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La representación en la contemporaneidad posee una innegable centralidad en la cultura occidental, en la cual se relaciona lo visto con la verdad. Actualmente, los productos audiovisuales son los encargados de recrear y representar visualmente espacios y culturas del mundo a los que generalmente sólo se puede acceder mediante las pantallas, con las connotaciones y filtros que ello implica. En la dicotomía entre Occidente y el mundo árabe musulmán los medios de comunicación han sustituido a otros actores como ventana de aproximación y producción de la imagen de esa parte del mundo. Las mujeres han sido parte de los elementos diferenciadores más recurridos a la hora de representar a las culturas árabes musulmanas y el choque entre los valores occidentales y de Oriente. Este capítulo propone un recorrido a través de las contribuciones teóricas y elementos contextuales que configuran e influyen en la representación de mujeres árabes musulmanas en largometrajes y series de ficción españoles de la segunda década del siglo XXI. Estos factores constituyen la base para el posterior diagnóstico del papel de los medios de españoles en la reducción de desigualdades y a favor de la equidad de género a través del discurso social del entretenimiento.

Mit ambitionierten Plänen brechen die Staaten des Golf-Kooperationsrats auf in die Wasserstoffzukunft. Insbesondere Saudi-Arabien, Oman und die Vereinigten Arabi­schen Emirate (VAE) verfolgen ehrgeizige Vorhaben, die Europa und Asien-Pazifik mit Wasser­stoff versorgen sollen. Zahlreiche Absichtserklärungen wurden abgeschlossen, erste Großprojekte auf den Weg gebracht. Für die Golfstaaten geht es nicht nur um Diver­sifizierung, sondern vor allem darum, bestehende Wirtschafts- und Machtstruktu­ren aufrechtzuerhalten. Dies wäre möglich, da sich die Wasserstoffwirtschaft in den vorhandenen institutionellen und fiskalischen Rahmen der Petroleumindustrie ein­fügt. Gleichzeitig ist sie eine wirksame Möglichkeit, den Klimaschutz international voran­zu­tragen, birgt für Deutschland und Europa jedoch Zielkonflikte und offene Fragen. (Autorenreferat)

The countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are mapping out agendas to kickstart a hydrogen economy. Especially Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are pursuing ambitious plans to supply Europe and Asia-Pacific with the carbon-friendly fuel. Numerous declarations of intent have been signed, and the first large-scale projects are under way. For the Gulf countries, hydrogen is not only a means of diversification. Since the hydrogen economy blends into the institutional and fiscal framework of the petroleum industry, it is primarily a chance for the GCC economies to maintain current economic and political power structures. While hydro­gen from the Gulf is an effective tool for climate change mitigation, Germany and Europe are faced with trade-offs and open questions. (author's abstract)

This comparative ethnography of a Muslim and a Christian Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon focuses on contrasting social belonging processes through a ritualization approach. The author argues that contrasts emerge out of the intersectionality of religiosity, nationhood, refugeeness and politics, and synthesizes academic research on piety and moral self-cultivation and on the everyday life of religious communities. He contributes to the literature on refugees at large, and Palestinian refugees in particular, with the unique dense socio-historical portrait of two refugee camps for which there is almost no recorded literature.

When Israel signed the Abraham Accords in 2020 reactions were diverse. Experts were divided - some fearing a deepening of regional divisions, others hoping for a positive impact on the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP). Two years later normalisation has intensified, but differs in degree and scope. Israel's normalisation process has strengthened her acceptance in the region and reaches beyond security issues. While Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates lead these dynamics, eager to benefit from exchange in science and technology, in Morocco the United States' recognition of the latter's sovereignty over the Western Sahara has hardened Rabat's position on that issue. With Sudan, the process has not developed beyond contact between the Israeli government and the internationally contested military leadership. Normalisation is not a decisive factor for Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution. On the contrary, it was not an incentive in the past for Israel to make concessions; clashes with the Palestinians in Gaza or recently on the Temple Mount could not derail the process either. The real test, however, would be another Palestinian intifada or a return to the annexation plans of early 2020. Iran remains an important uniting factor which has led to a shared threat perception. Nevertheless, the Gulf monarchies and Israel differ in approach towards Iran. While Arab-Israeli joint military exercises mark a historical shift, talks about a military alliance in the Middle East with Israeli (and US) involvement are premature. The European Union and its member states should build on these positive dynamics and look at developments in the region not merely through the lens of the MEPP. Trilateral projects with Israel and Arab partners are a good starting point here. Also, Europe should become more involved in the broader Middle East through strategic dialogue with partners in the region as well as the US on the new order in the making.

When Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup on December 2, 2010, at first sight it appeared to be the crowning achievement of an unparalleled development and the diplomatic success story of the 21st century. In fact, the rentier state of Qatar, which had still been suffering from major development policy deficits in the 1980s and had been acting from a position of weakness in its foreign policy, then rose to become one of the richest countries under the rule of Hamad Al-Thani (1995-2013). It was also able to achieve remarkable successes in foreign policy, too. As is discussed in Section 2, however, many of the structural problems associated with rentier statehood had by no means been overcome. The decade following the announcement was also to present unexpectedly significant challenges: the Arab Spring of 2010-11, the collapse of oil and natural gas prices in 2014, and the blockade of Qatar imposed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Egypt in 2017. The wealth of the country notwithstanding, a number of structural factors placed severe pressure on the regime in Doha to further develop internal and external legitimacy so as to stabilize its rule. Because of the prominence of the World Cup, the regime in Doha faced a whole new set of challenges. Until then, Qatar’s sports diplomacy had been a clear success story that had raised the country’s international reputation, whereas Doha now faced massive criticism from Western media and nongovernmental organizations. Initially, the main accusation was that the choice of Qatar for the 2022 FIFA World Cup by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was also the result of corrupt practices. In addition, Qatar had at times been accused of supporting terrorism. However, the most sustained criticism of Qatar being awarded the 2022 FIFA World Cup came from a debate launched by Western media, nongovernmental organizations, and human rights organizations about labor conditions i

Widad Sakakini's work reflects the transformations of Arab societies since the beginning of the twentieth century, particularly the changing gender roles. This study of her shows how she took globally circulating feminist concerns, translated them into her local contexts, and rooted them in Arab-Islamic history through her essays, short stories, and biographies. As an "Arab feminist," being both a feminist and a Muslima went together well for her. By navigating between liberal, socialist, nationalist, and Islamist peer groups, she simultaneously negotiated her own multiple forms of belonging. Taking her life as an example of a transnational biography, this study further argues that it would be unsatisfactory to reduce her complex affiliations and trajectory, spanning Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, to a mere Islamic, secular or Syrian identity. Rather, she was concerned with balancing and reconciling supposed opposites, such as East and West, reason and spirituality, men and women.

From discrimination against Chinese-read migrant workers, via intraregional competition for China’s favour, to collaboration on infrastructural megaprojects, vaccine development and digital surveillance techniques: Arab-Chinese relations in times of COVID-19 are complex and multi-layered. Yet, established regime-centric approaches often fail to see this complexity by almost exclusively focusing on questions of authoritarian regime collaboration. Such approaches not only ignore the diversity of involved actors and the inherently transregional nature of contemporary authoritarian power, but also bear the risk of reproducing binary notions of authoritarianism vs. liberal democracy that fundamentally ignore the latter’s coercive core. Recent work on the duality of infrastructure as both enabling global flows of goods and (re-)producing social hierarchies helps us overcome the methodological nationalism found in the majority of scholarship on authoritarian power. In this article, we provide a selective overview, through the prism of logistics and infrastructure, of Arab-Chinese authoritarian entanglements in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding authoritarian practices as territorially unbounded modes of governance, our objective is to develop a more in-depth and context-sensitive understanding of the transregionally connected mechanisms of (re-)producing authoritarian power. We argue that the pandemic constitutes a seemingly managerial opportunity for the intensified diffusion of authoritarian practices that both enable certain infrastructural politics and in turn are also rendered possible by them. This emphasis on infrastructure, understood as simultaneously fostering a global circulation of goods and capital, as well as reinforcing containment and facilitating new forms of managing and repressing public discontent, provides us with a helpful lens for the development of a truly transregional understanding of authoritarian collaboration. We discuss this a

In the space of just nine months, Tunisia's President Kais Saied has centralised power and dismantled the institutions established by the young democracy since the revo­lu­tion of 2011. His new constitution establishing a "New Republic" will be put to a refer­endum on 25 July 2022. Saied's plans have divided the nation, with growing resistance from political and civil society actors demanding the return to an inclusive and demo­cratic process. At the same time, the country is moving closer to default. Tunisia's Euro­pean partners have invested heavily in democratisation and view the autocratic shift with concern. But they have failed to take meaningful action, and each new step by Saied makes it harder to reverse the path. In the interests of Tunisia’s stability, Europe should move decisively and employ the financial and diplomatic leverage it has due to Tunisia's economic crisis. (author's abstract)

Fleeing war, repression, and economic breakdown in their home country, Syrians have become the largest group of refugees in the Middle East. Relative to their own populations, neighboring Jordan and Lebanon have hosted the most Syrians per capita. While both are small, middle-income, and resource-poor countries, the perception of their respective governance of Syrian refugees has been diametrically different: While the 2016 Jordan Compact has been hailed as a success story of innovative refugee governance, the Lebanon Compact has never achieved similar recognition. Instead, Lebanon has been criticized for applying a largely laissez-faire, non-policy approach to the Syrian crisis. The main objective of this short intervention is to evaluate both compacts 5 years after their signing and to outline a more reflective potential EU policy approach.

From spring 2019 until summer 2021, Israel was politically paralysed because no stable government could be formed. Four elections were necessary before a new gov­ernment took over on 13 June 2021. Not only was Benjamin Netanyahu replaced as prime minister after 12 years. A coalition was formed that covers almost the entire political spectrum. In the meantime, it has stabilised and its direction is becoming clearer. Nationally and internationally, the coalition has broken with the populist rhetoric of the Netanyahu government. At the same time, it is exploring different policies: Domestically, it is for the first time including an independent Arab party and has stopped the attacks on principles of liberal democracy. In its foreign policy, it is promoting rapprochement with the European Union (EU) and the Biden adminis­tration as well as more integration into the region. It is also trying to contain the conflict with the Palestinians through social and economic measures. But a political rapprochement is not in sight. A "point of no return" is looming, making a two-state solution impossible. (author's abstract)

Seit Frühjahr 2019 war Israel politisch gelähmt, weil keine stabile Regie­rung zustande kam. Vier Wahlen waren nötig, bis am 13. Juni 2021 eine neue Regierung die Geschäfte übernahm. Nicht nur wurde Benjamin Netanjahu nach zwölf Jahren als Premier ab­gelöst. Es wurde eine Koalition gebildet, die fast das ganze politische Spektrum ab­deckt. Mittlerweile hat sie sich stabilisiert, und die Ausrichtung wird klarer. National und international hat die Koalition mit der populistischen Rhetorik der Netanjahu-Regierung gebrochen. Zugleich sucht sie nach anderen Politiken: Innenpolitisch inte­griert sie erstmals eine unabhängige arabische Partei und hat die Angriffe auf Prinzi­pien liberaler Demokratie gestoppt. Außenpolitisch wirbt sie für Annäherung an die EU und an die Biden-Regierung, aber auch um mehr Integration in die Region. Zudem bemüht sie sich, den Konflikt mit den Palästinensern durch soziale und wirtschaft­liche Maßnahmen einzudämmen. Doch eine politische Annäherung ist nicht in Sicht. Es droht ein "point of no return", der eine Zweistaatenlösung unmöglich macht. (Autorenreferat)

Middle East Arab diasporas, primarily the Iraqi and Syrian ones, are playing an increasing role in the economy and demography of Sweden. This study aims to describe the formation of economically active diasporas in Sweden over the past three decades. There has been a paradigm shift in the immigration and business activity of people from the Middle East Arab countries in Sweden. Diaspora leadership changes depending on the situation in the countries of origin and migration phenomena driven by political and military shocks. This change affects the migration process and the role of communities in the economic life of the country. The study draws on the work of top research centres and data from leading Swedish and international statistical agencies. The rise and subsequent decline in Syrian immigration, which included labour migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, did not restore the unconditional leadership of the Iraqis among the Arab communities of Sweden. The significant business activity of Syrian immigrants, their professional skills, level of education, and broad business ties make the diaspora a likely leader in the Arab community. These four factors also contribute to easier migrant integration into Swedish society.

The goal of this report is to summarize and analyze key survey findings in regard to insecurity and security provisions within each of Yemen’s twenty-one governorates. Before delving into the internal institutional arrangements and conflicts within Yemen’s military-security services (during the period prior to and during the 2011 mass protests), this report will briefly assess the most significant security threats the country has been facing. These prerequisites will allow for the disentanglement of prevalent conflicts and the configuration of conflict-relevant (armed) actors. Furthermore, this report will elaborate on the security developments of each governorate for the time between 2011 and 2013. This will help the reader understand the perceptions of survey respondents toward particular actors, police work, and security. The fieldwork for this report was conducted between November and December 2012. The target sample of the survey is 2000. Due to a security related incident in the city of Sa’da, the actual sample size is 1990. All of the respondents are above the age of 18. The ratio of male and female respondents is even. The urban/rural ratio is 28% urban, 72% rural.

By discontinuing their war against Israel in the late 1970s, the surrounding Arab states made room for the resumption of a different, new/old war, which first erupted prior to the Arab-Israeli interstate war: the civil war between the Jewish-Zionist settler society and Palestinian Arabs, a war over Palestine. The Arab-Israeli conflict is not one, but rather two conflicts, both of which are complexly and inextricably linked in a number of ways. Zionist Jews in Palestine (or the pre-1948 Jewish autonomy in the country) and later the state of Israel have been a permanent party to these conflicts. In contrast, the "Arabs" - or the Palestinians and the Arab states surrounding Palestine - have been changing parties to the overall conflict and its many different wars., Indem sie ihren Krieg gegen Israel beendeten, ermöglichten die umgebenden arabischen Staaten seit Ende der 1970er-Jahre die Wiederaufnahme eines anderen, neuen und zugleich alten Kriegs, der schon vor den zwischenstaatlichen Kriegen mit Israel geführt worden war: des Bürgerkriegs zwischen der jüdisch-zionistischen Siedlergesellschaft und den palästinensischen Arabern, eines Kriegs um Palästina. Der arabisch-israelische Konflikt bildet nicht einen, sondern eher zwei Konflikte, die auf komplexe und untrennbare Weise miteinander verbunden sind. Zionistische Juden in Palästina und ab 1948 der Staat Israel sind durchgängig eine Seite dieser Konflikte gewesen. Die "Araber" - oder besser: die Palästinenser und die arabischen Staaten, welche Palästina umgeben - sind veränderliche Parteien des Großkonflikts und seiner vielen Teilkriege gewesen.

In a context of areas of limited statehood and contested order, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria have been affected by similar diffuse global and more specific regional and local risks over the past two decades. Yet they differ in outcomes. Lebanon has not descended into civil war despite fears that the one raging in Syria might spill over to its territory and Iraq has coped better over the past decade than Syria has - despite having been subject to various forms of conflict since 1980. We analyse this variance by asking to what extent resilience might buffer against violent conflict and governance breakdown. Through a comparative discussion of sources of resilience - social trust, legitimacy and institutional design - we find that limited input and threatened output legitimacy are harmful to resilience, while collective memory and reconciliation, as well as flexibility of institutions are crucial factors of resilience. Nonetheless, our findings caution that resilience should not only mean the capability to adapt to crises but also needs to set the stage for comprehensive and inclusive transformations that are locally rooted.

In the closing scene of The Last of Us (2016), we see the torso of a young black man who stands naked before a clearing in the forest. As he gazes out at a cascade of water tumbling down to a rocky pool below, the young man's image gradually fades away, absorbed into the landscape. Nothing about this scene, from the blackness of the protagonist to the coniferous forest, has any clear reference point in Tunisian national cinema. Indeed, director Ala Eddine Slim has expressed distaste for being classified as a regional filmmaker, preferring that his work be seen as international, transcending borders. And yet, to the familiar eye, this film belongs unmistakably to Tunisia's postrevolutionary political transition, a time fraught with unpredictable shifts in national identity and the contours of the state. Slim is part of a new generation of Tunisian filmmakers who have won critical acclaim on the international festival circuit since the 2011 revolution. More than a burst of creative energy released by the demise of autocratic rule, their experimental aesthetic emerges, in part, from struggles within Tunisian filmmaking establishment that have shaped the conditions of production under political transition. In this essay, I track the intergenerational conflicts that have prompted to the recent extroversion of young Tunisian filmmakers, who have set their sights beyond the nation for funding and recognition.

This article contributes to the analysis of local media and democratic transformation in Tunisia since the Arab Uprisings. It aims to assess the extent to which pluralism, freedom of expression, and participation - central tenets of democratisation - are evident at the local level. Tunisian local media, unlike the national media, is relatively free of governmental control. Local media is also decentralised. It is this autonomy from the government which makes the analysis of local media fundamentally important for understanding politics in Tunisia. While national media is linked to the most powerful elements in the country, the diversity of voices within the media at the local level provides an opportunity to grasp the grievances, struggles, and agency of people in Tunisia, especially the most marginalised communities. This article will detail the changes in the media landscape, especially for local media, in Tunisia and connect our analysis of local media to better understand the Tunisia that has developed between dictatorship and democracy and the extent that the fledgling Tunisian democracy can withstand its most recent test.

To what extent does societal resilience help to prevent governance breakdown? The EU's southern neighbourhood has been troubled by multiple security risks in recent years. The security situation of many citizens is uncertain and local populations frequently feel insecure, an indication of governance breakdown. Resilience has become a new focus in preventing a breakdown of governance. Yet, the extent to which resilience can help prevent governance breakdown remains unclear. Building on original survey data from Libya and Tunisia this study contributes empirical evidence to the debate. The article shows that limited statehood and order contestation do not necessarily lead to a breakdown of governance. Although both risks affect Tunisia and Libya to different degrees none of them are strongly correlated with the security perceptions of local populations. Additionally, resilience is key in preventing governance breakdown. Social trust and the legitimacy of governance actors are two main sources of resilience helping to prevent a breakdown of governance. Moreover, resilience has divergent effects on different dimensions of security governance breakdown. While resilience has stronger effects on national security perceptions, local security considerations are partly driven by other factors such as individuals' economic resources.

On January 25th, 2011 thousands of protesters took to the streets of major cities in Egypt - referred to as the "day of wrath" - to express their grievances and frustration with the ruling regime, ultimately leading to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak after three decades in power. The street, as a socially constructed space of discontent, had become the central locus of political change. In this paper, I will tackle the question of how and why policing strategies in Cairo failed to contain protesters, eventually leading to the withdrawal of security forces on January 28th. I will analyze the interactions between security forces and protesters in protest events during the uprising, focusing on policing strategies, tactical repertoires, and spaces of resistance. Through this, I hope to offer a way of looking at the politics of territorialization and space production in protest, and by extension, the negotiation of power relations between authority and resistance actors.

Utilizing a qualitative research methodology, the paper introduces the background to the conflict in Darfur, including its origins, main causes, and related consequences and impacts. The causal factors of the conflict include colonialist and post-independence policies of economic and political marginalization, environmental degradation, demographic pressures and ecological hardships, ethnic and tribal conflicts fuelled by the then Al Bashir's governmental inaction or partial support, and wider regional conflicts and intervention. Later the paper addresses Darfur Peace process from a general perspective. Then, the third part of the study sheds lights on the vital needs and tremendous challenges of Darfur's post-conflict reconstruction, respectively. The paper concludes that addressing these all-encompassing and overlapping needs and challenges represents the indispensable conditions for post-conflict reconstruction in Darfur, without which the recovery, sustainable development, and prosperity of greater Darfur region are likely to be negligible or insignificant.

EU-GCC relations started thirty years ago, but proceeded very slowly. After the first agreement between the two institutions in 1998, the EU transformed, the GCC slowly changed, the international system dramatically converted and rules between two parties were amended by the ENP of the EU. Although both sides need each other, obstinate policies caused cessation of relations several times. According to some scholars, the GCC is becoming a periphery region for them, however the GCC still needs the EU as a first market in total trade. Bilateralism, cultural differences, the GCC's loose integration and lack of EU leverage in the Gulf could be lined up as some reasons for the non-progressive relations. Recent developments such as Trump’s election, Brexit, the Qatar crisis, 5+1 Iran Nuclear Deal and Russia's growing interest to the Gulf are affecting EU-GCC relations negatively. In this study, historical and recent developments and their effects on the EU-GCC relations were examined; and lastly some alternative solutions are discussed.

This working paper is based on the empirical research on translocal figurations of displacement of Syrians in Jordan. It contains methodological discussions, central findings and reflections on these findings. Drawing on the conceptual framework of the TRAFIG project, this paper explores the central research question of TRAFIG, namely "how are protractedness, dependency, and vulnerability related to the factors of local and translocal connectivity and mobility, and in turn, how can connectivity and mobility be utilized to enhance the self-reliance and strengthen the resilience of displaced people?" The paper presents findings from Jordan, where Syrian refugees have sought refuge in host communities. Syrian refugees' stay in Jordan has become increasingly protracted, with the durable solutions of return in safety and dignity, local integration and resettlement remaining out of reach for most. In this paper, we argue that Syrians are de facto integrated in Jordanian host communities due to shared language, religion and socio-cultural ties as a pragmatic strategy for dealing with uncertainty and protracted displacement. We found that family- and kin networks have proven vital in facilitating and protecting mobility out of Syria and within Jordan, even as these networks are strained due to physical and geographic distance, reliant upon aid and financial support and socio-economic stress in the local labour market. We see that Syrians experience uncertain futures in which their mobility aspirations are unrealised, economic prospects are reliant upon and highly competitive with others, and connectivity with the host community is strained and can be improved.

Between 2020 and 2021, Israel concluded normalisation agreements with four Arab states. They were celebrated internationally as a breakthrough. Meanwhile, since 2018, and largely unnoticed by the public, Arab states have started repairing their relations with Syria. Finally, in January 2021, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ended their boycott of Qatar during the meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia. Changing assessments of the regional security situation and converging interests have enabled these rap­prochements. However, these developments do not mean that the region is moving towards peace and stability; on the contrary, long-lasting conflicts remain unresolved and the threat perceptions of third actors are being exacerbated. Germany and its partners in the EU should avoid being co-opted by local and regional conflicting par­ties and should instead focus on supporting regional conflict management. (author's abstract)

Urban violence has become a major threat in big cities of the world. Where the orthodox protection through the police and individual target hardening remain inefficient, the population must organize itself. This book contains first-hand accounts on a selection of the most innovative experiences in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Arab region and is of interest likewise for academics and urban practitioners, policy makers, international cooperation experts or travelers preparing a visit of one of the affected countries.

The victory over the territorial rule of the so-called Islamic State provides an opportunity for the government of Iraq to restore its state institutions and reassert its authority. Can the Iraqi leadership step beyond cycles of failure in this transition to tackle the systemic issues that sustain state weakness and promote the emergence of groups like ISIS? This paper aims to enlighten the challenges faced by Iraq after ISIS for the restoration of peace between minorities and religious groups, and coexistence after the myth, so that conflicts are going on between minorities and religious groups, particularly in Mosul and other cities under the control of ISIS, the state could not reconcile the displaced people. Correspondingly, this paper intends the focus and role of local, regional, and international media in the process of peacebuilding and coexistence in Iraq after ISIS.

"Das Volk will den Sturz des Regimes!" Unvergessen bleibt der Ruf der Menschen in Ägypten nach Freiheit und Selbstbestimmung, der im Jahr 2011 durch die Straßen Kairos hallte. Auf theoretisch innovative und interdisziplinäre Weise kombiniert der Autor strukturelle, netzwerktheoretische, konstruktivistische und kommunikative Aspekte des Transitionsprozesses zur umfassenden Untersuchung der revolutionären Mobilisierung säkularer Netzwerke sowie der konfliktiven Auseinandersetzungen mit dem Regime und der Muslimbruderschaft. So zeigt er auf, dass Demokratisierung ein widersprüchlicher und schwieriger Prozess ist, an dessen Ende die Re-Autoritarisierung der Politik stehen kann.

The complications of the Syrian crisis that has extended over six years are overseen on three distinct levels which are national, topographical, and global. A closer look at the situation in Syria in 2010/2011 will help explain why the regime has survived, the complexities of the situation in Syria, and what makes the search for a stable political settlement so difficult. The purpose of the present study is to highlight the nature of US engagement in the Syrian crisis which involves maintaining the US military presence for regional stability, ensuring the enduring defeat of ISIS, countering the future expansion of the Iranian influence and political settlement to the conflict, containing the Assad’s regime in the interim. By outlining various threats, issues, assessing the Syrian conflict and its key actors, this paper seeks to explain the US response to the Syrian crisis on basis of thematic analysis. In conclusion, the United States' foreign policy has continued in a region vital to its national security interests due to available oil, its impetus to protect Israel, to support security by retaining military bases, to preserve the position of the protectorate of client states, and friendly regimes, and to resist Islamic movements and terrorism.

2020/21 unterzeichnete Israel Abkommen mit vier arabischen Staaten, die international als Durchbruch gefeiert wurden. Von der Öffentlichkeit weitgehend unbemerkt vollzieht sich unterdessen seit 2018 eine Wiederannäherung arabischer Staaten an Syrien. Schließlich beendeten mit dem Treffen des Golfkooperationsrates (GKR) im saudischen Al-Ula im Januar 2021 Ägypten, Bahrain, Saudi-Arabien und die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate (VAE) ihren Boykott Katars. Veränderte Lagebeurteilungen und das Konvergieren von Interessen haben die (Wieder-)Annäherungen ermöglicht. Damit bewegt sich die Region aber nicht auf Frieden und Stabilität zu; langanhaltende Konflikte werden nicht beigelegt, Bedrohungsperzeptionen dritter Akteure verstärkt. Deutschland und seine Partner in der EU sollten sich nicht von lokalen und regio­nalen Konfliktparteien vereinnahmen lassen, sondern Ansätze regionaler Konflikt­bearbeitung unterstützen. (Autorenreferat)

A powerful pro-Palestinian transnational advocacy network has emerged in Malaysia since the Gaza war of 2008-09. Taking the cooperation between the Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia, the Islamist Hamas, and the United Malays National Organisation as an example, I analyze the network and argue that the three actors are engaging there to promote the Palestinian struggle for an independent state but at the same time, each actor is using the network to pursue its own interests.

This article builds on theoretical foundations from enclave urbanism, authoritarian planning and neoliberal urbanisation to explore contemporary socio-spatial transformation(s) happening in Cairo, Egypt. Relying on a nationwide road development project, inner-city neighbourhoods in Cairo are turning into urban enclaves, whereby populations are being separated by a multiplicity of transport-related infrastructure projects. As these rapid planning processes are occurring, our article aims to explain why these developments are crucial and unique in the context of the post-Arab Spring cities. We argue that the new road infrastructure is creating a spatially and socially fragmented city and transforming the urban citizenry into a controllable and navigable body. We use an inductive approach to investigate the effects of the new road infrastructure and its hegemonic outcomes on the city. On a conceptual level, we propose that the enclaving of the city is a containment method that has erupted since the mass mobilisations of the Arab Spring. In doing so, we use qualitative analysis to explain empirical evidence showing how the city is being transformed into nodes of enclaves, where communities are getting separated from one another via socio-spatial fault lines.

This article focuses on the arrangements and interactions between political and social positions of universal standards and those with a conservative character referring to religion. In other words, our concern is to dwell on the manifestation of impact, on the dynamics of gender in Morocco, the confrontation between politico-social institutions referring to religion and those believing in universal principles. Proponents of the secularist view practically conceive of local development far from any discrimination based on social gender. They are thus more open to the public space and to universal values than their Islamist adversaries generally chained by a sometimes radical conservative representation of religious texts. Indeed, social representations, the interpretation of religion, the social imaginary without forgetting the power relations, all this contributed well, within a patriarchal system, to a hierarchy of social relations while determining roles and precise statutes for men and women. A historical approach stopping on some stations of the struggle of the Moroccan feminist movement since independence, especially around the issue of legal status and the family code, will certainly inform us about the new situation of women's rights and the challenges envisioned by the wakes of the patriarchal system. In the same way, the descriptive analytical approach appears indispensable in these conditions.

Ende März 2020 rief UN-Generalsekretär Guterres angesichts der Bedrohung durch die Covid-19-Pandemie dazu auf, weltweit die Waffen ruhen zu lassen. Obwohl diese Initiative von 171 Regierungen begrüßt wurde, ist es nicht einmal kurzfristig zu einer umfassenden Gewaltreduktion in zentralen Konfliktgebieten gekommen. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Auswirkungen der Corona-Pandemie in zwei regional wie global bedeutsamen Konfliktländern, Kolumbien mit seiner fragilen Befriedung und Syrien mit einem militärisch fast entschiedenen Krieg. Er fragt, wie die Corona-Krise die Dynamiken von Gewalt und Frieden nach bzw. am Ende von Bürgerkriegen beeinflusst. Kolumbien gilt weltweit als Beispiel dafür, dass umfassende Friedensabkommen auch in komplexen Konflikten möglich sind. Trotzdem ist der kurzfristige, friedenspolitische Trend in Zeiten der Pandemie bestenfalls ambivalent: Zwar hat die absolute Zahl der Morde abgenommen, MenschenrechtsverteidigerInnen und demobilisierte Ex-KombattantInnen bleiben jedoch bevorzugte Gewaltopfer, die Zahl der Massaker hat wieder zugenommen. Die noch aktive Guerillagruppe Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) verkündete zunächst einen einseitigen Waffenstillstand, beendete diesen aber Ende April. Auch in Syrien sind die Auswirkungen der Pandemie auf die Konfliktdynamik widersprüchlich bis negativ: In der letzten Rebellenhochburg Idlib hat Covid-19 zwar indirekt dazu beigetragen, die russisch-türkische Waffenruhe vom März 2020 über mehrere Monate zu stabilisieren. Im Nordosten Syriens, der teils von der Türkei, teils von den kurdisch dominierten Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) kontrolliert wird, hat sich die humanitäre Lage hingegen seit Beginn der Pandemie deutlich verschlechtert, da das Assad-Regime die internationale Hilfe nicht in das verfeindete Gebiet weiterleitet. Trotz diverser Unterschiede zwischen Kolumbien und Syrien nutzen die jeweiligen Regierungen die mit der Ausbreitung des Virus verbundenen Krisen vor Ort, um ihre politisch, Given the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, UN General Secretary Guterres called for ceasefires around the globe in late March 2020. Even though this initiative was welcomed by 171 governments, not even a short-term violence reduction has happened in central conflict areas. This contribution examines the effects of the Corona pandemic in two regionally and globally significant conflict countries, Colombia with its fragile pacification and Syria with its militarily almost decided war. The article asks how the Corona crisis influences the dynamics of violence and peace after respectively at the end of civil wars. Colombia is a prominent example of a comprehensive peace agreement in complex conflicts. Nonetheless, the short-term, peace-related trend in times of the pandemic is ambivalent at best: While the absolute number of murders has declined, it is human right defenders and demobilized ex-combatants who remain the main victims of violence - and the number of massacres has increased again. The still-active guerilla Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) initially called for a one-sided truce, yet ended again in late April. In Syria, the consequences of the pandemic on the conflict dynamic have ranged from contradictory to negative: In the last rebel stronghold Idlib COVID-19 directly contributed to the months-long stabilization of the Russian-Turkish truce from March 2020. In Northeastern Syria, which is partly controlled by Turkey and partly by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the humanitarian situation has clearly worsened since the beginning of the pandemic. The Assad regime does not allow international aid to pass through to the opposition territory. Despite diverse differences between Colombia and Syria, one crucial similarity is that the respective governments instrumentalize the crisis on the ground for the often violent consolidation of the political agenda. In the bigger picture, the experience from the two countries suggests that COVID-1