Latest Articles

The Gulf states, as a center for oil and gas production, face the challenge of adapting to an increasingly uncertain energy landscape as new resources arrive in the market, and the reverberations of unstable demand and turbulent geostrategic conditions. The great challenge for these countries, in which social peace depends on unlimited consumption of subsidized energy, is to reduce consumption and develop alternative energy sources to conserve traditional fuels for export. The effects of these transformations are significant today, and the economic, social and political stability of these countries, as well as their ability to remain major players in the global energy system is at stake. Renewable energy policies, tailored to the unique political, economic and social conditions of each country, need to translate aspirations into swift practical action to succeed and rejuvenate the option of cooperation within a productive institutional framework.

​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.

Forty days after the outbreak of the Yemeni Revolution, on March 21, 2011, General Ali Mohsen Saleh al-Ahmar (commander of the northwestern military district and the 1st Armoured Division), Major General Mohammad Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar (commander of the eastern military district) and a number of commanders of other military units declared their support for the revolution. The Yemeni army divided into two: “supporters of the revolution army” and the “family army,” according to the characterization by the forces of the revolution. This development exposed to the public the hidden divisions within the structure of the Yemeni Army, taking it to the point of no return. The capital Sanaa and some other Yemeni cities witnessed limited armed confrontations between the two armies and between the militias supported by them. That is why the executive mechanism of The Gulf Cooperation Council’s initiative (the Gulf Initiative) included a special term for uniting the army, restructuring it, and ending its division. With the split as its background and the Gulf Initiative as its point of departure, this paper aims to show what was achieved in terms of restructuring the army. It describes the course of this restructuring operation, the difficulties it entailed, the tasks that have not yet been accomplished, as well as its impact on national unity, social integration, and confidence-building between the parties participating in the national dialogue conference.

Our study aims to put under scrutiny the Algerian army tasks and roles through different periods of time and this requires going back to the roots when the national liberation army was established, returning to the present as the army has become the institution protecting the state. An institution which has an everlasting organic relation with politics, embodying one of its central tasks. The study needs to highlight the above cited issues in its attempt to grasp and understand the army role during the 1992s' political crisis, and in so doing a particular attention is given to the ways how the army dealt with the crisis and what is the nature of its contribution in tackling and facing it. Finally, the study is concerned with the army role in the near future from a prospective approach.

​This article analyses the development of civil-military relations in Ethiopia and how they are affected by politics, culture and ethnicity whilst drawing on compatibility theory. It explores a fundamental issue: to what extent does ethnic and cultural diversity influence civil-military relations in Ethiopia? The article begins with the hypothesis that the military's interests and political affiliations arise from their vision of the nation-state's interest, and may conflict with the attitudes of civil institutions, complicating the separation between civil and military institutional mandates. The article demonstrates how the social structure and distribution of tribes has had an impact on the reform processes of successive political systems in Ethiopia. Moreover, it concludes that consensus in civil-military relations and civilian control of government will continue in the future if slogans of centralization and citizenship are actualized through legal and democratic methods based on the principles of justice and equality in rights and duties among all constituents.

This paper examines the variables that could affect the attitude of armies towards revolutions. These variables are numerous and diverse, and they differ depending on the nature of the armies and the societies from which they emerge, as well as the international climate in which they exist. As such, the paper argues that the fate of revolutions is determined - with rare exceptions - by the attitude of the army in terms of its bias toward the revolution or toward the existing regime confronting it. The paper also explores societal factors and their role in determining the behavior of the army and its attitude towards revolution, especially in societies characterized by ethnic, religious, and sectarian diversity. The paper looks to Syria as a clear model of the phenomenon within the context of Arab revolutions and uprisings. The paper concludes that the ease or difficulty of predicting the behavior of armies towards revolutions varies between different cases given the multiplicity of factors that could affect it.

This paper focuses first on the rising role of the army in Egyptian political life after the January 25 Revolution. Starting with its break away from former president Hosni Mubarak, to its assumption of power in taking on the task of managing the transitional period by overseeing the constitutional referendum as well as parliamentary and presidential elections, the paper traces critical moments and shifts in the relationship between the army, the people, and politics. The paper also documents the decline in the role of the army after Mohamed Morsi came to power, and after what is termed a “paradigm shift” represented by ousting Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Lieutenant General Sami Anan, and other members of the military council from the political scene. The paper then surveys within a theoretical framework the relationship of armies to democracy, offering examples of military interference in political life and comparing these with what happened in Egypt. Finally, the paper turns to Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s ultimatum, his request for authority and the subsequent fallout that put both sides of the crisis in Egypt on the brink of the abyss.

This study examines the redefinition of civil–military relations in Sudan, arguing that the prevailing approach in the country reduces these relations to the issue of military reform and reduces that reform to preventing the army from carrying out a coup, removing it from politics, or restricting its economic activity. The study begins with a critique of Samuel Huntington's traditional theory and presents alternative approaches that advocate integrating the military into society and expanding its roles under civilian control. It also offers a typology of armies based on four models according to their political and economic engagement, applying this framework to the Sudanese army and its transformations since the independence (1955). The study concludes that building a more sustainable relationship requires rethinking the framework that shapes civil–military relations in Sudan. It calls for involving military personnel in formulating national policies and regulating their economic activities through governance in ways that strengthen national security and support the political process.

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.

​This study fits into a broad category of scholarship concerned with transitional periods in various political systems. Specifically, it examines the political transition in post-revolutionary Tunisia since 2011. It does so by comparing the legal provisions of the post-revolutionary transition - the major texts, which define the transitional stage - and the political realities, which take the shape of events, actions and political discourse. A point of particular focus is the 2011 elections to the National Constituent Assembly, which the author analyzes through the rubric of "electoral engineering". One more conclusion of the paper is that electoral engineering remains a feature of Tunisian politics, although it has gone from "authoritarian electoral engineering" to "democratic electoral engineering," reflecting changes which have taken in the country as a whole.