The Arab uprisings of 2011 can be understood as the striving for a new social contract founded on constitutional and democratic principles, says Ayman Ayoub.
In the Arab spring, new social media and the established media disseminated the voices of dissent and images of state brutality worldwide. The sheer drama of these unfolding events conveyed to us by correspondents physically embedded among the protestors, vividly conveyed the elation involved in c
For all those who are afraid or suspicious, I invite them to go to the streets of Syria. One main defect with academic writing is that it avoids bombast. Hence, it doesn’t say that those young men and women who have been protesting in the streets of Syria for more than five months are heroes.
Can drawing attention to the regime's excesses force Spain and other countries to put pressure on the Syrian government?
The establishment and deepening of a democratic culture is a long-term project and is intergenerational. As divisions open up between the elites and the street as well as within the elites, the events of 2011 across the Middle East and North Africa represent a powerful first step in a larger proce
Libyans face the complex challenge of creating a new order and a new society from the rubble of the old. Lessons learned elsewhere on peacebuilding and statebuilding offer a checklist and an evidence-based framework for action.
Extremist Islamists may only be one small part of a wide cross-section of disenfranchised Libyans who could no longer bear the tyranny of Gadaffi, but they pose the question whether reactions to the Arab Revolutions are ever entirely innocent of double standards.
A relatively stable Egypt now has the challenge of establishing a legitimate democracy. This is a long journey, however, in a country where keeping the military and government honest has taken precedence over supporting a political party that might one day be in charge of government.
The United States's political-military strategy for drawdown in Afghanistan is in trouble, even as Washington is tempted by increased high-tech military engagement in other theatres of war.
A triple diplomatic challenge to Israel from Turkey, Palestine and Egypt both reflects the region's political transformation and reveals the key flaw in Israel's attitude to its neighbours, says Khaled Hroub.
In this eventful month of September, the Israeli (Arab) spring has to decide: where does it stand, first and foremost, in regard to Palestine, but also in regard to Turkey and Egypt.
At their very best, Israeli-Palestinian partition plans envision the same kind of complex ethnic patchwork rejected by western diplomats in Bosnia.
