Pantelis Sklias
Associate Professor, Dept. of Political Science & International Relations, University of Peloponnese, Corinth, Greece
E-mail: psklias@hotmail.com
Tel.: +30271040040, fax: +30271040050
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to propose an enriched framework of analysis to assess and analyze complex social, political and economic phenomena, such as the developments that took place in the Arab countries. I call this framework of analysis Elaborated Realism and I present its main epistemological elements hereby. In this framework, individual variables such as the role and the impact of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are considered as being only a part of an overall set of variables, a Feedback Mechanism in which the state national interest is the main catalyst for the formation of state behavior. Such a Feedback Mechanism constitutes the framework out of which the main elements of the global political economy, meaning the network of global political and economic relations are formed. In my opinion, although ICT as well as other social, political and economic variables should be assessed, developments in the Arab countries should be considered under the prism of the global political economy, and more precisely the USA-China economic contest which is the core axis of this frame. ICT can be considered as an accelerating factor but not as the root neither the cause of the events that took place. I claim that such an enriched framework of analysis and approach can also be applied in other similar cases in which national interest is very much influenced by a hierarchical structure of power as it is captured by global political economy structure.