Understanding the Crisis in Yemen: Evaluating Competing Narratives
In 2014, Yemen was referred to as one of the success stories of the Arab Spring. Yet, within months a rebel group, the Huthis, took over the capital and the Yemeni state nearly collapsed. Analyses of the crisis in Yemen have routinely reproduced one of three narratives: the Saudi-Iranian proxy war narrative, the sectarian narrative or the al-Qaeda/failed state narrative. However, a closer look shows that the onset of the crisis, although complex, is mainly driven by local factors and related to the lack of political and economic reforms after the transition in Yemen following the uprising in 2011.
After the Arab Spring: The Security, Stability and Geopolitics of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East
Focusing on the domestic and regional approaches of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia post-Arab spring, this paper explores the effects of the uprisings on Middle Eastern geopolitics and security. Ultimately, it highlights the challenges the Kingdom faces at home and examines the factors behind its exceptionally interventionist approach to recent regional conflicts. These factors can be explained by a regional Saudi-Iranian rivalry, driven by a domestic regime legitimacy theory rather than solely the conventional sectarian narrative. Using empirical and qualitative observations, this analysis concludes by prioritizing regional state order, the de-escalation of regional rivalries, as well as incremental, evolutionary changes by Arab states that accommodate public grievances in a way mindful of the domestic context, without resorting to the revolutionary changes that have resulted in the significant state failures observable today.
Same Same But Different - also in Europe! A New Methodological Approach in Cross-Country Analysis of Communication Structuresapplied to five EU member states
The EU still lacks a truly European public sphere. On this level, there is still a clear lack of integration between individual member states. This means that national public spheres and cultures are still of great importance for European communication and media professionals. Comparative research into the similarities and differences between different nations is therefore valuable for cross-border PR communication activities. This paper lays out the methodological foundation for such research, discussing possible approaches and difficulties associated with comparative research. The author then introduces a potential heuristic framework for comparative analysis: the International Corporate Communication Compass. This framework is applied to five case-study EU countries (Denmark, Germany, France, Poland and the UK), showing the differences and similarities in a range of different contexts that affect public communication in all its forms. The conclusion examines how the results of such studies could be used in order to compare communication identities of different countries. This can potentially help in the development of a European public identity on the long run and in a first step can led towards a better, more adapted communication structure about European citizenship. Ultimately, communication structures within the EU might become more Europeanized than they