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Beginning in 1995, Qatar underwent a major transformation in its foreign policy, adopting an independent and neutral foreign policy as a result of being located in an important vital, geopolitical and economic region, with tensions between the influential regional powers. Given the importance of mediation in resolving disputes and bringing peace to a region raging in conflict, Qatar adopted a foreign policy approach of dialogue, good offices, mediation, and preventive diplomacy, and worked to settle disputes and crises peacefully, remaining impartial and independent, in accordance with the provisions of international law and the Charter of the United Nations. This study explores Qatar policy and experience in mediation and dispute settlement and highlights its active role and contribution over the past twenty years, by clarifying the features of its foreign policy, strategy, and principles, and highlighting case studies of previous Qatari mediation.

The post-Cold War environment has produced a world distribution structure different from that of the system prevailing in the 1945-1991 period. Geographical regions of pivotal value have emerged as important arenas of competition among the great powers, each drawing strength from the prominent features of location and resources. Referencing these same features, this study examines the geopolitical importance of Arab and Islamic countries within the international system. It posits a set of factors to inform an understanding of the international system's evolving nature: energy, the distribution of power and hegemonies in the geopolitical spaces of Europe and Asia.

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.

This study reassesses the experience of political openness in Algeria within the analytical and explanatory categories of political economy. It is built on the premise that the transition from a totalitarian authoritarian regime to a democratic one presupposes the transition from a rentier economy linked to the external market and dominated by rentier groups, to a productive economy based on the national bourgeoisie exploitation of local labour to create wealth. The study argues that the experience of democratic transition in Algeria faltered due to the failure of the rentier groups to undergo capitalist transformation that could have allowed the emergence of the two main sides of the democratic equation: the bourgeoisie and the working class. The political elites that control the rentier economy were willing to accept political but not economic reforms that could have led to a reconsideration of the hegemonic relations within society and liberated it from the grip of power. In this regard, the failure of the economic reforms introduced by the Hamrouche government (1989 - 1991) was a prelude to the disruption of the democratic transition and prevention of the development of a civil society capable of gaining its independence from authority and, on the other hand, the independence of the Algerian state from the global market.