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This study deals with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as a non-state actor. It examines the internal environment in Turkey and the PKK's material strength before moving on to the external environment and the PKK's entry into an international conflict, focusing on historical development since the end of the Cold War. The paper argues that non-state actors contribute to international anarchy and conflict through competition with the state over the monopoly of power and the acquisition of territory, identity and resources. It also stipulates that the PKK benefited from the internal and external environmental variables contributing to international conflict. The study concludes that the entry of the PKK, which originated in Turkey, into an international conflict took place in several stages: the competition with the state for power; the influence of its foreign policy choices; the acquisition of new territories; and extra-territorial action.

Since the outbreak of the Arab uprisings in 2010-2011, the teaching of public administration has been constantly evolving. Cases from Morocco, Qatar, and other countries in the Arab region have demonstrated the need for more robust cultural competency approaches on all major disciplines in public administration at the master's degree level. The Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) and the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA) have also intensified their focus is on preparing students and faculty for culturally diverse workplaces and establishing departments for effective public administration in the Arab region. Through applying qualitative analysis of documents and content in presenting relevant research published in the English language in the past two decades, this study examines the impact of the value added by the inclusion of cultural competency skills in public administration programs in the MENA region on good governance. It also suggests possible avenues for future US-Middle East partnerships to address training and educational gaps.

US and Gulf relations are based on more than self-interest, but common selfinterest is always a key (or the key) factor in shaping an alliance and strategic relationship. The key common self-interests that drives US and Arab Gulf relations are security – the need to deal with Iran, fighting extremism, and securing the flow of petroleum exports out of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula to meet the needs of the global economy, and to provide the key source of income for the Gulf states. This study explains why the United States maintains close ties with its Arab strategic partners in the Gulf. The study finds out that the US and its Gulf strategic partners face serious challenges, including domestic political change in the US, divisions between Arab states, the impact of regional conflicts and instability, and the growing role of non-Western powers.

Scholars studying the Middle East often challenge the IR discipline's Eurocentric framings of the world by emphasizing the particularities of the Middle East, which defy and challenge the universality of Western-rooted IR theories. Social constructivism, focusing on agency and processes, has been regarded by many as an approach with the potential of taking into consideration specific historical, ideational, and cultural contexts in the Middle East region. Social constructivism, as developed by Alexander Wendt (1992 , 1994 , 1999), seems to lend itself especially well to adaptations to provide insights for the Middle East. This article revisits some aspects of Wendt's constructivism and explores its applicability in the Middle East. The article examines Wendt's cultures of anarchy to show how cooperative relations transform into conflict through processes of interaction. I examine how the Middle East provides both a potential and challenge to his argument by examining the case of Saudi relations with Hamas, with a particular focus on the episode of the 2009 Gaza war. The article examines the puzzle of how Saudi Arabia changed and evolved over the years from supporting Hamas and the Palestinian resistance to identifying it as an enemy, despite sharing pan-Islamism as a collective identity.

This paper explores Arab public attitudes towards the proliferation of nuclear weapons across the Middle East. The results of the Arab Opinion Index presented here indicate that a majority of the Arab public has an in-principle opposition to the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Nonetheless, there are important caveats to this opposition: Israel’s present-day monopoly of nuclear weapons is a limiting factor to this principled opposition. Respondents to the survey, who also overwhelmingly view Israel as the country which poses the single greatest to regional security, contend that Israeli possession of nuclear weapons justifies other states in the region seeking to obtain them.

Through a critical review, this paper examines the most important issues raised during the political forum for "The Washington Institute," a forum devoted to the discussion of US policies in the Middle East. This is based in a belief of the importance of critical interaction with the outcomes of policy centers in the United States, given the global significance of these centers in terms of impact on American foreign policy making or critical discussions aimed at understanding what the Washington institute promotes. A critical view is needed in particular around the Zionist and Israeli interests of the institute. The paper also focusses on the objectives of the political forum, and a call for redefining the allies of the US in the region and the establishment of a strategic constellation of allies that include Israel and other Arab countries.​

Eastern Sudan is in a critical stage, where local fault lines intersect with Horn of Africa tensions and regional and international ambitions. This study traces those fissures and their intersections in order to understand and analyze the conflict in the region. Its basic premise is that eastern Sudan represents the priority and geographical entry point in the Sudanese peace-building process, and that the establishment/strengthening of peace in this region is linked to a reciprocal relationship with the security and stability of the Horn of Africa. The study presents preliminary ideas, in terms of preventive diplomacy, that may contribute to healing the rifts. It is based on a combination of primary sources, literature, and personal interviews with Sudanese academics, diplomats and other actors. In addition, it builds on the outputs of two workshops from the Sudan Track II Peace Dialogue Project. It frames some aspects of the analysis and ideas presented with a set of theories and hypotheses that intersect with the field of conflict studies, following the "combined approach," for studying complex conflict environments.

The paper studies the Iraqi-Syrian-Turkish conflict over the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, from a geopolitical perspective. It argues that this conflict has historical and political roots, not solely tied to the natural availability of water in the Tigris and Euphrates, but rather connected to the policies of different parties in managing water resources. The paper includes three essential elements. The first examines the geographical and hydrological characteristics of the Tigris and Euphrates. The second explores the political and academic discourse in the 1990 s regarding the "water war" theory. The third and final element analysed the characteristics of the new conditions that have distinguished the three countries since the beginning of this century, imposing on Syria and Iraq the need to devise a new vision for managing their available water resources. The research concludes with the inevitability of negotiation for the joint management of the Tigris and Euphrates water resources as it is not in Turkey's interest to ignore the interests of downstream countries. Moreover, Syria and Iraq cannot achieve any results without negotiation and water diplomacy.

Economic inequality is one of the most pressing issues in the twenty-first century, given that a small minority controls the global economy and most influential power. This has led to an escalation of political instability and a decrease in social inclusion, as evidenced by studies related to the Arab Spring and the ongoing turmoil in the MENA. This quantitative study investigates the effect of capital formation and the rate of return on capital on economic inequality in countries of the region. The results demonstrated that the factors used to measure the formation of capital, such as total domestic savings and total fixed capital formation, positively correlate with economic inequality - increasing the inequality gap. Conversely, factors used to measure the rate of return on capital, such as real interest and the interest rate on deposits, correspond negatively with economic inequality. When the interest rate on deposits increases, economic inequality decreases. It is necessary to review fiscal and monetary policies to reform taxes and benefits to increase their impact on equity and redistribution, and to avoid the impact of capital and power accumulation.

Beginning with a review of existing theories of international relations that discuss policies of penetration, this study examines current politics of the Arab regional order. Four different aspects of penetration are reviewed, including intra-Arab threats, rivalry between Arab states to occupy a central position, historical legacy, and multinational companies. The role of Arab elites in processes of penetration by means of their links with international powers and interests is also considered. The study looks at ‘soft’ penetration through an analysis of language, education, media, and civil society organizations, as well as “blatant penetration” like the occupation of Iraq and the spread of foreign military bases. Beyond Arab state actions, the paper also considers intervention by neighboring regional states. The paper finds that variation in the development of political, social, and economic systems has a corresponding influence on the levels of foreign penetration, infiltration, or influence. It also finds that analyzing the Arab region as a single regional system reveals a deep level of military, social, and economic penetration on all levels.