The evolution of authoritarian rule in Algeria: linkage versus organizational power

This article draws on the Algerian regimes of Chadli Benjedid and Abdelaziz Bouteflika to critically evaluate Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way’s dimension of linkage. The paper shows that, despite the intensification of the country’s ties to the European Union (EU) from one regime to the other, the willingness and ability of Brussels to put democratizing pressure on Algiers decreased rather than increased. This development challenges Levitsky and Way’s thesis and the importance they place on linkage in relation to their other dimensions of leverage and organizational power. The article concludes that: strengthening linkage does not always result in greater EU or Western democratizing pressure; the balance of importance Levitsky and Way strike between their dimensions is open to question; and, the EU has grown less willing to press for political change in Algeria.     

A Changing Mediterranean: Regional Organisations and North Africa during the Arab Spring

This article discusses the role played by the European Union, African Union and Arab League in the recent revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. It focuses in particular on the use and impact of political and economic conditionality, the decision-making processes within each organisation and the inter-regional forums created to deal with the crisis. The analysis acknowledges the increasingly active and vocal role played by regional organisations in the so-called ‘Arab spring’, but it highlights not just that they had few legal powers to intervene in these crises, but also that they seemed very reluctant to use any form of political or economic conditionality. It also reveals that the main purpose of inter-regional forums was arguably not to generate consensus internationally but rather to manage dissent. As such, the article encourages a reflection on the specific challenges and opportunities that North Africa and the Mediterranean region pose to regional conflict management.     

Child Fatalities in Dammam: A Call for Child Fatality Reviews in Arab Countries

Identifying children's risk exposure is the first step toward mortality prevention. This retrospective study determined the causes of child fatalities in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Death reports of children and adolescents from 1999 to 2015 (N = 157) were analyzed. Boys represented most cases (69%) and there were two age peaks (1–5 years and 16–18 years). Accidents (typically immersion) defined the main death circumstance (51%) followed by homicide (25%). Only 33% of cases underwent autopsy, and the most common cause of death was head injury (27%) followed by firearm injury. Only one immersion death underwent autopsy. This study revealed important data about the risk exposure of children in Dammam and emphasizes deficient investigative procedures. Child fatality reviews comprise systematic data collection by multidisciplinary teams to determine the true risks toward children in a community. Such teams do not exist in Arab countries; therefore, strategies should be implemented to initiate them.     

The ‘Arab Spring’: the view from Tehran

2011 saw an unprecedented wave of popular protests shake the foundations of many Arab regimes across the Middle East and North Africa. While many observers welcomed the uprisings as movements for greater freedoms and democracy, Iran celebrated the unrests as an ‘Islamic awakening’ – the first steps in a process that would eventually result in the realignment of the Greater Middle East. This article will examine the official narrative of the Iranian regime and will contextualise the apparent contradiction in the Islamic Republic's support for the Arab uprisings despite its brutal suppression of its own people and the incitement of the same practise in Syria. The article will then assess Iran's actual role in the Arab unrests and whether the Islamic Republic has, and will retain, the ability to exploit the ‘Arab Spring’ as part of its broader revisionist struggle to weaken the forces of status quo in the region.     

对后配钥匙开启弹子锁痕迹的研究

本文通过对原配钥匙与后配钥匙在弹子锁内形成痕迹的比较,分析了后配钥匙形成痕迹的原因及影响因素,为正确认识开锁痕迹作了一定的探索。     

阿拉伯亚里士多德学派人学思想的基本维度

阿拉伯亚里士多德学派是公元9～12世纪阿拉伯伊斯兰国家一些具有自由思想的哲学家兼自然科学家,汲取以亚里士多德为代表的古希腊哲学和自然科学,用哲学解释自然界,以理性阐述伊斯兰教义所形成的使哲学独立于宗教神学的新学派。阿拉伯亚里士多德学派具有丰富的人学思想,其内容包括了对人的起源、地位问题的探讨所构成的人学本体论;对人的属性和本质问题的探讨所构成的人学本质论;以及对人生价值、人生理想等问题的探讨所构成的人学价值论。以这3个基本维度为主线所建构的人学思想彰显出阿拉伯哲学所具有的深厚文化底蕴。     

Public–Private Partnership in Tunisia: Enfidha Airport Assessment of an Infrastructure Achievement

One of the largest recent private-sector investments and the first airport private-sector concession in the Maghreb is Enfidha Airport, a key factor in the success of the Tunisian Government’s public–private partnership (PPP) strategy. However, since Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, political and social turmoil is sweeping the country and worsening the economic indicators. This article aims to assess this PPP infrastructure, allowing us to determine if it is profitable in the long term and contributes therefore to the economic growth. The case study reveals the key role of the economic, social, and political environment in Tunisia, the dawn of the Arab Spring.     

State,region and order: geopolitics of the Arab Spring

State failure, sovereignty disputes, non-state territorial structures, and revolutionary and counter-revolutionary currents, among others, are intertwined within the Arab Spring process, compelling old and emerging regional actors to operate in the absence of a regional order. The emergent geopolitical picture introduces the poisonous mix of loss of state authority spiralling toward instability, defined by sectarianism, extremism, global rivalries, and ultimately irredentism within interdependent subregional formations. This assertion is substantiated by detailed and specific evidence from the shifting and multi-layered alliance formation practices of intra- and inter-state relations, and non-state and state actors. Analysis of the relations and alliances through a dichotomous flow from domestic to regional and regional to global also sheds light on prospective future order. A possible future order may take shape around a new imagination of the MENA, with porous delimitations in the form of emerging subregions.     

To What Extent Can the January 25 Revolution Be Seen as a “Bifurcation” in the Life Stories of Egyptian Migrants in France?

ABSTRACT

The revolutionary process initiated in Egypt in 2011 triggered a surge in Egyptian-led organizations in the public arena in Paris. This article examines the issue of the “biographical impacts of commitment” and applies the “life history approach” to these Egyptian activists. Our basic hypothesis is that the opening up of political perspectives in Egypt may be understood as a bifurcation process in such individual trajectories. It may have entailed a series of disruptions in everyday life to the extent of causing these Egyptian migrants to reconsider their positions within the French context.     

Diaspora Mobilizations in the Egyptian (Post)Revolutionary Process: Comparing Transnational Political Participation in Paris and Vienna

ABSTRACT

This article sheds light on the patterns of diaspora mobilization in different settings by placing it in the transnational realm. The article does so by comparing Egyptian activism during the revolution and transformation period (2011–2013) in two European capitals, Paris and Vienna. I argue that different features—emigrant policies of the sending country, integration policies of the receiving country, and characteristics of the migrant group—influence the degree and form of diaspora mobilization.