The Arab region experienced minor to serious revolts from 18 December 2010. This study sought to establish whether the causes of revolutions identified by Karl Marx are consistent with what prevails in contemporary politics. This entails revisiting Karl Marx’s ideas and weighing them against what is obtaining in contemporary politics. The researchers first established points identified by Karl Marx as providing fertile grounds for revolutions through analysing his social class theory. From the population of the Arab region, Syria was purposively chosen as a case study. This was due to the fact that its unique geographical location, history, ethnic, religious complexities and recent events provided a wide spectrum for the purposes of this study. The findings show that, indeed, class struggles, class consciousness, alienation, among other things identified by Karl Marx existed in Syria. These are the conditions that Marx identified as prone to trigger revolutionary spirit. In Syria these conditions also created fertile ground for revolts. However, the study in addition established aspects of geopolitics and religious factors that Karl Marx did not foresee in the genealogy of revolutions. The researchers recommend that countries must be wary of these emerging aspects alongside those identified by Karl Marx as causing revolutions.
This paper aims simultaneously to study the global dynamic relationship of oil prices, financial liquidity, and geopolitical risk, on the one hand, and the economic performance of oil-dependent economies on the other. Global and country-specific dynamics are studied together in a Global Vector Autoregression (GVAR) model that allows different lag structures for different variables in different countries. Impulse response functions from the estimated model suggest that new waves of high oil prices are unlikely, despite the likely continuation of high global financial liquidity and heightened geopolitical risk, which had driven earlier episodes of very high oil prices. With oil remaining at modest to low prices by recent historical standards, we study the prospects for economic growth in oil-dependent economies through dramatic increases in domestic investment, as planned under Visions 2030 of a number of Arab economies, and conclude that success is unlikely.
The events of the Arab Spring and subsequent developments in Libya and Egypt raise profound questions regarding the tension between international humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty in the context of geo-politics. In examining this tension, it is necessary to understand overarching geo-political considerations regarding issues critical to understanding international relations and international law in a paradigm best described as “murky”. This murkiness applies to facts on the ground and the legal and policy questions confronting decision makers, both regionally and globally.
One of the practical results — or fall-outs — of dramatic regime change is the need to identify new, key decision makers and their inner circles, develop new information and intelligence sources, and understand the relationship between the new civilian leadership and the national security establishment.
This is an issue that confronts world leaders daily, requiring assessment of possible actions by a government that recently replaced a deeply entrenched regime that ruled with an iron hand, but whose commitment to international obligations was unquestioned. Both paradigms raise legitimate concerns regarding the relationship between sovereignty, intervention, and geo-politics. The Syrian dilemma is tangible and immediate, whereas the Egyptian paradigm is suggestive as a hypothetical. Therefore, this Essay focuses on humanitarian intervention — or lack thereof — in the face of extraordinary human rights violations.
This article examines the critiques directed at Turkish foreign policy during the AK Party administration. There are three basic critiques leveled at the foreign policy that has been followed by the AK Party: Islamist ideology, geopolitical codes, and lack of capacity in foreign policy. These criticisms will be examined through a multi-layered approach, whereby they will be contextualized in terms of global fragmentation (macro level), regional disorder and fragmentation (meso level), and restoration in domestic politics and the opponents within Turkey towards these policies (micro level). A look at the challenges that Turkish foreign policy faces today and the search for a new foreign policy model will follow.