Latest Articles

This study analyses the constructivist perspective of security and establishes the constructivist contribution to security studies, particularly in terms of the conventional and critical constructivist approaches, arguing that constructivism has constituted an intellectual turning point. It demonstrates how constructivism, or rather constructivisms, has enriched and developed the concept of security and security studies on three levels. First, it approaches security as socially constructed and intersubjective. Second, it has undertaken a critical revision of major rationalist concepts, notably anarchy and the security dilemma. Third, it has introduced concepts of identity, interests, and norms to the field of security studies. However, there are shortcomings in the constructivist contribution on identity and security, in addition to inter-constructivist disagreements, which have prevented the evolution of a clear theoretical framework, even within critical constructivism, which has made the most innovative contributions to the field. The study concludes that constructivism has not formulated a distinct theory of security. However, its innovative contributions and its role as a theoretical reference point for new approaches to security constitute a constructivist perspective within International Relations. Both critical and non-critical strands of the new security approach have developed security theories grounded in constructivist insights. This constitutes the central theoretical achievement of constructivism in the field of security studies.

This article examines a contingent Paradigmatic shifts at the 'ESS 2003 and 'EUGSS 2016'. It mainly argued that, the EUGS's including of 'Resilience' as a strategic priority of EU external and security action settled more security roles to the EU. To address these shifts, the article provide three sections. Firstly, we trace with the help of CST the 'genalogy of resilience', and show how resilience as a rationality of governance endorse an intensified logic of security. latter, we explore the EU's two paradigms, 'Normative' and 'Resilience', their meanings, connotations and applications in the EES 2003 and the EEGSS 2016, and show how the EU display a new institutional mechanisms and security/ defense initiatives in order to fulfill its new paradigm. Thirdly, we, test the limits of these shifts by examining the applications of resilience within the European agenda on Migration.

​Using a realist approach, this study explains the development of international institutions in the Arab system, taking the Arab League and the Arab Monetary Fund as case studies. It puts to the test realist assumptions regarding states as major actors in the international system and examines how the principle of chaos and the absence of central authority affect their behaviour. In this context, the prisoner's dilemma is used as a mirror for security interactions and chaotic structures in the Arab and international systems. The study shows that realist assumptions are not sufficient to explain the development of Arab institutions; they need to be modified to explain the variation in international behaviour in the region. The conclusions of the paper are based on an analysis of the reward environment in which Arab countries interact, and its division into a security-military sphere and a political-economic sphere.

This study explores the perceptions of Britain's main political parties towards the Palestinian Islamist faction Hamas throughout the period between 2003 and 2016. It explores also the extent of variation between the major political parties in the UK towards Hamas. The author argues that the lack of a value-based outlook on the part of the British ruling establishment as well as a lack of respect for the tenets of international law—which enshrines the right to resist occupation—have driven that establishment to embrace the UK's colonial legacy, and to regard their government as the founder and protector of the State of Israel. It is this establishmentarian discourse, argues the author, which drives the criminalization of Hamas within British politics.

Beside the military and external challenges, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are facing serious domestic non-conventional challenges, i.e., the demands of political reform, social mobilization, demographic imbalance, environmental deterioration, resource depletion, the transformation and diversification in post-oil economy, terrorism and radicalization etc. In particular one of these new kinds of threats has started to be significant in the last decade. The massive immigration and demographic imbalance between local citizens and foreign residents in countries like the U.A.E, 10 percent; Qatar, 15 percent. This imbalance and the massive immigration into the GCC countries increased the vulnerability of these states, especially since it relates to other critical security issues such as human security (food security for example, in UAE is an example, the country import almost 95 percent of its food consuming) radicalization, energy security, and domestic unrest especially after 2011.

The Islamic Republic's foreign policy, grounded in a revolutionary commitment to Shi ʿ i transnationalism, has long been viewed as a central mechanism for securing Iran's regional influence and post-revolutionary identity. Yet recent developments, most notably the June 2025 war with Israel, raise critical questions about the sustainability of this approach. While much scholarship has explored Iran's identity-driven foreign policy, less attention has been paid to the chronic contradictions it generates within Iran's ontological security framework, or how these contradictions both shape and constrain Iran's regional conduct. This study approaches the problem by theorising Iran's predicament as an ontological trap, a condition in which identity-affirming foreign policy routines produce chronic insecurity rather than stabilisation. It introduces the concept of a security dilemma of influence to explain how transnational networks (once strategic assets) now provoke nationalist contestation and narrative fatigue in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon.

This article looks at Algeria's security policy in general and its security doctrine in particular, analysing its changes and dilemmas in a turbulent regional environment and in the context of an internal Hirak. It argues that these doctrines have undergone minor changes to meet regional security needs, which precludes fundamental change at this stage. It also argues that the tension between the moral-normative imperative and the security imperative, on the one hand, and the principle of dual non-interference (political and military), on the other, constitute two major dilemmas confronting Algerian politics and security doctrine. Starting from these two elements, the article, after setting out my concept of the subject, examines the formation and nature of Algerian politics, ideology, and transformations. It then looks at the constitutional decision on the participation of Algerian armed forces in international peacekeeping operations, analysing their context (domestic and foreign), their motives and justifications, and the reservations they face. Finally, it analyses Algeria's regional security strategy as an alternative to intervention. The article comes to three main conclusions. First, there is a limited adjustment to the issue of external interference depending on the needs of the security interest. Second, the end of the absolute refusal to use armed forces outside the borders. Third, it is likely that the tension between moral-normative and security considerations will escalate if the unrest continues within its geographical boundaries.

The study addresses the issue of armament and the security dilemma in the Maghreb region, focusing on the rivalry between Algeria and Morocco. It argues that the armament level of the two countries has risen significantly in recent years, in the context of structural rivalry, making the Maghreb region one of the most heavily armed regions in the world, despite the absence of existential inter-Maghreb threats. The study attempts to examine the armament issue in the Maghreb and to understand its determinants and developments, focusing on the factors that influence it and on its likely consequences. Adopting the realist approach as a theoretical framework, it analyses SIRPI's data to demonstrate the high volume of Maghreb military expenditure and its evolution, and examines the Maghreb armament and its determinants and military risks. The study concludes that: the armament of the two countries reflects their competition over leadership and their threat perceptions; the armament dynamic is independent from the inter-Maghreb political tensions; the existence of a potential military confrontation between the two regional powers due to the interaction between emerging factors and structural ones.

This article traces the different paths taken by constructivism in International Relations, from its emergence as a critical social theory in the 1980 s, in response to the third debate between positivist rationalists and post-positivist reflectivists, to Alexander Wendt's project to seize a middle ground and to bridge the rationalist–reflectivist epistemological gap. The article, then, examines the intra-debates among conventional and critical constructivists on Went's project, as well as the rise of the new constructivism after Wendt left the constructivist research program. The article explores the Wendtian project's epistemological tensions and demonstrates how such tensions led to a plurality within constructivism: modernist conventional and postmodernist critical (reflectivist). It highlights that Wendt's leaving constructivism and his shift to a quantum approach have not caused constructivism to decline, but instead, it continued to thrive through the efforts of a new generation of constructivists. The article argues that three main developments in International Relations over the past twenty years have contributed to its ongoing thriving: the decline of epistemological polarization among IR theories; the rise of critical realism as a philosophy of science in International Relations, and the emergence of analytical eclecticism.

This article draws from structurationist and symbolic interactionist sociology, seeking to build a bridge between the realist–liberal and rationalist–reflectivist debates in the field of international relations. In doing so, it argues against the neorealist claim that self-help is given by anarchic structure exogenously to process. It further argues that self-help and power politics do not follow either logically or causally from the anarchic structure of the international system, but are generated by process rather than by structure. There is no logic of anarchy apart from the practices that create and instantiate one particular structure of identities and interests rather than another. Self-help and power politics are institutions, not essential features of anarchy – anarchy is what states make of it. The article explores three ways in which identities and interests are transformed under anarchy: by the institution of sovereignty, by an evolution of cooperation, and by intentional efforts to transform egoistic identities into collective identities.