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This paper analyzes the impact of the results of the legislative elections on the political process in Tunisia during the period from 2011 to 2021. It discusses the negative impact of the electoral system on the results of the legislative elections in general, and on the political process as a whole in particular. Due to the difficulty of the political parties that won first place in the legislative elections to obtain the required majority that enables them to bear responsibility for the political process alone during the parliamentary period. This created a state of parliamentary fragmentation that affected the Assembly of the Representatives of the People in three electoral cycles in 2011 , 2014 , and 2019 which led to the disruption of the legislative and electoral role of the Assembly, and the multiplicity and instability of governments. This paper also discusses proposals to amend the Tunisian Election and Referendum Law, which include a proposal to adopt an electoral threshold, and the impact of applying the electoral threshold on the representation of political parties in the Tunisian Assembly of People's Representatives, and on the political process.

​Title: Legislative and Presidential Elections in Tunisia 2019: Politics, Electoral Behaviors and Elite Activism. Editor: Mehdi Mabrouk. Publisher: Doha/Beirut: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. Year of Publication: 2022. Page Count: 624 pages.

This paper examines the 2012 General National Congress (GNC) elections in Libya, analyzing their implications and the interpretations that framed them as a victory for the liberal bloc (the National Forces Alliance) over the Islamist faction (the Justice and Construction Party and its allies). The paper reveals that this interpretation lacks accuracy, highlighting that a significant number of winning independent candidates were affiliated with Islamist movements. It also argues that Islamists later succeeded in consolidating their control within the GNC, leveraging their alliances to pass laws that excluded their political opponents. These elections marked a turning point in Libya after the overthrow of Gaddafi, representing the country's first democratic experiment in building a new political system despite the challenges inherited from the previous era. The paper examines the electoral system, key competitors, election results, and internal conflicts within the GNC, concluding that Islamist dominance after 2012 challenges the idea of a liberal victory.

​In this section you will find the most important documents on democratic change in the Arab world. In this issue, we publish documents highlighting the political movement in Tunisia demanding democracy and look at the main political changes in Sudan, Iraq and Jordan in March and April 2022.

Following a return to armed conflict, the Turkish authorities abandoned, in 2015, a policy of political reconciliation with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The new approach is based on, first, the idea that no capable Kurdish negotiating partner exists for the Ankara authorities to negotiate with. Secondly, it is based on a full-scale military confrontation against the PKK and on weakening the Democratic Peoples' Party (HDP) through a variety of means. Thirdly, the new approach is based on an openness to alternative Kurdish groups to represent the Kurds in the future and is also based on strengthening the Kurdish conservatives. Despite the achievements of the AKP and the incumbent government in this regard, they continue to face on-the-ground challenges. This paper seeks to answer a set of questions: Can the HDP be weakened or lost in future parliamentary representation, or will it still represent a large segment of Kurds? Would support for the AKP's Kurdish allies be enough to allow them to negotiate on behalf of Turkey's Kurdish population? How feasible is the AKP government's present approach and how successful is it?

This study reads the performance of Egyptian political forces from the time of Mohamed Morsi’s election as president of the republic to the coup against him on July 3, 2013. In its first section, the study concludes that the behavior of all political actors can be understood as a search for allies from within the old regime’s centers of power; this despite the fact that these forces were the targets of the January 25 Revolution. Nonetheless, political parties seek out old guard forces hoping they will provide leverage for a position of power. This reality allowed the old regime – with its enormous capabilities—to rejoin the map of political forces instead of being held accountable. In its second section, the study tries to read the map of the protest movement on June 30, comparing this new map with one of the nation’s politics during the crisis of the constitutional declaration in November 2012. It concludes that the most important development in the nation’s political sphere has been the ability of the “deep state” to learn the skills of popular mobilization in the street. This came after it had failed to do so in the previous 36 months. Using its connections with a wide spectrum of social groups through networks of patronage and influence, which it had not thought of using in the spectacular “battle of the squares,” the “deep state” was able to become an active and influential political player capable of taking matters back to square one.

This paper presents public opinion trends in the Arab region towards government performance in providing basic services, through the 2019/2020 Arab Index data issued by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. It focuses on reviewing the Arab public opinion trends towards government performance in public policies and basic services; and comparing them with previous Arab Index data. In addition, it highlights the relationship between government performance evaluation and government trust, and how public services are assessed among the priorities of the Arab region's citizens. Finally, the paper briefly concludes with some insights on how Arab public opinion trends towards public health services and government trust affects the behaviour of citizens during the Covid-19 pandemic.

​Events in Mosul, which was captured by ISIL on June 9, 2014, cannot be viewed in isolation from the severe political crisis afflicting the post 2003 Iraqi political regime. Generally speaking, radical groups cannot be separated from the political environment that fostered them. They are the product of a structurally imbalanced political situation. The growth of such groups in Iraq, from Al Qaeda to ISIL, provides a textbook lesson of this. They are the expression of an imbalance political situation, even if they develop and assume an independence from the political context that gave birth to them. They grow, develop, and draw oxygen from these imbalances and from sharp political and social divisions. Hence, it is not possible to defend the idea that these groups have autonomous power, rather their power derives from the acceptance of their social incubator in a political context that this incubator allows to play a role in correcting the balances of power, as a tool or revenge, pressure, influence, or the like.