Stanford University

Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions. 

Causes and Dynamics of the Syrian Uprising: From Civil Protests to the Implications of the Russian Intervention

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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

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Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East Studies Program and Associate Professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University, and is Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011). Haddad is currently editing a volume on Teaching the Middle East After the Arab Uprisings, a book manuscript on pedagogical and theoretical approaches. His most recent books include two co-edited volumes: Dawn of the Arab Uprisings: End of an Old Order? (Pluto Press, 2012) and Mediating the Arab Uprisings (Tadween Publishing, 2013). Haddad serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal a peer-reviewed research publication and is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the critically acclaimed film series, Arabs and Terrorism, based on extensive field research/interviews. More recently, he directed a film on Arab/Muslim immigrants in Europe, titled The "Other" Threat. Haddad is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and serves on the Editorial Committee of Middle East Report. He is the Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute, an umbrella for five organizations dealing with knowledge production on the Middle East and Founding Editor of Tadween Publishing.

 

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

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CISAC Central Conference Room
Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
616 Serra St
Stanford, CA 94305

Bassam Haddad Associate Professor George Mason University
Seminars
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Military approach will not work in Syria, says former Stanford scholar

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On November 17, CDDRL’s Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD) hosted Lina Khatib, a senior research associate with the Arab Reform Initiative, for a special talk on the Syrian crisis. Khatib was a co-founder of the ARD Program and managed its research agenda for four years before leaving CDDRL to lead the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

After conducting extensive fieldwork on the Syrian-Turkish border, Khatib provided a detailed analysis of ISIS’ origins and how they are benefitting from the unresolved crisis in Syria. Khatib also weighed in on the refugee crisis, as well as the regional rivalries that are using Syria as a proxy to exert themselves militarily. Khatib argued that a military solution to solving the ISIS problem is not the right approach, and encouraged the international community to begin engaging different members of the Syrian opposition, and rethinking their approach to international diplomatic negotiations.

 

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Noura Erakat analyzes the political and legal contexts of the 2014 Gaza war [VIDEO]

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As part of the Arab Reform and Democracy Program's speaker series, George Mason University scholar Noura Erakat examined the political and legal contexts for the 2014 Gaza war. In July and August of 2014, hostilities in the Gaza Strip left 2,131 Palestinians and 71 Israelis dead, including 501 Palestinian children and one Israeli child. Of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents, 475,000 are living in temporary shelters or with other families because their homes have been severely damaged. The extent of destruction has raised questions around culpability for war crimes on all sides of the conflict.

 

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Dancing in Jaffa: Film screening and Q&A with Pierre Dulaine

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Screening of the award winning documentary 'Dancing in Jaffa' starring Pierre Dulaine who will be in attendance and will participate in a Q&A session following the film. Free and open to the public. Dinner provided. Preceded by short performance by the Stanford Middle East Ensemble.

Speaker Bio:

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Pierre Dulaine was born in Jaffa, Palestine in 1944 to an Irish father and a Palestinian mother--both of whom fled the area in 1948.  After eight months of moving several times, Dulaine's family settled in Amman, Jordan. In 1956, the Suez Crisis forced Dulaine's parents to flee the country, eventually resettling in Birmingham, England.  In 1994 Dulaine founded the Dancing Classrooms program in New York City's public schools in which he encouraged children from various backgrounds to dance together. He later traveled to the city of his birth, Jaffa, to visit his childhood home and to make a film, 'Dancing in Jaffa,' where he brought Israeli Arabs and Jews together through dance and music.  His life was also fictionalized in the film Take the Lead starring Antonio Banderas.  More recently, Pierre Duaine has gained much acclaim in the Arab world for his role as Judge on the Arabic version of the TV show 'So You Think You Can Dance' where he encouraged young Arab men and women to pursue dance as way of dealing with difficult circumstances and certain outdated social taboos.

(See flyer for list of co-sponsors)

 

Note: Pierre Dulaine will give a lunchtime lecture on campus on May 29. For more information, click here.

Watch 'Dancing in Jaffa' trailer

 

 

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Building 206-113
Stanford, CA

Pierre Dulaine
Film Screenings
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Paul Amar examines social militarization in Egypt and Brazil [VIDEO]

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As part of the Arab Reform and Democracy Program's speaker series, UC Santa Barbara Political Scientist Paul Amar discussed his book The Security Archipelago, winner of the 2014 Charles Taylor Book Award of the American Political Science Association. The book provides an alternative historical and theoretical framing of the refashioning of free-market states and the rise of humanitarian security regimes in the Global South by examining the pivotal, trendsetting cases of Brazil and Egypt. Addressing gaps in the study of neoliberalism and biopolitics, Amar describes how coercive security operations and cultural rescue campaigns confronting waves of resistance have appropriated progressive, antimarket discourses around morality, sexuality, and labor. Homing in on Cairo and Rio de Janeiro, Amar reveals the innovative resistances and unexpected alliances that have coalesced in new polities emerging from the Arab Spring and South America's Pink Tide. These have generated a shared modern governance model that he terms the "human-security state."

 

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