Latest Articles

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.

The visibility of public health in world politics has increased due to epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, and tensions between public health and international trade, including those related to patents and access to essential medicines. Advocacy for raising the profile of public health on diplomatic agendas raises fundamental theoretical questions about public health: why should public health be higher on global diplomatic agendas? How should the pursuit of better public health globally be structured and implemented? This article explores answers to these questions provided by traditional theory on public health and analyzes the problems the anarchical context of international relations poses for such answers. A major part of this analysis utilizes theories from the discipline of international relations – using realism, institutionalism, liberalism, and social constructivism to illuminate theoretical challenges global health advocacy faces in making public health more important in world politics. These theories help identify a theoretical conundrum faced by public health, and the article considers various ways in which to handle this in light of the desire to increase the role public health plays in international relations.

This study begins by discussing the concept of legitimacy and then examines the patterns of legitimacy in Egypt since 2013. It specifically focuses on the legitimacy of performance within the field of educational policies and its role in the regime's continuity. The study finds that the regime cannot establish its own legitimacy merely by creating an illusion of effective performance. Instead, it can manage legitimacy through several strategies: shaping public expectations by emphasizing the importance of maintaining public order and providing basic goods and services; influencing public perceptions by highlighting achievements while concealing failures and suppressing criticism; and managing citizens' perceptions of alternatives, such as Islamist groups or a descent into chaos, or both. The study also concludes that the regime's objective is not to secure genuine popular support but to ensure general compliance by persuading the majority that it is more effective in improving their lives than any alternative. This level of legitimacy may be sufficient to encourage adherence to laws and discourage efforts to replace the regime.

This study adopts the regulatory state thesis to highlight the changes that have occurred in the economic and social role of the state and then the way in which public policy problems are addressed. The discussion focused on the regulatory policies of the telecommunications sectors following the economic liberalization of these markets and their opening to competition, through examining three cases in the Arab region: Egypt, the UAE and Qatar. The study is based on the hypothesis that the shift in the role of the state from the welfare state model, whereby the state and its institutions played the main role in the operations of providing communications services, to the regulatory state model, whereby the country adopts strategies to liberalize those markets, has necessitated making room for non-state actors to play an expanding role as a telecommunications service provider and operator. At the same time, the state has become the regulator that controls the behavior of new actors by designing regulations and legislation that control the rhythm of service delivery processes in liberalized telecom markets, in a manner that guarantees the quality of the services provided, and in a way that benefits the users.

This study traces the evolution and divergence of state–society relations in the Middle East and North Africa through the lens of social pacts and welfare regimes. It asks how governments across the region have responded to popular mobilization during and after the Arab uprisings, and what these responses reveal about the nature of the Arab state – or, more accurately, Arab states – in the region. By situating post-uprising developments within longer post-independence trajectories, the study traces sharply divergent paths since 2010. These varied responses underscore the absence of a single "Arab state" model. Instead, welfare regimes and social pacts across different types of political economies in the region reflect at least three distinct models of Arab statehood. In the oil-rich Gulf monarchies, fiscal surpluses sustain generous welfare systems and ambitious development strategies, while rulers cautiously promote expanded roles for the private sector under tight control. In middle-income states, initial post-uprising concessions, such as expanded social spending and employment, quickly gave way to austerity, debt crises, targeted assistance, and rising repression, resulting in declining welfare provision and shrinking opportunities for the middle class. In low-income and conflict-affected countries, protracted wars and state fragmentation have devastated welfare infrastructures, leaving humanitarian actors to fill governance vacuums.

This text presents public opinion trends towards a set of public policies in Arab countries, using Arab Index data. This text focuses on citizens' evaluations of their governments, due to the importance of this evaluation itself, in addition to what it reflects about the trends in the nature of the relationship between the citizen and the state in the Arab countries. This assumption is tested through a wide range of questions that measure the level of confidence in the three state authorities, the extent of confidence in the basic executive bodies, and the use a set of detailed indicators that address the evaluation of the performance of the legislative councils in carrying out their roles and the performance of governments in providing basic services. The text uses the two indicators of the priorities of Arab citizens and the priorities of spending in the state budget from the point of view of public opinion, and the evaluation of government performance.

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 debate over the most appropriate model for governing Somalia continues. This article begins by synthetizing that debate using interviews, discussion groups, as well as document and literature analyses. It addresses issues of complaint with the current system, including lack of confidence, demands for democracy, access to basic services, and for a fair share of resources. These form the core of local interest in decentralized proposals. It analyses the regional and international context, as well as tribal politics as forces pushing for the current tribal federal project. The suitability of proposals for confederacy, federalism, government by consensus, and decentralization contained in the published literature are analyzed in this context, alongside the literature available on the subject. The paper finds that a decentralized system is the most appropriate governance model for Somalia, explaining how the flexible tools it involves will work to keep the country united, address local grievances, and legitimate interests of external Parties.