The Arab World

Many researchers who believed in the “Arab Spring” are now debating the “Arab Autumn.” The two concepts are misleading because they reflect the entangled and complex reality of Arab countries at the current time. Such significant events that comprised the Arab Spring require knowledge of the influence of countries that were not directly involved in it, but which were pursuing their interests beyond their own borders. An attempt to engage with this sort of analytical framework leads to political fallacy that will contribute more to the crisis rather than solve it. Thus, it is important to understand that those who fight tyranny are not necessarily democratic themselves. What is the state of play in the Arab world today? At what stage of history is this region positioned? To answer both questions a lateral approach is needed, but this should not overlook the size of cases and their different levels.

The Role of Political Parties in Supporting the Process of Democratic Consolidation

This study identifies the role of Jordanian political parties in supporting the process of democratic consolidation and in solving the problems and challenges that block the process of democratic transformation. It used a cross-sectional design depending on statistics and analytics, whereby 497 male and female students were selected from three departments of the recruited colleges. Data were collected through a questionnaire, with a reliability score of 0.92 (Cronbach’s alpha). Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient, univariate analysis, and multiple contrast tests were used to analyze the data. Findings from the study indicated that the role of Jordanian political parties in entrenching the process of democratic transformation and in solving problems and challenging procedures was partially performed. The obtained p-value of 0.00 indicates that political parties play a significant role in dealing with democratic challenges at behavioral, attitudinal, and constitutional levels.

Potentialities in Applying Foucault’s Discourse Analysis to World Bank Research

Applying the discourse analysis methods of Michel Foucault to reports researched and published by the World Bank may reveal certain kinds of thinking embedded in the work of the institution, and this may serve as an important resource or vehicle for understanding the relationship between the World Bank and the societies it services. Such insight is important because it acts as an international authority on the alleviation of poverty and inequality, and as an informative resource for other institutions and the public. For this reason, it is necessary to ensure its research does not cause unnecessary harm to the societies in which it operates, which are often vulnerable to external actors.

The Images of China and Britain in the Syrian Media

China and Britain have contrasting images in the official and unofficial Syrian media. By analysing relevant news stories, this study reveals that China’s involvement in the Syrian crisis as covered by the Syrian media is usually limited to governmental affairs, while Britain’s involvement covered by the Syrian media, especially the “revolutionary” outlet, figures in a relatively wider range of diverse nongovernmental happenings including activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the media. Most importantly, the study finds that the “revolutionary” outlet Enab Baladi is apt to present Chinese involvement as negative, but presents British involvement as positive, while the government-backed news agency SANA portrays a completely positive image of China and a fundamentally negative image of Britain.

The Lebanese Civil War 1975–90

This article argues that the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90) was in essence a terror of state directed by mercantile economic and political elites (the comprador class) controlling the Lebanese state and society against the middle and poorer classes (the working class). The aim of this terror or organized violence was to subdue the subordinate classes, which in the late 1960s and early 1970s rebelled against the confessional system that operated for the benefit of the comprador class. The rebellion was expressed by members of the working-class joining cross-confessional nationalist and leftist parties. Hence, violence was aimed at reestablishing the confessional order as a means to restore a hegemonic system that served the interests of the comprador class at a time when this class was rehabilitating its economic role by resurrecting the financial system, which had received a severe blow in the late 1960s. It effected this rehabilitation through the Taif Agreement signed between Lebanese parliamentarians in 1989, under the auspices of Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, to favor the new mercantile elite led by Rafiq Hariri.

Variations among North African Military Regimes

This article explores the differences between two North African military regimes—Egypt and Algeria—which have been selected due to the continuity of military dominance of the political systems. Still, variations have marked their political development. In particular, the Algerian army’s approach to civilian institutions changed after a civilian president was chosen in 1999. This was not the case in Egypt after the demise of the Hosni Mubarak regime of 2011. Other important variations are to be found in the way power has been distributed among the military apparatuses themselves. In the case of Egypt, a principle of collegiality has been generally preserved within a body, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which is absent in the case of Algeria, where conflicts between military opposed factions are more likely to arise in case of crisis. How differences generally impact the stability of military rule in these two cases is the main contribution of this paper.

From Higher Education in Historic Palestine towards a Pan-Palestinian Higher Education

The fiercely waged, century-long conflict on the ground of historic Palestine between the Jews, who from the mid-nineteenth century have mainly immigrated from Europe, and the Arab Palestinians, who live there—and have been living there for centuries/thousands of years—primarily started in the educational field. With the establishment of the Technion Institute in 1912, the Political Zionist movement started to develop a higher education system (HES) that could deliver the human capital needed for the building of a prosperous state, one built on the occupation and expropriation of Palestinian land and material property, on the expulsion of the people who lived there, on a system of apartheid, and, at long last, on the denial and destruction of the Palestinian identity. It was only sixty years later that a Palestinian response in the field of higher education was in a position to start with the establishment of Hebron University in 1971, followed by over fifty other Palestinian higher education institutes (HEIs). Despite current numerical parity in the population of around 6.5 million each (The New Arab 2018) and the number of HEIs (over fifty each) on the ground of historic Palestine, a devastating multi-sectorial power discrepancy exists in favor of the visions of Political Zionism. The power discrepancy and the irreconcilable narratives developed on both sides render peaceful compromises impossible. Through bibliographic research, this paper provides an outsider’s general snapshot of the current state of higher education in Palestine in order to explore its relation to conflict narratives, to power gap, and to major political events. It presents ideas for an intra-Palestinian, just as a regional and a global, discourse on how the still weak Palestinian HES in the Occupied Palestinian Territory could be improved to further strengthen Palestinian economic and scientific progress. It reflects on how to expand into a pan-Palestinian HES that, in addition, targets Palestinian refugees and diaspora Palestinians from all over the world, as well as Palestinians living in Israel. Beyond this demographic expansion, this essay suggests an academic engagement with the strengthening of historic Palestinian identity and the restitution of its cultural Druze and Jewish components, which were lost during the last century of conflict. This strengthened renewed multi-religious (now multilingual) Palestinian identity can also offer a long-term perspective for a peaceful solution, a perspective which cannot be offered by the exclusive Political Zionism.