Political Reform in the Arab World: Problems and Prospects
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New Forum on Contemporary Europe research project on History, Memory and Reconciliation
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In spring 2009, the Forum on Contemporary Europe (FCE) and the Division on Languages, Civilizations and Literatures (DLCL) delivered the first part of its multi-year research and public policy program on Contemporary History and the Future of Memory. The program explored how communities that have undergone deep and violent political transformations try to confront their past.
Despite vast geographical, cultural and situational differences, the search for post-conflict justice and reconciliation has become a global phenomenon, resulting in many institutional and expressive responses. Some of these are literary and aesthetic explorations about guilt, commemoration and memorialization deployed for reconciliation and reinvention. Others, especially in communities where victims and perpetrators live in close proximity, have led to trials, truth commissions, lustration, and institutional reform. This series illuminates these various approaches, seeking to foster new thinking and new strategies for communities seeking to move beyond atrocity.
Part 1: Contemporary History and the Future of Memory
In 2008-2009, this multi-year project on “History and Memory” at FCE and DLCL was launched with two high profile conference and speaker series: “Contemporary History and the Future of Memory” and “Austria and Central Europe Since 1989.” For the first series on Contemporary History, the Forum, along with four co-sponsors (the Division of Literatures, Civilizations, and Languages, principal co-sponsor; the department of English; The Center for African Studies; Modern Thought and Literature; the Stanford Humanities Center), hosted internationally distinguished senior scholars to deliver lectures, student workshops, and the final symposium with Stanford faculty respondents.
Part 2: History, Memory and Reconciliation
In 2009-2010, we launch part 2 of this project by adding “Reconciliation” to our mission. We are pleased to welcome the Human Rights Program at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law as co-sponsor of this series. This series will examine scholarly and institutional efforts to create new national narratives that walk the fine line between before and after, memory and truth, compensation and reconciliation, justice and peace. Some work examines communities ravaged by colonialism and the great harm that colonial and post-colonial economic and social disparities cause. The extent of external intervention creates discontinuities and dislocation, making it harder for people to claim an historical narrative that feels fully authentic. Another response is to set up truth-seeking institutions such as truth commissions. Historical examples of truth commissions in South Africa, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Morocco inform more current initiatives in Canada, Cambodia, Colombia, Kenya, and the United States. While this range of economic, social, political and legal modalities all seek to explain difficult pasts to present communities, it is not yet clear which approach yields greater truth, friendship, reconciliation and community healing. The FCE series “History, Memory, and Reconciliation” will explore these issues.
The series will have its first event in February 2010. Multiple international scholars are invited. Publications, speaker details, and pod and video casts will be accessible via the new FSI/FCE, DLCL, and Human Rights Program websites.
Series coordinators:
- Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi
- Helen Stacy
- Saikat Majumdar
- Roland Hsu
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Scholars-At-Risk at Stanford
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Join Scholars at Risk at Stanford University on Wednesday, April 28 at 12:00 PM for a behind the scenes look at struggles for freedom of speech around the world and the courageous individuals who challenge attempts to control what people think. The goal of this event is to increase awareness and interest in institutionalizing a Scholars at Risk program at Stanford and to encourage faculty and administration to begin thinking about hosting at-risk scholars.This event is cosponsored by the Scholars at Risk Network, the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES), and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies.
Robert Quinn is the founding Executive Director of the Scholars at Risk Network, a collaboration of more than 220 universities and colleges in 29 countries dedicated to protecting threatened intellectuals and promoting respect for freedom of inquiry, expression and university values.
The Scholars at Risk Network seeks to bridge the gap between the human rights and higher education communities, building local, regional and global capacity to defend the intellectual space. The Network provides direct assistance to gravely threatened intellectuals, and conducts education and advocacy to target root causes of intellectual repression and to promote systemic change.
Mr. Quinn currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR), based in London, UK; the governing Council of the Magna Charta Observatory, based in Bologna, Italy; and is a fellow with the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows Program in Washington, DC. He previously served as a member of the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a member of the Human Rights Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; and an adjunct professor of law at Fordham Law School. He received his A.B. cum laude from Princeton in 1988, and his J.D. cum laude from Fordham in 1994.
Fatemeh Haghighatjoo is an expert on Iran's internal affairs and a prominent advocate of political reform, human rights and women's rights. She was a member of the Iranian Parliament from 2000-2004 and chaired the Student Movement Caucus. She was a deputy of the Mosharekat Caucus in the 6th Parliament as well as a member of the political bureau of the Mosharekat party in Iran. Dr. Haghighatjoo was one of the most courageous in standing up publicly to the hard-line Iranian leadership. She resigned in 2004 after a crackdown on reformers, and left Iran in 2005. More recently, Dr. Haghighatjoo has held several academic posts in the United States: Assistant Professor In-Residence at the University of Connecticut, Fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Haghighatjoo earned her Ph.D. in Counseling from Tarbiat Moalem University, served as a Professor at the National University of Iran, and authored Search for Truth (2002). She has served as Vice President of the Psychology and Counseling Organization in Iran and has been honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Dr. Haghighatjoo has been extensively interviewed and quoted in the U.S. and international media on Iran's domestic politics.
Mohsen Sazegara is an Iranian dissident, writer and political activist. His PhD thesis at the University of London, Royal Holloway focused on religious intellectuals in Iran. He has been a visiting professor at several universities in Iran, and has held visiting scholar positions at Yale University and Harvard University. A founding member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, he served as political deputy in the prime minister's office and held several other political offices. He became disillusioned with the revolutionary government and left it in 1989. He later served as publisher of several reformist newspapers closed by regime hardliners and was also managing director of Iran's press cooperative company. Dr. Sazegara was recently appointed as the second Visiting Fellow in Human Freedom at the George W. Bush Institute at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He is the president of Research Institute on Contemporary Iran (RICI).
Natalia Koulinka joins CREEES as a Visiting Scholar from January - December 2010. She is the recipient of a Scholar Rescue Fund fellowship grant from the Institute of International Education, and supported by more than a dozen Centers, Departments, and Programs in the School of Humanities and Sciences and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford.
Koulinka was born and raised in Oshmiany in the Republic of Belarus. She graduated from the Belarusian State University in Minsk with both undergraduate and graduate degrees. From 1992-1996, she helped create and run the "Women's Newspaper," the only independent women's paper in Belarus which soon became popular in Russia too. As the paper's editor-in-chief, she focused on women in business and politics. Since 2006, she has been the news editor for the radio station Unistar in Minsk. In addition to her work as a journalist, Koulinka was an associate professor at Belarusian State University 2001-08. She is also the co-editor of the book, Krasnim po Belomy ("Red on White"), which is a collection of texts by murdered Belarus journalist, Veronika Cherkasova. In 2008-09, Koulinka was the Lyle and Corinne Nelson International Fellow, John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists at Stanford University. During her fellowship year at CREEES she will work on the research project topic "A Social History of the Soviet School of Journalism."
Oksenberg Conference Room
Fatemeh Haghighatjoo
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Mohsen Sazegara
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Natalia Koulinka
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Robert Quinn
Moderator
Larry Diamond
CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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ldiamond@stanford.edu
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
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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Seminar on the Regional Dimensions of Authoritarianism in the Arab World
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On March 30, 2010, Prof. Samer Shehata from Georgetown University gave a research seminar for the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at CDDRL titled The Regional Dimensions of Authoritarianism in the Arab World. Prof. Shehata’s talk was in response to the research puzzle, as he called it, of the persistence of authoritarian politics at the regional level in the Arab world. He argued that the subject that has received most attention in political science is the question of authoritarianism and absence of democracy. The question of why there are no democracies has offered a number of possible reasons including: the qualities and consequences of oil and rentier politics; absent or weak civil societies in the Arab world; social class-based explanations; the issue of political liberalization instead of democratization; external factors such as US support for authoritarian regimes, which he argued has not decreased since the end of the Cold War; regional conflicts like Palestine/Israel and the Gulf wars; institutions of authoritarianism including how elections, parliaments and single parties work; Islamist politics creating deep divisions among opposition groups; and patronage, clientelism and the (absence of) social contract.
Prof. Shehata then proceeded to say that there has been some positive development in the approach to democracy in the Arab world, but that there remains insufficient attention to the regional dimensions of authoritarianism. He argued that the Arab world is authoritarian not just on the state level, but also on the regional level. As International Relations specialists have spoken about the existence of an Arab regional system, the institutional dimension of this system, such as the Arab League, needs to be studied.
He stated that there are three mechanisms of the reproduction of authoritarianism on the regional level: authoritarian learning, authoritarian cooperation, and regional organizations. Cases of authoritarian learning take both direct and indirect forms where certain regimes “learn” from one another. He gave the example of constitutional amendments that allow elections but that give the illusion of competition, where electoral outcomes are similar. In Tunisia, for example, Ben Ali “learned” from the Algerian experience by not allowing Islamists an electoral opening.
Authoritarian cooperation, he went to argue, occurs mainly regarding security matters. He gave the example of certain activists not being to allowed certain countries in the Arab world (like the Tunisian Moncif Marzouki, who was not allowed into Lebanon). Such “cooperation” widens the scope of authoritarianism beyond the borders of individual states.
Prof. Shehata’s ended with a discussion of the third mechanism, regional organizations. He talked about institutionalized cooperation within the Arab League and the GCC, calling the Arab League a “club for authoritarian regimes” that is not committed to democracy. An example of this in action is the Arab League accords on security and anti-terrorism which have ended up extending authoritarian rules across the Arab world. Another example is the Arab media charter that was put in place in February 2008, and which limits internet and media freedom. Prof. Shehata acknowledged that further research needs to be done on those three mechanisms and the floor was then opened to questions from the audience.
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Larry Diamond: Iraq and the oil curse
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"Not a single one of the 23 countries that derive most of their export earnings from oil and gas is a democracy today," wrote CDDRL Director Larry Diamond in an an article for the Journal of Democracy, Why Are There No Arab Democracies? In these countries, the state is "large, centralized, and repressive," he notes. Diamond comments in Newsweek about Iraq's prospects for escaping the oil curse.
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CDDRL visiting scholar named Young Global Leader
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Each year, the World Economic Forum recognizes and acknowledges up to 200 outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. For 2010, the Forum has selected 197 Young Global Leaders (YGLs) from 72 countries and all stakeholders of society (business, civil society, social entrepreneurs, politics and government, arts and culture, and opinion and media).
One honoree is Abebe Gellaw, CDDRL visiting scholar, who is recognized for his long standing work for freedom of expression, justice, democracy, and dignity in Ethiopia. He came to Stanford in 2009 as a Knight/Yahoo! International Fellow.
"I am not only thrilled but also humbled to be included in this year's YGL list of honorees," Gellaw remarked after the names of the honorees were announced, "I started mixing journalism and advocacy in 1993 as the government fired 42 respected professors from Addis Ababa University, where I was a student leader organizing protests against the misguided and destructive policies of the regime that has hijacked Ethiopia's hope for a democratic transition and decent future."
"The World Economic Forum is a true multistakeholder community of global decision-makers in which the Young Global Leaders represent the voice for the future and the hopes of the next generation. The diversity of the YGL community and its commitment to shaping a better future through action-oriented initiatives of public interest is even more important at a time when the world is in need of new energy to solve intractable challenges," said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum.
The Young Global Leaders 2010 were chosen from a pool of almost 5,000 candidates by a selection committee, chaired by H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and comprised of eminent international media leaders including Steve Forbes, CEO of Forbes Media, James Murdoch, CEO of News Corporation (Europe and Asia), Arthur Sulzgerber, Chairman and Publisher of the New York Times, Tom Glocer, CEO of Thomson Reuters and Elizabeth Weymouth, Editor-at-Large and Special Diplomatic Correspondent of Newsweek.
The 2010 honourees will become part of the broader Forum of Young Global Leaders community that currently comprises 660 outstanding individuals. The YGLs convene at an annual summit - this year it will be in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2-7 May 2010, the first time in Africa and the largest ever gathering of YGLs - as well as at Forum events and meetings throughout the year, according to a press release issued by the World Economic Forum.
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Arab Reform and Democracy Program
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يقوم برنامج الإصلاح و الديمقراطية في العالم العربي بمركز الديمقراطية و التنمية و سيادة القانون في جامعة ستانفرد، بتحليل الديناميات الإجتماعية و السياسية ذاخل البلدان العربية. كما يقوم بتحليل أنظمتها السياسية وذلك من خلال التركيز على الأوضاع، الفرص، و الطرق الممكنة من أجل تفعيل الإصلاحات الديمقراطية بالمنطقة.
و يستقطب هذا البرنامج المتعدد الإختصاصات محاضرين و مشاركين من مختلف مراكز صناعة القرار، منظمات المجتمع المدني، المنظمات الغير حكومية، الإعلام، و المجتمعات السياسية. بالإضافة إلى استقطاب فعاليات أخرى ،من العالم العربي، من مختلف الخلفيات و المرجعيات. وذلك من أجل بحث كيفية إمكانية ترسيخ الديمقراطية و تأسيس حكامة مسؤولة و عادلة كتحدي عام يواجه المنطقة ككل و بالأخص ذاخل بعض البلدان و المجتمعات.
ويهذف هذا البرنامج إلى أن يكون منبعا للرصيد المعرفي حول مواضيع الحكامة الجيدة والإصلاح السياسي في المجتمعات العربية، من خلال إنتاج بحوث أكاديمية دقيقية و سباقة تقوم على أساس عمل ميداني ذاخل العالم العربي يتيح فرصة التعبير أمام مختلف الآراء والأصوات.
كما يستفيد هذا البرنامج من المشاركات الغنية و القيمة للمجتمع الأكاديمي بجامعة ستانفرد بكل مكوناته: أساتذة، باحثون، وطلبة. بالإضافة إلى المساهمات القيمة لشركائنا في العالم العربي و أوروبا.
وتبعا لمهمة مركز الديمقراطية و التنمية و سيادة القانون، الذي يحتضن هذا اليرنامج، فإن برنامج الإصلاح و الديمقراطية في العالم العربي ملتزم بإنتاج بحث معمق في ميدان سن القوانين.
وتتضمن النشاطات الخاصة بالبرنامج مايلي:
بحث متعدد الإختصاصات: يعمل البرنامج على إنجاز بحث متعدد الإختصاصات في مجال السياسة مركزا على أوجه متعددة للإصلاح و الديمقراطية في العالم العربي. و يتم ذلك من خلال مشاريع بحوث قصيرة وطويلة المدى، يتم العمل عليها عبر مواضيع منفردة بالإضافة إلى بحوث أكثر شمولية تركز على بلدان عربية محددة. ويتكلف أعضاء فريق البرنامج بالقيام بالأبحاث بالإضافة إلى الشركاء الدولين.
برنامج الباحث الزائر: يستظيف برنامج الإصلاح و الديمقراطية في العالم العربي باحثين و مهنيين رائدين من أجل استكمال و القيام ببحوث فريدة خلال اقامتهم بمركزالديمقراطية و التنمية و سيادة القانون.
تداريب: يعمل البرنامج على خلق فرص تداريب جديدية بالنسبة لطلبة ستانفرد لتمكينهم من قضاء بعض الوقت في العالم العربي و أيضا لتمكينهم من العمل ذاخل المركز.
ورشات ونذوات: يستظيف البرنامج عدة نذوات، الورشات ومحاضرات، غالبا بالتعاون مع شركائنا بستانفرد و بأماكن أخرى، كما يستضيف أحداث أخرى بالعالم العربي.
مطبوعات: يشارك البرنامج في نشر’مجلة الشرق الأوسط للثقافة و التواصل‘ و هي مجلة متعددة التخصصات [تنشر من طرف برل]. كما يقوم البرنامج بنشر مقالات و مسودات و كتب محررة.
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Political Reform in the Arab World: Problems and Prospects
On May 10-11, 2010 the Program on Good Governance and Political Reform in the Arab World at CDDRL held its international inaugural conference. In line with the Arab Reform Program's vision, the conference featured internationally renowned scholars, activists, and practitioners from the Arab world, Europe and the United States. Over the two days, conference participants engaged in multidisciplinary debates addressing hard politics as well as soft politics, and analyzing political reform from different angles, with panels on the economy, state systems, the media, civil society, political opposition, youth politics, and the role of international actors. Problems facing political reform in the Arab world today were discussed and scrutinized, as were possible paths forward. The conference debates unearthed the need for a deep understanding of the problems facing political reform in the region that is driven by an analysis of long-term and often ignored issues that are at the core of political developments. The debates also highlighted that problems and prospects for reform are different in each Arab country because each country has its own unique set of issues and because within each country different ethnic groups, classes, and locales have different takes on and stakes in political developments. The conference closed with a speech by Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim.
Bechtel Conference Center
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