Professor Joseph previously taught at Emory University, Dartmouth College, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Ibadan (Nigeria), and the University of Khartoum (Sudan). He has held research fellowships at Harvard University, Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Institute of Development Studies (Sussex, UK), Chr. Michelsen Institute (Norway), and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France). Joseph has devoted his scholarly career to the study of politics and governance in Africa with a special focus on democratic transitions, state building and state collapse, and conflict resolution.

He directed the African Governance Program at the Carter Center (1988-1994) and coordinated elections missions in Zambia (1991), Ghana (1992), and peace initiatives in Liberia (1991-1994). He has been a longtime member of the Council of Foreign Relations. Joseph is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including a Rhodes Scholarship, a Kent Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2002-03, he held visiting fellowships at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the National Endowment for Democracy. He was a Fulbright Scholar in France and a Fulbright Professor in Nigeria.

He has written and edited dozens of scholarly books and articles including Radical Nationalism in Cameroun (1977); Gaullist Africa: Cameroon Under Ahmadu Ahidjo (1978); Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria (1987); State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa (1999); Smart Aid for African Development (2009) and the Africa Demos series (1990-94). His article, "Africa's Predicament and Academe", was published as a cover story by The Chronicle of Higher Education (March 7, 2003). One of his recent articles is "Challenges of a ‘Frontier' Region," Journal of Democracy, April 2008. Others are posted at www.brookings.edu/experts/josephr.aspx

» Joseph, Richard, "The Nigerian predicament" (NGR Guardian News)

Carolyn A. Mercado is a senior program officer with The Asia Foundation in the Philippines. In this position she manages the Law and Human Rights program. She assists in the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of other selected activities within the Foundation's Law and Governance program and handles mediation and conflict management, and other forms of dispute resolution processes. She has also served as a temporary consultant to the Asian Development Bank on the Strengthening the Independence and Accountability of the Philippine Judiciary project and the Legal Literacy for Supporting Governance project.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Ms. Mercado was an intern with the Center of International Environmental Law in Washington. Previously, she served consultancies in Manila for the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Maritime Organization, NOVIB, and the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources. She has served as lecturer on environmental law at Ateneo de Manila University, San Sebastian College of Law, and the Development Academy of the Philippines. She also previously served as executive director of the Developmental Legal Assistance Center, corporate secretary of the Alternative Law Groups, and as a legal aide to a member of the Philippine Senate.

Education: B.A. in political science from the University of the Philippines; LL.B. from the University of the Philippines College of Law. She was also a Hubert Humphrey Fellow in international environmental law, University of Washington and a European Union Scholar in environmental resource management, Maastricht School of Business in the Netherlands.

CO-SPONSORED BY SEAF

Stephen Krasner is a former director of CDDRL, deputy director of FSI, an FSI senior fellow, and the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), and Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999), and Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.

This seminar examines possible explanations for a striking anomaly in the distribution of democracies around the world. While 60 percent of all the independent states in the world are at least electoral democracies, the Arab world is alone among major regions in lacking a critical mass of democracies. In fact, not a single one of the states of the Arab Middle East is classified by Freedom House as a democracy today. This presentation examines possible cultural, historical, economic, political, institutional, and geostrategic explanations for the democracy deficit in the Arab world. Rejecting some of these possible explanations as implausible or untenable, it affirms others and considers what factors might foster transitions to constitutional democracy in the Arab world.

Summary
Larry Diamond's presentation explored the question of why there is no Arab democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. Using Freedom House panel data, he demonstrated the relatively stagnant levels of democratic freedoms that have typified this authoritarian slice of geography for the last several decades: only two countries out of nearly twenty could be considered electoral democracies, and these were the non-Arab states of Turkey and Israel. He next sifted through several potential explanations for the absence of democratization.

The first was the culturalist thesis, that something inherent within Islam or Arab culture precludes the formation of a genuinely democratic set of institutions and values. However, the presence of democracy in other non-Western regions casts doubt on this contention. The second was economic development, a popular variable often correlated with democratic transitions; however, Arab autocracies each have analogues in other regions with similar levels of development but with democratic governments. More plausibly, a variety of political and institutional variables lay at the heart of the problem. For one, these regimes have become extremely adept at repressing dissidents and reformists within their societies. For another, they have adopted an adaptable ecology of liberalization, in which short bursts of political reform relieve temporary demands for reform while leaving intact executive monopolies over state resources. Further, they efficiently divide opposition parties and civic forces, often by imposing electoral rules and regulations that make it impossible for civil society-which is generally weak and fragmented-to mount concerted campaigns against the state apparatus. Finally, the dual conundrums of Islamism and the Arab-Israeli conflict play into each regime's survival strategy.

Authoritarian incumbents play up the nightmare of Islamic extremists gaining power to curry favor with the West and delay reforms; they also use the Palestinian issue to defuse popular grievance by way of rechanneling indignation against Israel.