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SSIPI partnership launches open call for papers on Lebanon

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The Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University, the Safadi Foundation USA (SFUSA), and the Center on International Private Enterprise (CIPE), announce an open call for papers on behalf of the Safadi-Stanford Initiative for Policy Innovation (SSIPI).

SSIPI seeks policy-focused papers that provide clear and concise recommendations to the Lebanese authorities, the international donor community, and other regional groups. The objective of SSIPI is to promote new analysis on Lebanon. Qualified applicants have the academic freedom to choose a paper topic of their choice within the realm of economic development and entrepreneurship. Papers should include recommendations that address the linkages between economic development and institution building, security and civil peace, and other governance related issues. In addition, papers should reflect a deep understanding of the role of institutions and whether accelerated, more balanced economic growth, social and fiscal reforms, a particular process of economic development or new developing areas of entrepreneurialism, if any, could help in reducing the negative influences posed by confessionalism in the economy. 

Abstracts should be submitted according to the guidelines below. Upon review of the abstracts by an independent reviewing committee, a select group of scholars will be chosen to submit their full paper and compete for the title of Safadi scholar of the Year. SSIPI will offer the Safadi Scholar of the Year the opportunity to develop a piece of research at CDDRL, led by Larry Diamond, as well as meet with strategic policy makers in Washington, DC. In addition, the scholar will have the chance to present their research at a policy conference in Washington, DC.

Requirements:

Deadline for one-page abstracts is March 31, 2011. Abstracts should be emailed to SSIPI.2011.Submissions@gmail.com.  Please note "Abstract Submission" in subject of email. The selection committee warrants applicants from academia, the public and private sectors, and NGOs, either from Lebanon or abroad, who are working on economic development and entrepreneurship in Lebanon. Qualified candidates should hold a graduate degree from an accredited university.  For more info please visit: Safadi-Stanford Initiative for Policy Innovation

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The Role of Political Strategy in Lebanon's Political Crisis

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Lina Khatib is the manager and co-founder of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. She is an expert on Middle East politics and media and has published widely on topics such as new media and Islamism, political media and conflict in the Arab world, and the political dynamics in Lebanon and Iran. She is also a Research Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School. She is currently writing a book titled Image Politics in the Middle East for IB Tauris, which examines the power struggles among states, political leaders, political parties, civil society groups, and citizens in the region. She has also recently led a research project on US public diplomacy towards the Arab world in the digital age. She is the author of two books, Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World (2006), and Lebanese Cinema: Imagining the Civil War and Beyond (2008) and has published widely on Middle East politics. 

In this seminar, she will talk about how Lebanon reached the political crisis it is in right now, the political strategy that has led to it, and what this means for Lebanon's political future.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Lina Khatib Program Manager for the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker CDDRL
Seminars

From Political Activism to Democratic Change in the Arab World

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The Program on Arab Reform and Democracy is pleased to announce its second annual conference on May 12-13, 2011.

This conference focuses on empowering political activism in the Arab world, and features scholars and activists discussing the achievements of and challenges facing political activists in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia.

 

From Political Activism to Democratic Change in the Arab World

Second Annual Conference of the

Program on Arab Reform and Democracy

Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) atStanfordUniversity

May 12-13, 2011

BechtelConferenceCenter,StanfordUniversity

 

 

Thursday May 12, 2011

 

8:30-9:00 Welcome

 

9:00-9:45 Opening Speech

Activism in the Middle East: A Framework

Ellen Lust,YaleUniversity

 

9:45-10:15 Break

 

10:15-12:15 Tunisia and Egypt

Chair: Ellen Lust,YaleUniversity

 

Toward a Second Republic in Tunisia

Christopher Alexander,DavidsonCollege

 

Political Activism of Everyday Life: Lessons from the Tunisian Revolution

Nabiha Jerad,Tunisia

 

Factors Leading to the Egyptian Revolution; Where are We Now?

Ahmed Salah,Egypt

 

Discussant: Michele Dunne, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

 

12:15-1:15 Lunch

 

1:15-3:15 The Gulf

Chair: Larry Diamond,StanfordUniversity

 

The 2011 Uprising in Bahrain and its Consequences on the Participative Institutions

Laurence Louër, SciencesPo

 

Activism in Bahrain and the Struggle for Reform

Maryam Al Khawaja,Bahrain Centre for Human Rights

 

Saudi Arabia: The Impossible Revolution?

Stéphane Lacroix, SciencesPo

 

Challenges to Realistic Political Reforms in Yemen

Munir Mawari,Yemen

 

3:15-3:45 Break

 

3:45-5:15 Syria and Lebanon

Chair: Lina Khatib,StanfordUniversity

 

Activism and the Orphan Reform in Lebanon.

Ziad Majed,AmericanUniversity ofParis

 

Syria from Political Activism to Popular Uprising: A Roadmap to Democracy

Radwan Ziadeh,GeorgeWashingtonUniversity

 

Discussant: Daniel Brumberg,GeorgetownUniversity

 

 

 

Friday May 13, 2011

 

9:00-10:30 Palestine

Chair: Khalil Barhoum,StanfordUniversity

 

Pretending Palestine is Normal

Nathan Brown,GeorgeWashingtonUniversity

 

Palestine: The Non-violent Popular Struggle for Freedom and the Future of Democracy

Mustafa Barghouti, MP,Palestine

 

10:30-11:00 Break

 

11:00-1:00 Jordan and Morocco

Chair: Hicham Ben Abdallah,StanfordUniversity

 

A Decade of Struggling Reform Efforts in Jordan: The Resilience of the Rentier System

Marwan Muasher, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

 

Assessing Current Public Perceptions of Political Activism Development in Jordan

Amer Bani Amer,Al-HayatCenter for Civil Society Development

 

Morocco: Activist Revival vs. Autocratic Resilience

Ahmed Benchemsi,StanfordUniversity

 

 Discussant: Sean Yom,TempleUniversity

 

1:00-2:00 Lunch

 

2:00-4:00 Concluding Roundtable Discussion and Reflections

Chair: Larry Diamond,StanfordUniversity


 

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Bechtel Conference Center

Lina Khatib Moderator

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
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Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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Larry Diamond Moderator

Hicham Ben Abdallah

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Consulting Professor
Ben_Abdallah.jpg MA

Hicham Ben Abdallah received his B.A. in Politics in 1985 from Princeton University, and his M.A. in Political Science from Stanford in 1997. His interest is in the politics of the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

He has lectured in numerous universities and think tanks in North America and Europe. His work for the advancement of peace and conflict resolution has brought him to Kosovo as a special Assistant to Bernard Kouchner, and to Nigeria and Palestine as an election observer with the Carter Center. He has published in journals such Le Monde,  Le Monde Diplomatique,Pouvoirs, Le Debat, The Journal of Democracy, The New York Times, El Pais, and El Quds.

In 2010 he has founded the Moulay Hicham Foundation which conducts social science research on the MENA region. He is also an entrepreneur with interests in agriculture, real estate, and renewable energies. His company, Al Tayyar Energy, has a number of clean energy projects in Asia and Europe. 

Hicham Ben Abdallah Moderator
Conferences
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The Perils of Demography/Democracy: Electoral Reform Challenges in Contemporary Lebanon

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Elias Muhanna is a PhD candidate in Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations at Harvard University and the author of QifaNabki.com, a blog devoted to Lebanese political affairs. He has written extensively on contemporary cultural and political affairs in the Middle East for several general-interest publications, including The Nation, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The National, Mideast Monitor, World Politics Review, Bidoun, and Transition, and is regularly quoted in media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, The Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, The Christian Science Monitor, Slate, and Al-Jazeera International.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Elias Muhanna Author of Lebanese political blog qifanabki.com Speaker
Seminars

Music Videos and Arab Public Life: Contention and Circulation

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Music videos are ubiquitous in contemporary Arab public life. As captivating audio-visual blurbs, music videos attract attention; they are interesting not only because of their provocative aesthetics, but because they spotlight controversial issues and elicit impassioned reactions from public figures and ordinary people alike. Discussing religious videos that elaborate an Islamic vision of globalization, pop videos that subvert dominant social norms, play with Christian imagery, and create a fantasy world, in addition to focusing the discussion on videos about the US occupation of Iraq, Kraidy considers music videos as instruments of visibility in a saturated media economy suffering from attention scarcity.

Marwan M. Kraidy is Associate Professor of Global Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His publications include Reality Television and Arab Politics: Contention in Public Life (Cambridge, 2009), which won the 2010 Best Book Award in Global Communication and Social Change, from the International Communication Association, Arab Television Industries (BFI/Palgrave, 2009, with J. Khalil), Hybridity, or, The Cultural Logic of Globalization (Temple, 2005), and the edited volumes Global Media Studies: Ethnographic Perspectives (Routledge, 2003), and The Politics of Reality Television: Global Perspectives (Routledge, 2010).

Sponsored by:

  • Program on Good Governance and Political Reform in the Arab World, CDDRL
  • Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
  • Humanities Center
  • African and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures Program
  • Bowen H. McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society

Levinthal Hall

Marwan Kraidy Associate Professor of Global Communication Speaker Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Conferences

Elizabeth Buckner

CDDRL

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Elizabeth Buckner is the President of the Arab Studies Table at Stanford University. She is a PhD Candidate at Stanford University School of Education, specializing in International and Comparative Education, where she is also pursuing a MA in Sociology. She is interested broadly in education and globalization in the Middle East and North Africa region, including the expansion of higher education in the region, and the link between education and employment. She was a Fulbright grantee to Morocco in 2006, and was a recipient of a Critical Language Scholarship to Oman in 2008.  She has presented her research in conferences in Morocco, Egypt and Turkey and throughout the US. She has also conducted research for the Academy for Educational Development (AED) in Morocco, Save the Children (SC) in Egypt, and the Syrian Trust for Development in Damascus. Elizabeth graduated with Highest Honors from Swarthmore College in 2006 with a B.A. in Educational Studies and Sociology. She is fluent in Modern Standard Arabic and Moroccan Dirija, and is trying to learn the Levantine dialect for her future dissertation research. She also supported various research ARD projects over the past three years. 

You Vote, We Decide! Analyzing the 2010 Iraqi Elections and the Ensuing Political Process

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Abbas Kadhim is an Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California.  He also holds a Visiting Scholar status at Stanford University since 2005.  Between 2003 and 2005, he taught courses on Islamic theology and ethics at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

His recent publications include: "a Case of Partial Cooperation: the 1920 Revolution and Iraqi Sectarian Identities" (forthcoming); "Forging a Third Way: Sistani's Marja‘iyya between Quietism and Wilāyat al-Faqīh, in Iraq, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World, edited by Ali Paya and John Esposito, Routledge,  July  2010;  "Widows' Doomsday: Women and War in the Poetry of Hassan al-Nassar," in Women and War in Muslim Countries, ed. Faegheh Shirazi, Austin: The University of Texas Press, June 2010; "Opting for the Lesser Evil: US Foreign Policy Toward Iraq, 1958-2008," in Bob Looney (ed.) Handbook of US Middle East Relations, London: Routledge, 2009; and Shi`i Perceptions of the Iraq Study Group, Strategic Insights, vol. VI, issue 2 (March 2007).

His book translations include Shi‘a Sects: A Translation with an Introduction and Notes, London: Islamic College for Advanced Studies Press (2007); Wahhabism: A Critical Essay, by Hamid Algar (Arabic Translation), Köln, Germany: Dar al-Jamal (2006); and Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping our Lives, by Anthony Giddens (Arabic Translation), with Dr. Hassan Nadhem, Beirut: (2003).

His current projects include editing the Routledge Handbook of Governance in the Middle East and North Africa, London: Routledge (forthcoming 2011) and finishing a manuscript on The 1920 Revolution and the Making of the Modern Iraqi State (under review).

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Abbas Kadhim Assistant Professor Speaker Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California
Seminars
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