational choice theory, such as the perception theory.

This text was fundamental to the crystallization of structuralist theory in international relations. It addresses one of the discipline’s major dilemmas: the dialectic of the relationship between actor and structure. It reveals the shortcomings of the interpretations offered by the prevailing structuralist theories (neorealism and world-system theory), which failed to grasp the mutually constitutive nature of human agents and system structures, reducing the international system either to constraints imposed on actors or to structures generating behavioral patterns. However, by employing the “structuration theory” borrowed from sociology, US political scientist Alexander Want offers an expanded perspective that avoids reducing system structures to state actors (as neorealism does) or their reification in world- system theory. The scientific realist/structuration approach thus investigates the properties and dispositions of state actors and the system structures in which they are embedded, contributing to the reformulation of theoretical debate in the field of international relations, opening up broad horizons for understanding international dynamics and establishing a new research agenda that combines philosophical-scientific analysis with political-historical analysis.

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.

Although the academic study of International Relations (IR) in the Arab world has been ongoing for almost seventy years, there remains a dearth of information regarding its origins that can be attributed, in part, to a lack of research on the state of the field. The present study seeks to address this gap by conducting an examination of the state of IR in the Arab World over the course of a century. Additionally, this study proposes a novel method for evaluating the current state of the field and assessing its scientific output. To achieve these objectives, the study applies sociological generational analysis to three generations of Arab IR scholars, then examines their contributions to four key aspects of the field: the scientific production cycle, the formation of the scientific community, the development of its institutional structure, and relative autonomy from political science.

Specialists in the philosophy of social sciences preach simplicity in choosing variables during research design, the aim of which is to avoid the complexity of abundance, reducing the clarity and logical consistency of the thesis. The rule of using limited variables is based on the methodological rule called the "Principle of Parsimony" which means that the most acceptable explanation is the simplest and stipulates the use of the lowest possible number of variables in order to explain the maximum possible number of phenomena. This study introduces this principle and examines the reasons for its absence from political research by assuming that the reason for the lack of parsimony in political research, and the tendency of researchers to use multiple variables, is the widespread "methodologist" tendency, which emerges as a type of excessive confidence in the reliability of the method.

The study criticizes the general framework that has governed the broader current of the researchers in civil-military relations, their method of thinking about the military institution since the inception of the field, the paper presents the theoretical and practical gaps in that literature, in particular the researchers of "Coup-Proofing". The study shows the weakness of the explanatory capabilities of the field in extrapolating and analyzing the historical era that the research seeks to reveal its theoretical and historical ambiguities, which is the phase of political pluralism in Syria between 1954 - 1958 , which the researchers viewed as a democratic phase. The paper examines why did the army step down from the presidency and allowed civil forces to engage in political action at the time, in spite of that phase is in the midst of two series of coups. The paper is based on a basic premise that the army as a military institution do represent wings, sectors, units, brigades, and power relations, before it is an expression of any other social segments, which is in contrast to what the literature says in examining the sociological backgrounds of the officers.

This book examines and establishes the sociological relevance of the concept of populism and illuminates the ideological use of sport, leisure, and popular culture in socio-political populist strategies and dynamics.

This article draws from structurationist and symbolic interactionist sociology, seeking to build a bridge between the realist–liberal and rationalist–reflectivist debates in the field of international relations. In doing so, it argues against the neorealist claim that self-help is given by anarchic structure exogenously to process. It further argues that self-help and power politics do not follow either logically or causally from the anarchic structure of the international system, but are generated by process rather than by structure. There is no logic of anarchy apart from the practices that create and instantiate one particular structure of identities and interests rather than another. Self-help and power politics are institutions, not essential features of anarchy – anarchy is what states make of it. The article explores three ways in which identities and interests are transformed under anarchy: by the institution of sovereignty, by an evolution of cooperation, and by intentional efforts to transform egoistic identities into collective identities.

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.

This study conducts research on the traditional academic methods used in the Arab scholarly community. Specifically, it employs the case of legal science when addressing the following questions: Is the Arab academy in its field suffering from academic dependency? What forms does this take and what are the reasons behind it? Where does reviewing theoretical or conceptual frameworks of legal science fall in this? This study focuses on law as a method of social control in the methodological crisis undergone by the social sciences. This study refers to two crises examined by Arab legal science: identity crisis and functional crisis. These are illustrated by two main indicators: The gap between the quantitative growth of the number of law students and the weak production of legal research knowledge, the gap between the quantitative development of the educational institutions of law and of legal structures.