This event will be livestreamed. Click here to access the livestreaming page.

ABSTRACT

The clampdown on political dissent inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has attracted intense attention in the wake of the recent murder of journalist and opinion-shaper Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey earlier this month. This panel analyzes the murder of Khashoggi in the context of the foreign and domestic policies of KSA’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It also seeks to understand the implications of this event for freedom of expression in the Arab world, U.S.-Saudi relations, and the future of stability inside the Kingdom.

PANELISTS

Moderator: 
Larry Diamond 
Senior Fellow, FSI; 
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, 
Stanford University

Janine Zacharia 
Journalist; 
Carlos Kelly McClatchy Visiting Lecturer, Communication, 
Stanford University

Hesham Sallam 
Associate Director, ARD, 
Stanford University

Image

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy and its Global Digital Policy Incubator. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around in the world, and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy.  His 2016 book, In Search of Democracy, explores the challenges confronting democracy and democracy promotion, gathering together three decades of his writing and research, particularly on Africa and Asia.  He has just completed a new book on the global crisis of democracy, which will be published in 2019, and is now writing a textbook on democratic development.

Image

Janine Zacharia is the Carlos Kelly McClatchy Visiting Lecturer at Stanford University where she teaches journalism classes, including news reporting and writing fundamentals, and foreign correspondence. She was the Jerusalem Bureau Chief and Middle East Correspondent for the Washington Post from December 2009 through April 2011. During her time at the Washington Post, she reported widely throughout the Middle East beyond Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including assignments in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey. She reported on the uprisings in Egypt and Bahrain as they began in early 2011. From 2005-2009, Ms. Zacharia worked as chief diplomatic correspondent for Bloomberg News based in Washington. During this period, she traveled to more than 40 countries with then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior administration and military officials. Ms. Zacharia’s earlier career included five years as Washington bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post, and five years in Jerusalem working for various news outlets including the Reuters news agency. She was a regular contributor to the New Republic and has appeared routinely as a cable news analyst on MSNBC, CNN and other networks. She was also a regular panelist on Gwen Ifill’s Friday evening roundtable, Washington Week in Review. During the 2008-2009 academic year, Ms. Zacharia was awarded a Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University. She earned her Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Literary Studies from Middlebury College and is originally from Long Island.

Image

Hesham Sallam is a Research Associate at CDDRL and serves as the Associate-Director of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy. He is also a co-editor of Jadaliyya ezine and a former program specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace. His research focuses on Islamist movements and the politics of economic reform in the Arab World. Sallam’s research has previously received the support of the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Institute of Peace. Past institutional affiliations include Middle East Institute, Asharq Al-Awsat, and the World Security Institute. He is editor of Egypt's Parliamentary Elections 2011-2012: A Critical Guide to a Changing Political Arena (Tadween Publishing, 2013). Sallam received a Ph.D. in Government (2015) and an M.A. in Arab Studies (2006) from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh (2003).

*An earlier list of speakers included Nora Doaiji, who could not participate on the panel due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts.

[[{"fid":"233836","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"10":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto","data-delta":"10"}}]]

ABSTRACT

In 2011, as the Arab uprisings spread across the Middle East, Jordan remained more stable than any of its neighbors. Despite strife at its borders and an influx of refugees connected to the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS, as well as its own version of the Arab Spring with protests and popular mobilization demanding change, Jordan managed to avoid political upheaval. How did the regime survive in the face of the pressures unleashed by the Arab uprisings? What does its resilience tell us about the prospects for reform or revolutionary change?

In “Jordan and the Arab Uprisings,” Curtis R. Ryan explains how Jordan weathered the turmoil of the Arab Spring. Crossing divides between state and society, government and opposition, Ryan analyzes key features of Jordanian politics, including Islamist and leftist opposition parties, youth movements, and other forms of activism, as well as struggles over elections, reform, and identity. He details regime survival strategies, laying out how the monarchy has held out the possibility of reform while also seeking to coopt and contain its opponents. Ryan demonstrates how domestic politics were affected by both regional unrest and international support for the regime, and how regime survival and security concerns trumped hopes for greater change. While the Arab Spring may be over, Ryan shows that political activism in Jordan is not, and that struggles for reform and change will continue. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews with a vast range of people, from grassroots activists to King Abdullah II, “Jordan and the Arab Uprisings” is a definitive analysis of Jordanian politics before, during, and beyond the Arab uprisings.

SPEAKER BIO

Image

Please note: Registration for the conference is open only to Stanford University affiliates. A valid SUNet ID is required to register.

Click here to register. Please use your Stanford e-mail address to log in when prompted.

(For registration trouble shooting instructions, click here)

DAY 1: Friday, April 27

8:30-9:00 a.m.    Breakfast

9:00-9:15 a.m.    Introductory Remarks

9:15-11:00 a.m.  Panel 1: Youth, Culture, and Expressions of Resistance

Ayca Alemdaroglu, Stanford University

“Affective Pedagogies: Governing Youth in the Times of Dissent in Turkey”

Adel Iskandar, Simon Fraser University

“Uprisings Upended: Arab Youth Between Dissociation, Disenchantment, and Desecration”

Yasemin Ipek, Stanford University

“Imagining Social Change after the Syrian Civil War: Entrepreneurial Activism and Cross-Sectarian Political Mobilization in Lebanon”

Chair: Hicham Alaoui, Harvard University

11:00-11:15 a.m. Coffee Break

11:15-1:00 p.m.  Panel 2: Situating Gender in the Law and the Economy

Hanan Hammad, Texas Christian University 

“Democracy from the Gender Edge”

Alessandra Gonzalez, Stanford University

“Do Source or Host Country Practices Dominate in Female Executive Hiring? Evidence from Firms in the GCC Countries”

Ibtesam Al Atiyat, St. Olaf College

“Repealing Rape Article 308: The Missed Opportunity to Women’s Emancipation in Jordan”

Chair: Joel Beinin, Stanford University

1:00-2:00 p.m.    Lunch

2:00-3:45 p.m.    Panel 3: Social Movements and Visions for Change

Dina El-Sharnouby, Freie Universität Berlin 

“The 2011 Revolutionary Movement in Egypt and Youth’s Socio-Political Imaginaries of Transformation and Change”

Mohamed Daadaoui, Oklahoma City University 

“It’s Good to Be the King, or Is It? Protest Movements, the “refo-lutionary” promise of PJD Islamists and the King’s Dilemma in Morocco”

Nora Doaiji, Yale University

“After Saudi Women’s Driving: What Happens When A Marginal Movement Is Centered by the State”

Chair: Amr Hamzawy, Stanford University

DAY 2: Saturday April 28

8:30-9:00 a.m.    Breakfast

9:00-10:45 a.m.  Panel 4: The Economy, the State and New Social Actors

Mona Atia, The George Washington University 

“Territorial Restructuring and the Politics of Governing Poverty in Morocco”

Amr Adly, European University Institute

“Egypt's Shattered Oligarchy and Big Business Autonomy”

Mahmoud El-Gamal, Rice University 

“Egyptian Economic and De-Democratization Trends”

Chair: Lisa Blaydes, Stanford University

10:45-11:00 a.m. Coffee Break

11:00-12:30 p.m. Panel 5: Social Change and International and Regional Dynamics

Hicham Alaoui, Harvard University

"Geopolitical Myths and Realities under Neo-Authoritarianism"

Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University 

“The Roots and Impact of Democracy Resistance and Autocracy Promotion in the Arab World”

Nancy Okail, The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy

"Political Reform, Security, and U.S. Middle East Policy"

Chair: Larry Diamond, Stanford University

To access the registration page:

1) Please sign out of all your google.com accounts

2) Visit accounts.google.com and log in using your Stanford e-mail address (e.g. john.smith@stanford.edu)

3) Click on the RSVP form

ABSTRACT

In this talk, Karine Walther discusses her new book Sacred Interests: The United States and the Islamic World, 1821-1921. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Americans increasingly came into contact with the Islamic world, U.S. diplomatic, cultural, political, and religious beliefs about Islam began to shape their responses to world events. In Sacred Interests, Karine V. Walther excavates the deep history of American Islamophobia, showing how negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims shaped U.S. foreign relations from the Early Republic to the end of World War I.

SPEAKER BIO

Image

ABSTRACT

The Iraqi government, the Peshmerga, the international coalition and a consortium of militia have been winning the war against ISIS in Iraq.  The concern moving forward is whether Iraq’s state institutions have what it takes to prevent ISIS from reemerging in a new, and more deadly form after the current conflict is over. What does recent history, the current military campaign, and the Donald Trump administration’s current trajectory tell us about Iraq’s prospects?

SPEAKER BIO

Image

ABSTRACT

SPEAKER BIO

Image

Dr. Jillian Schwedler is Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York’s Hunter College and the Graduate Center, and Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Rafiq Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council.  She is member of the Board of Directors and the Editorial Committee of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), publishers of the quarterly Middle East Report.

Dr. Schwedler’s books include the award-winning Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen (Cambridge 2006) and (with Laleh Khalili) Policing and Prisons in the Middle East (Columbia 2010).  Her articles have appeared in World Politics, Comparative Politics, Middle East Policy, Middle East Report, Journal of Democracy, and Social Movement Studies, among many others.  Her research has received support from the National Science Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, the Fulbright Scholars Program, the American Institute for Yemen Studies, and the Social Science Research Council, among others. 

ABSTRACT

From 1975 to 1990, Lebanon experienced a long war involving various national and international actors. The peace agreement that followed and officially propelled the country into a "postwar" era did not address many of the root causes of war, nor did it hold main actors accountable. Instead, a politics of "no victor, no vanquished" was promoted, in which the political elite agreed simply to consign the war to the past. However, since then, Lebanon has found itself still entangled in various forms of political violence, from car bombings and assassinations to additional outbreaks of armed combat.

In this talk, Sami Hermez discusses his newly released book War Is Coming. The book argues that the country's political leaders have enabled the continuation of violence and examines how people live between these periods of conflict. What do everyday conversations, practices, and experiences look like during these moments? How do people attempt to find a measure of certainty or stability in such times? Hermez's ethnographic study of everyday life in Lebanon between the volatile years of 2006 and 2009 tackles these questions and reveals how people engage in practices of recollecting past war while anticipating future turmoil. Hermez demonstrates just how social interactions and political relationships with the state unfold and critically engages our understanding of memory and violence, seeing in people's recollections living and spontaneous memories that refuse to forget the past. With an attention to the details of everyday life, War Is Coming shows how even a conversation over lunch, or among friends, may turn into a discussion about both past and future unrest.

Shedding light on the impact of protracted conflict on people's everyday experiences and the way people anticipate political violence, Hermez highlights an urgency for alternative paths to sustaining political and social life in Lebanon.

SPEAKER BIO

Image

ABSTRACT

By now, those following the news on Syria have been saturated with analysis, data, information, and misinformation on developments there since 2011. Yet we observe an increasing gravitation to mutually exclusive narratives that adorn websites and publications on the situation in Syria: (a) the narrative of pure and consistent revolution versus that of (b) external conspiracy/designs on Syria. Both narratives carry grains of truth, but are encumbered by maximalist claims and fundamental blindspots that forfeit various potentials for enduring cease-fires and/or transitions, let alone mutual understanding. This talk will address these competing narratives in the context of international escalation marked by increasing US-Russian tension and continued multi-layered conflicts on the battlefield. It closes with addressing a framework for understanding and gauging potential prospects despite conflicting declarations by all parties involved.

SPEAKER BIO

Image

*This event is supported by the Stanford Initiative for Religious and Ethnic Understanding and Coexistence

[[{"fid":"224129","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"Bassam Haddad flyer","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"},"type":"media","attributes":{"width":"870","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]

Abstract

After five years of political support for the regime of Bashar Al-Asad in its war against the opposition, Russia intervened militarily on his behalf in September 2015 and suddenly later this year Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Syria. While Moscow claims that its intervention was aimed at destroying ISIS and other terrorists groups, but the vast majority of its air strikes seem to target the moderate armed opposition, which has fought ISIS on the ground. This presentation assesses the outcome of Russia’s intervention, arguing that it neither achieved its goal of destroying ISIS nor did it tip the balance favor of Asad. Instead, the intervention had resulted in the killing of Syrian civilians, complicated the conflict in Syria, and constrained the prospects for a political solution by empowering Asad on the ground.

Speaker Bio

Image

[[{"fid":"222587","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"Radwan Ziadeh flyer","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"},"type":"media","attributes":{"width":"870","style":"width: 870px;","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]

Abstract

After nearly five years since the start of the uprising, Syria finds itself divided and embattled, with no end in sight. More significantly, more than half of the Syrian population is displaced and the death toll surpassed 300,000 by all counts. The Syrian tragedy persists and, more than any other case of mass uprising in the region, continues to be shrouded in political power-plays and contradictions at the local, regional, and international levels. Defined increasingly by an absence of a clear favorable outcome, considering existing parties to the conflict, the logic of the lesser evil reigns supreme. This lecture is an attempt to understand the roots and dynamics of the tragic Syrian uprising, with particular attention to its background and to the recent Russian intervention.

Speaker Bio

Image

This event is co-sponsored by The Markaz: Resource Center at Stanford University.

[[{"fid":"221861","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"Bassam Haddad January 21","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"},"type":"media","attributes":{"width":"870","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]