In this study, the researcher raises the controversy of relying on the approach of soft power as an approach to addressing the Egyptian media scene. In handling the recent crises of the Egyptian media, the author finds it difficult to choose between adopting the ‘soft power’ approach as an entry to addressing the topic, or the ‘political engineering’ approach, based on the regime’s authoritarian orientations that mainly focus on manipulation of minds, as described by American Sociologist Herbert Schiller in his book “The Mind Managers”. However, the ‘soft power’ approach is more related to the foreign policy while the political engineering approach mostly focuses on internal politics. Anyway, the conflict between various power wings in Egypt may involve both approaches, as it has been manifested in different crises experienced by the Egyptian political scene.
This study is an attempt to extrapolate the features and conditions of the Egyptian economy within the next three years, in light of domestic and global economic changes. The paper seeks to answer the following sub-questions: Will the conditions of the state’s general budget recover during the next three years and what is the expected impact of this on foreign exchange resources to Egypt? Will indicators of Egypt's foreign economic transactions improve, and what is the impact of this on the Egyptian foreign resource gap within the next three years? What are the expectations with respect to Egypt's external debt, in light of the local reality and international changes?
The study tackles the role of identity and its impact on Emirati foreign policy, from the perspective of the constructivist school in international relations and foreign policy, focusing on the social nature, intellectual factors, the role of identity, the value dimension, how ideas and identities arise, and how they interact with each other, not excluding power as a variable, but viewing power and conflict as the result of cultural perceptions and accumulations, where this pattern of interactions can be handled by changing ideas and perceptions.
Unlike the first republic phase in which the State sought to control society through the legislative system, especially the constitution and the institutions emanating from it, the constitution of the second republic was able to establish a dialectical relationship in which each party sought to contest control. The significance of this research paper lies in its endeavor to monitor the relationship between the state and society through a constitutional approach, especially that the Tunisian experience at this level is distinguished by several characteristics, perhaps most prominently its success in determining the dominance of the state over society.
This study attempts to tackle the crisis of the national state in the Arab world with the help of sociological data and concepts of political anthropology to understand the political and social changes that have befallen the Arab world, assuming that the Arab state is experiencing a real crisis and that various political changes, especially the democratic movement of "the Arab Spring", have not been able to take it to the ranks of the modern state, as a state of institutions based on full citizenship that guarantees rights and freedoms.
The paper analyzes how Turkey transforms its hard power, represented by military power, into a soft power, by using it in smart ways in regional conflicts, such as the Gulf crisis, Syria, Libya and Azerbaijan. It also analyzes how Turkey uses military force and how far this use differs from the use of hard power by other countries in the same conflicts, and the implications of that use on the results of those conflicts as well as interaction with them. The paper also deals with forms of Turkish military interventions, and how the use of hard power led to the rise of Turkey's soft power more than ever, unlike what usually happens when other countries use their hard power.
The study proceeds from the fact that China's economy has reached a prominent position among major countries in terms of progress and growth, which makes it necessary for Peking to develop its military power and modernize its military arsenal, to commensurate with its global position and to protect its economic interests stretching across the world. Since China is considered the largest consumer of energy, especially oil, it must seek protection of the waterways and oil supplies that come from overseas countries from various continents and regions (Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, North America, Arab countries). These factors prompted Beijing to focus on development of its military power in a manner commensurate with its global position. As long as China's economic interests extend across the world, such strategic thinking is required to protect its vital, strategic supplies, most notably at this stage oil, as Peking is the second largest consumer of petroleum products across the world after the United States.
The Mediterranean with its northern and southern shores is facing a range of threats that are often multifaceted. Amid existence of terrorism and proliferation of armed groups and militias, yet these militias are often involved in illegal activities such as drug trafficking and seizure of hostages, in collusion with criminal organizations, where the role they play throughout the Mediterranean region, east and west, intersects with the Sahel region.
The study aims to diagnose the European Union’s way of handling illegal immigration by adopting a purely security approach, based on awareness of the threats and security risks that this phenomenon may create on the security of European countries and societies at all levels, which prompted the EU member states to criminalize the phenomenon, relying on repressive police measures and mechanisms to limit infiltration of illegal immigrants into European lands. Instead of addressing the phenomenon as an issue related to employment and economy, within the EU lower policies, viewing the phenomenon from a security perspective prompted the European Union to adopt higher policies to face it.
The energy security has become the most complicated and intertwined issue among its economic, geographical and political factors, as one of the repercussions of the scientific-technical revolution that the world witnessed after the World War II. Energy, in terms of its sources, and its economic, productive and consumer uses, has become permeated into the smallest details of the daily lives of countries and individuals. The concept of energy security relies first on the geopolitical significance of oil and gas as the most important alternative energy sources for coal before the 1900s century, compared to the poor economic feasibility of other alternative energy sources such as nuclear energy or the wind energy...etc.; and secondly on the political economic repercussions of over-reliance on production of oil and gas energy as represented by the Dutch disease.
The main problematic of this research paper is focused on a central question: Why does the United States insist on remaining in the Middle East, amid its inability to subjugate its peoples, and its failure to create loyal governments that carry out its agenda and programs? In other words: what are the factors that make Washington strongly linked with this region, despite the heavy human and material losses it has incurred there? And what is the new strategy that Washington will pursue in the region?
The study proceeds from a question: Was the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and Taliban's restoration of power there a major victory for the Taliban movement over the United States and its allies, with all the consequences that this situation entailed; Or was it just a matter of arrangements agreed upon between America and Taliban with the aim of achievement of other strategic goals for the United States, as some suggest? The study mainly relied on the follow-up of Western writings and reactions, where the writer reviewed a large host of studies, reports and opinion articles recently published by major Western newspapers and magazines, particularly the American and British ones.
