Iran's June 2009 elections set into motion four processes that are central to the operations of the Islamic Republic regime. They include: the growing gap between large sections of Iranian society from the Islamic Republican ...

The author contends that the Arab Spring has provided an opening for the Gulf Cooperation Council as a group and for Saudi Arabia to expand their regional influence and global profile. An already weakened Arab state system, ...

For some time now, observers of the international relations of the Middle East have tried to decipher emerging security dynamics in the region in the aftermath of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Clearly, the Iraq ...

Uniquely for a country its size, Qatar has emerged as one of the world's most proactive mediators in recent years. Motivated by a combination of international prestige and survival strategies, the country has sought to ...

Saudi Arabia has positioned itself among the primary mediators in some of the Middle East's most intractable conflicts, having played central mediatory roles in Lebanon, Palestine, and in Arab-Israeli conflict. Compared ...

Authoritarian elites often prolong their tenure in office by engaging in wholesale institutional change. Whether inherited or created from scratch, state institutions in non-democracies are meant to solidify elite cohesion ...

The paper begins with a discussion of the typical roles, profile, and position of small states in the international system, explains the paradox that is Qatar’s outsized role and position in the international system, and ...

نظرت كثير من البحوث الحالية إلى الارتباطات الصينية بالشرق الأوسط من خلال عدسة الأمن، مع إيلاء اهتمام خاص لآثار التفاعلات الصينية وانعكاساتها على الولايات المتحدة وحلفائها. ومع ذلك، يجب النظر إلى علاقة الصين المتطورة في ...