This project seeks to explain the aggressive turn in Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy after 2011, most drastically exemplified through its 2015 military intervention into Yemen. It does so through a two-case historical comparison between the Saudi interventions in Yemen in 1962 and 2015. Additionally, it compares the nature of internal regime survival strategies within the kingdom during these two distinct time periods of regional revolutionary upheaval: the Nasserist period of the late 1950s to 1960s and the time during and after the Arab uprisings in 2011. It makes the argument that, despite comparable internal and external threats in each time period, Saudi foreign policy is more openly aggressive in the contemporary period as a function of the regime’s ontologically weakened ideological legitimation. Whereas the Nasserist period offered an ontologically distinct threat in the form of a rival state ideology (secular Arab nationalism) that could be strategically co-opted and repressed by the Saudi regime, the Arab uprisings embodied a broader threat. This has included movements that have combined variations of both Islamism and liberal constitutionalism to challenge authoritarianism in the region. It has ultimately been threatening in part because of an ontological similarity to the regime’s own historic use of Islamic legitimacy. Thus, unlike the mediated Saudi approach to the Nasserist threat, the Saudi regime today has opportunistically engaged in an exaggerated aggression abroad as well as more deliberate, open displays of domestic repression at home. / Political Science

Throughout the last three decades, the Arab region has attracted the unwanted attention of the rest of the world because of its spiralling political upheaval. This unrest has caused migration, economic and cultural changes, and eventually a spring of revolutions and protests in demand of reform. Arab countries are now in the spotlight of global current affairs, and all the imperfections regarding their cultural, social, and gender inequalities have surfaced to the foreground. Arab women novelists have been addressing feminist issues for centuries, chipping away at the stereotypical image of the meek and voiceless Arab woman that comes hand in hand with Orientalism. Through their fiction, writers such as Nawal El Saadawi, Hanan Al- Shaykh and Fadia Faqir have promulgated a bold brand of Arab feminist thought. This interdisciplinary thesis explores the Greater Syrian and Egyptian woman's novel written between 1975 and 2007. Through the in-depth analysis of Arab women's novels available in English, I attempt to uncover the many reasons behind today's gender inequality in Greater Syria and Egypt. By examining contemporary Arabic narrative styles and cultivating traditional Arab story-telling methods, the creative element of this thesis uses fiction to expose social and political injustice. The novel within this thesis challenges different forms of patriarchy that are dominant in the region, and endeavours to document a historical, on-going revolution.

Cette thèse contribue à une sociologie historique du surgissement révolutionnaire en Égypte, à travers une approche localisée et à l'échelle individuelle. Le surgissement révolutionnaire renvoie à une séquence d'interactions dont l'issue, contingente, peut donner lieu à un basculement général de l'ordre politique. Afin de rendre compte des mécanismes concrets dont sont faits ces séquences, cette recherche se fonde sur l'étude des engagements de révolutionnaires et de novices dans la deuxième ville d'Égypte, Alexandrie, lors de la « révolution du 25 janvier 2011 ». Ces engagements sont analysés à l'aune des transformations politiques, économiques et culturelles que l'Égypte a connues depuis les années 1980 et, plus précisément, le renouveau protestataire qui marque la décennie 2000. Faisant usage d'une multitude de sources et de données (entretiens, observations, traces numériques, revues de presse, corpus de photographies et de vidéos), cette thèse permet de renouveler notre compréhension des phénomènes révolutionnaires et de la manière dont ils émergent. Plus précisément, on y voit comment, à rebours des analyses globalisantes et réifiantes des processus révolutionnaires, on ne peut comprendre la dynamique d'émergence d'une crise sans en revenir aux paramètres situationnels et, surtout, aux dynamiques locales de chaque cas. Par ailleurs, en focalisant l'attention sur la ville d'Alexandrie, cette thèse contribue à ouvrir un chantier de recherche sur cette grande métropole méditerranéenne qui reste sous-étudiée. / This thesis contributes to a historical sociology of revolutionary emergence in Egypt, through a localized and micrological approach. The revolutionary emergence refers to a sequence of interactions, always contingent, which can give rise to a sudden breakdown of a political regime. ln order to give an account of the concrete mechanisms constituting these sequences. This research is based on the study of the careers of revolutionaries and novices in Egypt's second city, Alexandria, during the "revolution of 25 January 2011". These political commitments are analyzed in the light of the political, economic and cultural transformations that Egypt has undergone since the 1980s and, more specifically, the renewal of protest activities that marked the decade 2000. Using a multitude of sources and data (interviews, observations, digital traces, press reviews, photographs and videos), this thesis allows us to renew our understanding of revolutionary phenomena and how they emerge. More precisely, we see how, against the background of globalizing and reifying analyses of revolutionary processes, we cannot understand the dynamics of the emergence of a crisis without returning to the situational parameters and, above all, to the local dynamics of each case. Moreover, by focusing attention on the city of Alexandria, this thesis contributes to opening a research avenue on this important Mediterranean metropolis which remains under-studied.

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A dissertação analisa as reformas no setor de inteligência governamental promovidas após a chamada Primavera Árabe em três países árabes e norte-africanos – Egito, Argélia e Tunísia –, especialmente aquelas empreendidas no âmbito das agências de inteligência reconhecidas enquanto polícias políticas: aquelas responsáveis pela repressão interna, as quais atuam politicamente, contando com margens de autonomia e com capacidade de penetração entre os quadros da sociedade civil. O objetivo é contrariar o argumento levantado por diversos analistas, que afirmam que tais países conheceram, no pós-Primavera, a verdadeiras mudanças de regime. Nossa hipótese de pesquisa é justamente a manutenção dos principais elementos definidores dos regimes anteriores às manifestações populares de 2010 e 2011, notadamente do papel político a cargo das forças de segurança e da atuação política das agências de inteligência, os quais não permitem que argumentemos pela mudança dos regimes. Para tanto, promovemos uma análise das dinâmicas históricas destes países, atentando especialmente para os momentos de criação e de mutação/reforma destas agências. Metodologicamente, portanto, nos inscrevemos em uma abordagem histórico-comparativa. Finalmente, a maneira como as agências analisadas foram reformadas, sem o estabelecimento de medidas de transparência, ou de controles externos aos serviços de inteligência, parece confirmar nossa hipótese de pesquisa. / The monograph analyzes the reform in the intelligence sector promoted after the so-called Arab Spring in three Arab and North African countries – Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia – especially those undertaken within the framework of the intelligence agencies recognized as political polices: those responsible for internal repression, who acted politically, counting on marginal autonomy and with the capacity for penetration among the cadres of civil society. Our aim is to contradict the argument put forward by several analysts, who affirm that those countries experienced, in the post-Arab Spring, real processes of regime changes. Our hypothesis is precisely the maintenance of key elements which defined the regimes prior to the popular demonstrations of 2010 and 2011, notably the political role of the security forces and the politicization of the intelligence agencies, which do not allow us to argue for the regime‟s changes. To do so, we promote an analysis of the historical dynamics of these countries, paying special attention to the creation and mutation/reform of the intelligence agencies. Methodologically, therefore, we subscribe to a historical-comparative approach. Finally, the way in which the agencies analyzed have been reformed, without the establishment of transparency measures or external controls of the intelligence services, seems to confirm our hypothesis.

The aim of this thesis is to introduce the Maghreb countries and the historical background and current events to clarify the common issues between the two shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Specifically, this thesis introduces the relations between Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, Libya with their former colonial power, France. Although Libya differs in many aspects from the other Maghreb countries, it cannot be isolated in the region. Thus this thesis, with the emphasis to the differences, takes Libya also in account. This thesis also aims to define the current foreign policy of France towards the Maghreb countries and outlines the strengths and weaknesses of current and future mutual cooperation.

This supporting document for the thesis exhibition entitled “Veils: Truth in Translation” will discuss Block’s exploration of painting during her time at East Tennessee State University. The supporting document also provides the historical background and influences which have contributed to Block's overall process and techniques. These influences include the Abstract Expressionists, Carl Jung, Ferdinand de Saussure, John Dewey, Theodor Adorno, Joan Mitchell and Gerhard Richter. In the supporting document Block probes the idea that non-objective painting is more than a language confined by linguistic elements of sign, signifier, and signified, but is a process of thinking, which is communicated on a higher level of perception than verbal speech or visual symbolism. Block will discuss how she translates experiences from the metaphysical realm of feeling and thought to the physical reality of paint and surface which communicates the experience to the viewer.

The Arab Spring of 2011 revealed stark variation in the durability of different types of authoritarian regimes. Kings and emirs demonstrably outperformed their republican peers. This paper provides a qualitative study of the Moroccan monarchy in order to better explain this pattern. The findings of an original media content analysis support the paper's thesis that Morocco's King Mohammed VI maintained his throne by effectively using a historically derived position of concentrated power and immense wealth to manipulate potential opposition and dominate public discourse. This multi-causal mechanism of manufactured consent helped create and sustain the monarch's domestic legitimacy while alienating his opponents. Importantly, the illusion of a free media bolsters his image with Western political elites, thus, drawing greater external support and reducing the cost of repression.

The Islamist movements operate in all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa region. The mother organization, which is also best-known among the movements, is the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, whose ideas spread quickly into other countries in the region. Although the Islamist movements are ideologically different, they have one similar attribute - focus on various social issues as well as the fact that they originally profiled as charity organizations and they have only recently entered the political scene. The main goal of this diploma thesis is to analyze and compare the activities and achievements of the Muslim Brotherhood (The Freedom and Justice party) and The Movement of Islamic Tendency (The Ennadhda party) within the political systems in Egypt and Tunisia. The thesis also aims at verifying explanatory cleavage of Islamist electorate based on the cleavage theory within Egypt and Tunisia. The biggest success of the Islamist movements so far meant the changes after the Arab Spring. Following this event the Islamist movements won the first free parliamentary election in both countries. However, the political activities of the Muslim Brotherhood did not last so long in Egypt - nowadays the movement exists only illegally and it has been in a difficult position. On the contrary, the...

La thèse propose d’étudier l’émergence et la circulation du syntagme printemps arabe(s) comme dénomination événementielle dans la presse écrite. Elle a pour objectif principal d’examiner le processus de dénomination et de qualification des événements historiques dans et par les médias représentés ici par la presse écrite, en retraçant le parcours d’un syntagme-clé de l’Histoire immédiate. L’étude s’inscrit dans le domaine de l’analyse linguistique des discours médiatiques. Elle fait appel à plusieurs champs théoriques croisant sciences du langage et sciences de l’information et de la communication. La démarche relève de l’analyse du discours comme domaine de recherche - sur la langue, le discours et le sens - ancré dans les sciences du langage, où le traitement automatique se présente comme un outil d’investigation. Le corpus d’étude est formé d’un ensemble de textes de la presse écrite internationale d’expression française, arabe et dans une moindre mesure anglaise. Au-delà de cette étude de cas, l’étude sert d’exemple d’analyse lexico-discursive de la nomination des événements dans la presse écrite, comme de l’émergence et de la circulation d’un syntagme dénominatif lié à un moment historique et dont l’impact dépasse les frontières du monde arabe. / The thesis proposes to study the emergence and the circulation of Arab Spring phrase as event denomination in the press. Its main objective is to examine the process of naming and qualifying historical events in the media represented here by the written press. Going back over the course of a key phrase in the immediate history is the central object of the study.The research is a case of media discourse analysis. It uses several theoretical fields crossing language sciences and communication sciences. The approach is based on the analysis of discourse as a field of research - on language, discourse and meaning - rooted in the language sciences, where automatic processing presents a tool for study. The corpus of study is composed of the texts of the international written press.Beyond this specific case, the study serves as an example of lexical and discursive analysis of naming events in the written press, as well as the emergence and circulation of a denominational phrase associated with a historical moment.