Are All Gazans Hamas?

Conflict Management and Peacebuilding: Examining the Interface between Local and International Approaches

Saudi Arabia has formulated and enforced a new tourism law to develop its tourism sector with special emphasis to open more international activities in the hotel industry. The main objective of this study was to determine the influence of new regulations of hotel industries in Saudi Arabia on the decision making process of the hotel companies in relation to international franchising. Qualitative research design was used to investigate the connection between new regulations of hotel industry in Saudi Arabia and its cross-border franchising activities. Data was retrieved from two primary sources: governmental agencies and, the hotel and leisure companies involved in franchising. The main sectors covered were the investment in tourism lands, establishment of tourism based associations, and replacement of foreigners, price and classification. Data was generated through twelve in-depth interviews with the representatives of the sample companies, from April to September 2016. The primary data generated during interviews was complemented by data from industrial publications and the annual reports to know about the current status of Saudi hotel industry and the activities of the sample companies. Findings confirmed that the regulatory reforms of a hotel industry, by following new hotel-based regulations, added new vigor to hotel based industry and enhanced its international profile. The new tourism law authorized the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Heritage (SCTH) to identify and propose new lands for tourism investment, which may increase its importance among the global hotels’ franchisors.

Until 2018, women in Saudi-Arabia did not have access to football stadiums, and before 2020 there was no official women’s teams. On the face of it there were no women in football until top-driven policy reform suddenly turned the situation upside-down. But the story of women’s football unfolding away from these headlines is a completely different one. This book traces the emergence of women’s football in Saudi Arabia from the infancy of grassroots women’s team in 2005 to the launch of the first official, state-sponsored, competitions in 2020 – a period Saudi Arabia was going through rapid change. This book is thus both a history of women’s football in Saudi Arabia and a study of and social change, and the role of grassroot actors in times of transformation. The research in this work is based on fieldwork in Riyadh, interviews with players and pioneers of women’s football in Saudi Arabia, and analysis of social and traditional media and other available documents. In tracing the developments of women’s football in Saudi Arabia, Charlotte Lysa offers a ground-breaking social history of contemporary Saudi society and a narrative of change: change within football, change in women’s roles, and change in the structures of society.

The purpose of this thesis is to extend the understanding of social entrepreneurs’ perceptions of the institutional environment, and their behaviour when they try to adapt to a context where social entrepreneurship is non-institutionalised. Theoretically, the thesis draws on institutional and cognitive perspectives to develop a conceptual framework in order to answer the research questions. The thesis uses primary data from interviews and secondary documents collected by the researcher. Data collection was conducted in two rounds between 2014 and 2016 in Saudi Arabia. The empirical findings are divided into three main parts. The first part explores the influences of individual factors (human capital and psychological capital) and institutional factors (religion- Islam) on social entrepreneurs’ perceptions. The findings explained how social entrepreneurs rely on these factors to build internal and external expectations. The second part investigates social entrepreneurs’ perception regarding the regulative, cognitive and normative institutional environment dimensions. The findings show that Saudi social entrepreneurs perceive their institutional environment to be unfavourable towards social entrepreneurship. The third part looks at their behaviour in terms of their collaboration with their social ties to adapt to the institutional environment. The findings identified the roles of other actors in the field (government, intermediaries, local foundations, global non-profits, private sector). These further emphasise the importance of the social entrepreneurs’ social capital in a noninstitutionalised context such as Saudi Arabia. The findings of this thesis can be valuable not only for researchers but also for policymakers and practitioners working to improve the social entrepreneurial institutional environment in similar countries.

This paper focuses on the chasm between domestic and international understandings and approaches to peacebuilding and the mixed outcomes that characterize contemporary efforts to assist war-torn countries. It argues that post-Cold War peacebuilding relies on a wide array of international actors with diverse interests and mandates which are not necessarily aligned with local realities or needs. Building on the rich literature on the role of external actors in conflict zones, the paper examines the interface between domestic and international actors through the concept of hybridity. It then reviews two mechanisms that aim to level the playing field between war-affected countries and international actors: the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission and the New Deal for Engagement with Fragile States.

Based on interviews, this article examines the Philippines as a sending state from the perspective of seafaring labour export. It analyses how the outsourcing of seafaring labour and global regulation of standards of seafarer education, training and certification have broadened and deepened the involvement of international actors in Filipino seafaring labour. It situates these developments in two phases of seafaring labour migration, thereby clarifying the role of these international actors and their relationship with state and non‐state actors. These international actors have influenced Philippine policy on seafaring labour and employment, are vitally involved in assembling Filipino seafaring labour through their investment in maritime education and training and are determining Filipino seafarers' employability through their inspection of Philippine compliance with the STCW convention. Compliance with this international instrument mobilised the state to reshape the functioning of its agencies to revitalise its capacity as a sending state.

In line with the mantra of almost everyone who has written about Côte d'Ivoire's, the story of the country goes as follows: with its close ties to Western nations when it gained independence from France in 1960, the development of cocoa production for export, and foreign investment, Côte d'Ivoire's emerged as one of the most prosperous countries and a model for economic growth and political stability in West Africa. The country, which is made up of a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim north, was united under the strong leadership of its first president, Dr. Felix Houphouët-Boigny, from independence until his death in 1993. Since then, Côte d'Ivoire's has been besieged by a series of political and economic crises. While many observers have discussed the internal factors that account for the country's crises, the roles of international actors have been ignored. Thus, the major question probed in this chapter is quite straightforward: what roles have international actors played in Côte d'Ivoire's crises and why? This question is poignant because many other scholars and I have demonstrated that foreign influence—operationalized as perceived or real external effect from military intervention or presence, military aid, economic aid, trade, ideology, values, and veto power—has had a negative impact on the economic and political crises of African countries.1 Many other scholars have also done case studies on foreign influence and political instability in Africa.2

<p>This thesis focuses on the role of an international actor - United Nations (UN) - and its missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMBiH) during 1992-1995 and Kosovo (UNMIK) in the post war conflict period of peace building. It scrutinizes the tenor of UN peace building missions in these territories by analysing the scope of the policies introduced and the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of the international actors' activities during the times of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) before the conflict in Kosovo and Metohija (KiM); and the current situation in these two territories. The thesis will also argue that the ethnic identities played a critical role in relation building between the UN and ethnic groups, where the one ethnic group (Serbs) was recognised as a crucial factor for the conflict's escalation and development. A further focus in this thesis is not only to provide constructive discussion of the ineffectiveness of policies and missions introduced by International Actors (IA) but also to challenge the UN and IA's decision for non-intervention in BiH and to address the consequence of subsequent humanitarian-military intervention in KiM. This paper outlines an analysis of the lack of literature relating to the historical-sociological perspective of the ethnic groups' in BiH. The lack of understanding of the complex relationships among the ethnicities is an additional gap. This is exacerbated by the lack of understanding of the complex relationships among the ethnicities, within itself, as well as the differences among the groups within each ethnic group. It appears that the literature is unable to acknowledge the structural formation of societies in BiH, and to make proper segmentation in understanding the particular group of people (Rex, 2001) as a collection of peoples with different sociological characteristics combined into something called 'ethnicity'. The handicap of such literature leads to the categorisation and generalisation of ethnicities; not at one particular area of an ethnic group's presence but to the generalisation of the peoples' ethnicities (all Serbs are barbarous, similar to the Germans after WWII). This paper argues that such generalisations developed the notion that the particular ethnic group (Serbs) has an 'evil' character, regardless of the territorial occupation (Bosnia as well as Serbia and Diaspora). In addition, the lack of recognising Serbs as a people composed of different individual (local) ethnic groups led to the global generalisation about Serbs. And yet, such generalisations, by the modern western actors, i.e. UN, EU (European Union) and USA (United States of America), led to the employment of negative assumptions about the Serbs which served as a tool for, and added impetus to, the implementation of a strategy to achieve the Western objectives of the devaluation of Serbian dominance in Bosnia and across the Balkan Peninsula. Therefore the quality of literature, in addressing the questions about the conflict in BiH and later KiM, beside its attempts to offer some sustainable answers, remains inadequate and poor. This unsubstantiated position, offered by many involved in former-Yugoslavian conflict discussions, to offer an informed conclusion, persists as a never-ending debate. Yet, the discourse about the guilty factor in BiH and KiM remains in the shape of the 'evil' Serbian nation.</p>

This study aims to analyze the reasons for the increase in the frequency and severity of asthma attacks among middle school students in the province of Al-Ahsa in Saudi Arabia in 2015. The methodology of the study focused on the distribution of a questionnaire to a sample of 91 students of public and private schools in the middle stage distributed in the six major cities of Al-Ahsa: Mubarraz, Eyes, Al-Jafr, Joatha, and Urbanism. School location data was collected using an iPhone, which uses the IOS operating system through mobile GIS software applications Environmental, urban, social, and behavioral metadata affecting the severity and frequency of asthma attacks were collected by distributing a questionnaire to the selected sample of female students. Data were organized and analyzed using GIS and statistical programs. School site maps were developed, and Geospatial Database was built in the GIS environment to collect, store and analyze study data. SPSS was used to analyze the survey questionnaire and determine the pattern of geographical distribution of the increasing number of female students who suffer from increased severity and recurrence of asthma and its relationship to the various factors adopted in this study. Spatial Statistics used spatial data to facilitate comparisons of the different distribution patterns of the studied phenomenon and used Spatial Autocorrelation to determine the distances that show the most visible spatial agglomeration in the sample studied, and to identify the hot spots (the most affected). Nearest Neighbor Analysis was also used to detect the pattern of severity distribution and frequency of asthma attacks in the six city districts. The results of the study showed the ease of using mobile GIS software to capture, collect and store school data. The number of students with asthma was 336, representing 50% of the study sample. The rate of infection among female students’ families increases to 65%. Analysis of the personal data of the studied sample of female students showed that the severity and frequency of asthma attacks in Saudi women are higher than in non-Saudi students. Also, most of them do not have a clear and accurate knowledge of the addresses of their residence, which was excluded from the analysis, which is a general and very important information at this age. The results of the questionnaire and spatial distribution maps of environmental, urban, social, and behavioral factors affecting the severity and frequency of asthma attacks indicated that the majority of cases are concentrated in the cities of Hofuf and Mubarraz. The number of injured students in the cities of Hofuf 197 students, and in Mubarraz 180 students. The results indicate that the highest frequency of asthma attacks occurs in the summer more than in the winter when the wind blows dust, as well as increased activity during playtimes, exposure to chemicals, and this leads to absent during the year between one day and five days. Sinusitis is the highest infection rate associated with female students. Allergies and heredity have a significant role in increasing the frequency and severity, and the percentage of those who hear their breathing increases to 51%, and most suffer from tightness in the chest, and the number of 325 students, equivalent to 64% of the sample, and 292 students use sprays 58% of the study sample.

As the recent revolutions in the Middle East have demonstrated, civil society in this part of the world is on the move. The increasingly important role of non-state actors - a phenomenon of globalization- has characterized developments throughout the region, affecting the struggle for democracy and for peace. This volume brings together scholars primarily form the region to analyse the varied activities and contributions of NGOs, the private sector and the new media, from Morocco to Iran, along with the involvement of diaspora groups. The chapter on facebook in the recent Egyptian revolution captures the role of this new media while the study on similar technology in Iran outlines the barriers raised by the authorities in the current struggles there. Even the fledgling process of democratization in Saudi Arabia is driven by non-state actors while the veteran women's movements in the Maghreb serve as an example for the post-Arab spring era in those countries. Providing one of the first assessments of the role of non-state actors in the Middle East, this book will be essential reading for students of Political Science, Sociology and Civil Society, amongst others.

This chapter analyses the change (or continuity) of MENA regimes in a post-Arab Spring context, focusing on governments and power relationships. This chapter firstly analyses the place governments occupy in their respective political systems; how they are perceived by their populations; and the extent to which are they capable of managing violence and imposing their authority across the whole of their national territory. Governments are responsible for the policies carried out in their countries. Thus, many of the social protests - predominantly focused on the high levels of corruption - were directed against governments. However, while governments are perceived to be the institutions responsible for meeting citizens’ welfare needs, there are other non-elected institutions (formal or informal) with significant decision-making powers that are non-accountable, such as the presidents of the republic, the monarchs, and other national (the armed forces in the case of Egypt; armed groups in the cases of Libya, Syria and Yemen) or international actors (such as Saudi Arabia and Iran). On the other hand, this chapter studies changes in the power structure. The author finds evidence of greater power concentration, with the exception of the new democratic regime of Tunisia.

This article, grounded in the theoretical and methodological principles of neoclassical realism, analyzes the evolution of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's (KSA) foreign policy strategy within the framework of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) from 2010 to 2024. The findings demonstrate that the transformation of the KSA's foreign policy trajectory-driven by a reassessment of its regional role, adaptation to evolving security challenges, and a strategic orientation toward "Vision 2030" – is characterized by a shift in emphasis from coercive instruments to soft power and economic diplomacy. Empirical evidence indicates that Riyadh's foreign policy activities are prioritized toward investments in cross-border infrastructure projects and technological cooperation within the GCC, in addition to expanding its influence in education, media, culture, and sports. Analysis of the KSA's actions in the context of regional conflicts and normalization processes suggests that Riyadh's foreign policy strategy is distinguished by a pragmatic approach, viewing regional stability as a prerequisite for achieving sustainable development goals within the framework of "Vision 2030." In conclusion, the author contend that the transformation of the KSA's foreign policy strategy is a multifaceted process that shapes key development trends not only for Saudi Arabia but also for the configuration of power in the Persian Gulf region. By focusing on the interplay between "Vision 2030" and the KSA's foreign policy within the GCC, this study contributes to understanding the prospects for regional integration and the role of external actors in shaping a new regional architecture.

It is examined Saudi Arabia’s current foreign policy priorities in the context of regional and global transformations, taking into account key aspects of the state’s economic and diplomatic strategy. The transformation of the Kingdom’s role in the international arena, regional leadership, and strategic initiatives has been analyzed. It is emphasized that Saudi Arabia has significant economic and resource potential: it possesses huge oil reserves, controls strategic trade routes and has an influential political position in the international arena. The Kingdom invests funds from energy resources export in ambitious reforms aimed at modernizing society and the economy. The geopolitical position of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East region and the dynamics of the Kingdom’s relations with leading international actors are examined, in particular, the normalization of relations with Iran and cooperation with Israel. Particular attention is paid to the dynamics of the Kingdom’s relations with China, Russia, the European Union, and the United States. Key aspects of Saudi Arabia’s energy policy within OPEC+ are examined, as well as its desire to diversify the economy and increase non-oil revenues. Particular attention is paid to the Vision 2030 program, which defines the Kingdom’s strategic course for multilateral development, cultural reforms, attracting foreign investment, and reducing dependence on energy exports. The country’s use of soft power and public diplomacy tools to shape a new image in the international arena is examined. The challenges and opportunities facing Saudi Arabia in the context of the formation of a new architecture of international relations are highlighted. It is argued that despite these challenges, including dependence on oil exports and domestic opposition to reforms, Saudi Arabia demonstrates a readiness for the transformation and liberalization of the country, necessary to consolidate its image as an important geopolitical actor.

Financial sector actors, the state, and the rescaling of Jakarta’s extended urban region

Purpose: This scientific work aims to reveal the depth of the influence of the Berlin process on the integration process of the Western Balkans, i.e. Kosovo. Through the assessment of challenges and achievements, the impact of this process will be presented in the progress of the perspective of Kosovo's membership in the European Union and the construction of a stable and united region in the Western Balkans. Theoretical Reference: The Berlin Process is an initiative initiated and led by Germany, the purpose of which is to facilitate regional cooperation between the six countries of the Western Balkans (WB6) with a vision to help them meet the criteria for accession to the European Union (EU). After the decision of the European Union to suspend the enlargement process for a period of 5 years, in order to prevent the weakening of the continuation of reforms in the countries of the Western Balkans, the Berlin Process was introduced at the initiative of Chancellor Merkel and with the support of the EU member states, as an instrument for the continuation of the multilateral and reform dialogue for the countries of the Western Balkans. Balkans. This process, supported by EU financial aid for the countries of the Western Balkans, positively contributed to the acceleration of infrastructural, economic and energy market reforms, the promotion of cultural, academic and youth cooperation, as well as the intensification of dialogue. on unresolved bilateral issues such as Kosovo-Serbia, etc. Method: Data processing of 110 respondents and a structured interview of five domestic actors of this process will give us clear conclusions and recommendations that are worth including in the further continuation of negotiations and the implementation of the requirements arising from this initiative. Results and conclusion: The results emphasize the need for the commitment and support of the countries participating in the process, and especially the EU, in supporting Kosovo's commitment to reforms and integration into the international community. Also, through research, we managed to discuss the role of the Berlin process, in accelerating reforms and Kosovo's advantages on the way to integration into the European Union. Implications of the research: The work provides us with an opportunity to understand the challenges and importance of the Berlin Process for Kosovo and the role and influence of institutional and non-institutional actors, such as international actors and non-governmental organizations. Originality/value: The document contributes to the continuous promotion of the debate in Kosovo society, about the importance of such a process for regional cooperation and for governments in Kosovo to understand the role they play in the country's rapid progress towards the EU.