The Anatomy of Authoritarianism in the Arab World
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Abstract
In this talk Joseph Sassoon discusses his recently released book Anatomy of Authoritarianism in the Arab Republics (Cambridge University Press, 2016). By examining the system of authoritarianism in eight Arab republics, the book portrays life under these regimes and explores the mechanisms underpinning their resilience. How did the leadership in these countries create such enduring systems? What was the economic system that prolonged the regimes’ longevity, but simultaneously led to their collapse? Why did these seemingly stable regimes begin to falter? This book seeks to answer these questions by utilizing the Iraqi archives and memoirs of those who were embedded in these republics: political leaders, ministers, generals, security agency chiefs, party members, and business people. Taking a thematic approach, the book begins in 1952 with the Egyptian Revolution and ends with the Arab uprisings of 2011. It seeks to deepen our understanding of the authoritarianism and coercive systems that prevailed in these countries and the difficult process of transition from authoritarianism that began after 2011.
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Joseph Sassoon is an Associate Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the Sheikh Sabah Al Salem Al Sabah Chair at Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. His work focuses on the history, politics, and political economy of the Arab world, and he has published extensively on Iraq and its economy. Sassoon’s book Saddam Hussein’s Ba`h Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime (Cambridge University Press, 2013) won the British-Kuwait Prize for the best book on the Middle East. His previous publications include The Iraqi Refugees: The New Crisis in the Middle East (London, I.B. Tauris, 2009). He was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars during the 2014-15 academic year. Born in Baghdad, Sassoon completed his PhD at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford.
Philippines Conference Room
Encina Hall, 3rd Floor Central
616 Serra St
Stanford, CA 94305
Joseph Sassoon
Associate Professor
Georgetown University
Seminars
Oil and Urban Life in Kuwait
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Abstract
In this talk Farah Al-Nakib will discuss her recently released book Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life (Stanford University Press, 2016), in which she traces the relationships between the urban landscape, patterns and practices of everyday life, and social behaviors and relations in Kuwait, from its settlement in 1716 through the bridge of oil discovery to the twenty-first century. The history that emerges reveals how decades of urban planning, suburbanization, and privatization have eroded an open, tolerant society and given rise to the insularity, xenophobia, and divisiveness that characterize Kuwaiti social relations today. However, over the past decade several social forces and youth-based movements—from political protesters to architects and small entrepreneurs—have been staking claims to the city and demanding a different kind of urban experience. Beyond simply reviving the declined urban center, Al-Nakib argues, their efforts have the potential to restore Kuwaiti society’s lost urbanity.
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Farah Al-Nakib is Assistant Professor of History and Director of the Center for Gulf Studies at the American University of Kuwait. She obtained her PhD (2011) and MA (2006) in history from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Her research primarily focuses on the urban history of Kuwait City before and after oil, on which she has written her first book. She also writes about memory and forgetting in relation to the built environment. Her latest research analyzes the 1990-91 Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait from a social historical perspective. Al-Nakib is currently a Carnegie Centennial Fellow at American University in Washington, DC. She is also a co-editor of Jadaliyya’s Cities Page.
Reuben Hills Conference Room
2nd Floor East Wing E207
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, California 94305
Farah Al-Nakib
Assistant Professor
American University of Kuwait
Seminars
Bassam Haddad Analyzes the Root Causes and Dynamics of the Syrian Uprising [VIDEO]
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As part of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy's speaker series, George Mason University scholar Bassam Haddad explained the roots and dynamics of the tragic Syrian uprising, with particular attention to its background and to the recent Russian intervention, in a talk dated January 22, 2016. 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, Haddad explained.
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Tunisia’s Pathway to Democracy
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After having witnessed the beginning of the Arab Spring in December 2010, and the ouster of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, Tunisia went through a period of intense political turbulence, including a rapid succession of governments and a paralyzing political gridlock in the summer of 2013. The Tunisian national dialogue quartet, which represented the major stakeholders in civil society and is the recipient of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize, paved the way for a technocratic government that helped bring the country’s democratic transition back on track. After discussing the conditions that led to these developments, this presentation will focus on how the technocratic government managed the challenges of organizing the country’s first fully democratic presidential and legislative elections, re-establishing security, and restoring economic fundamentals. Finally, the presentation will discuss the prospects for democratic and economic development in Tunisia, one year after the appointment of the government that resulted from the 2014 elections.
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CISAC Central Conference Room
Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
616 Serra St
Stanford, CA 94305
Kamel Ben Naceur
Director for Sustainability, Technology, and Outlooks
International Energy Agency
Seminars
Stanford Scholar Examines Sectarianism and Urban Segregation in Baghdad [VIDEO]
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As part of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy speaker series, Director of The Markaz: Resource Center Mona Damluji examined the impact of the US-led occupation of Iraq on sectarian-based urban segregation in Baghdad. In a talk held on February 3, 2016, she argued that the sectarian-based segregation that has shaped urbanism in Baghdad is a direct outcome of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. The "post"-occupied city is characterized by the normalization of concrete “security” blast-walls that choke urban circulation and sever communities. The notorious blast walls -- or "Bremer Walls" -- perpetuate and intensify conditions of urban segregation. As the summer's surge of anti-government protests in Baghdad demonstrate, the short-sighted nature of this militarized solution to sectarian-based violence has proven to be a superficial and unsustainable fix to the deep dilemma of sectarian segregation codified in Iraq’s political system. The presentation also examined the context for recent public dissent on the streets of Baghdad through the story of the capital city's fragmentation between 2006 and 2007.
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Countering Violent Extremism
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Under Secretary Sewall will deliver remarks on Countering Violent Extremism, the U.S. Government’s comprehensive approach for preventing the spread of ISIL and emergence of new terrorist threats. The Under Secretary will describe how the evolution of violent extremism since the 9/11 attacks necessitates a “whole of society” approach to prevent people from aligning with terrorist movements and ideologies in the first place. Drawing on recent travel to Indonesia, India, and Egypt, the Under Secretary will describe the vital role of actors outside government in this approach, including women, youth, religious leaders, businesses, and researchers. She will also elaborate on new steps the U.S. Government is taking to intensify its CVE efforts around the world. The Under Secretary will also take questions from the audience.
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Dr. Sarah Sewall is the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights at the U.S. State Department, and is a longtime advocate for advancing civilian security and human rights around the world. Dr. Sewall was sworn in on February 20, 2014. She serves concurrently as the Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues. Over the previous decade, Dr. Sewall taught at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she served as Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and directed the Program on National Security and Human Rights.
Dr. Sewall has extensive experience partnering with the U.S. armed forces around civilian security. At the Kennedy School, she launched the MARO (Mass Atrocities Response Operations Project) to assist the U.S. military with contingency planning to protect civilians from large-scale violence. She was a member of the Defense Policy Board and served as the Minerva Chair at the Naval War College in 2012. She also led several research studies of U.S. military operations for the Department of Defense and served as the inaugural Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance in the Clinton Administration. Prior joining the executive branch, Dr. Sewall served for six years as the Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to U.S. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell and earned a Ph.D at Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.
This event is co-sponsored by Stanford in Government and CISAC.
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Dr. Sarah Sewall
Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights
U. S. State Department
Lectures
New Alliances in Cybersecurity, Human Rights and Internet Governance
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On Wednesday, February 24, CDDRL, in partnership with the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), hosted...
Posted by Stanford Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) on Friday, February 19, 2016
On Wednesday, February 17, The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford, The Center for International Governance Innovation, and the Research Advisory Network of the Global Commission on Internet Governance will present an all-day conference entitled "New Alliances in Cybersecurity, Human Rights and Internet Governance." The conference will discuss the challenges of creating a regime of internet governance that pays attention to security and human rights in the digital context.
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister & Foreign Minister of Sweden, and Chair of the Global Commission on Internet Governance (GCIG) and Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz are the scheduled keynote speakers. Other speakers for the event include Michael McFaul (Director FSI), Eileen Donahoe (Human Rights Watch/FSI), Sir David Omand (former Director, GCHQ, UK), Michael Chertoff (former Secretary of Homeland Security, USA) and Marietje Schaake (Member of the European Parliament.)
Admission will be closed at 120 guests - only those who have sent an rsvp will be admitted.
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616 Serra Street, Stanford, CA 94305
Carl Bildt
Former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sweden
Keynote speaker
Global Commission on Internet Governance
Marc Andreessen
Founder, Andreessen Horowitz
Keynote speaker
Founder, Andreessen Horowitz
Conferences
CDDRL scholars weigh in on rise of organized crime in Mexico
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Beatriz Magaloni, director of CDDRL's Program on Poverty and Governance (PovGov), and Zaira Razu, a research associate and project manager at PovGov, recently released a piece in Current History on Mexico's ongoing drug war and the rise of violence. Although democratic structures have helped improve certain freedoms throughout the country in the past decade, institutionalized injustice is slowly jeopardizing stability and security for much of the Mexican population.
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Scholars Examine Egypt’s Political Landscape on the Eve of the January 25 Revolution’s 5th Anniversary [VIDEO]
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To mark five years since the onset of the January 25 Revolution, five Egypt scholars examined the evolving political landscape in Egypt as part of a panel titled “The Containment of Politics in Egypt,” organized by the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD). The panel featured Stanford Historian Joel Beinin, Associate Professor of Political Science at Stanford Lisa Blaydes, ARD Visiting Scholar Amr Hamzawy, Executive Director of the Tahrir Institute on Middle East Policy Nancy Okail, and ARD Associate Director Hesham Sallam. The discussion revolved around a number of key issues, including the recent legislative elections, the cohesion of the ruling coalition, the regime’s responses to various economic challenges, and the impact of state repression on spaces for political contestation and resistance.
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