This event is cosponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University and the Ten Years On Project, www.TheArabUprisings.org

ABSTRACT

During the height of the mass uprisings against authoritarian rule, excitement about the prospects for a more just and representative political order across the Arab region was often tempered by questions concerning the role that Islamist parties would play in post-authoritarian transitions. Movements that maintained deep social roots but were often on the margins of state power were poised to implement an Islamist political project decades in the making. The outcomes of the subsequent transitions, particularly the legacy of destructive civil conflicts, foreign interventions, and authoritarian resurgence, have frequently obscured attempts to understand the impact of the Arab uprisings on Islamism. 

This talk examines these recent developments by placing them within a broader historical analysis that traces the evolution of Islamist thought and activism from its tentative embrace of the nation state to its wholehearted entry into national party politics. It argues that, by the eve of the uprisings, the posture of Islamist movements reflected a set of political commitments that had emerged largely at the expense of their ideological program and social mission. Rooted in the historical and recent acceptance of state institutions and political structures, expressions of Islamism by parties across the Arab region reflected a shift that subsumed long held beliefs beneath the needs of (alternately or in combination) democratic pluralism and political expediency, most clearly visible in the transformation of Tunisia’s Ennahda Party. That tension has been exacerbated in the wake of political defeats experienced by many of these movements, particularly Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. While the “Islamist idea” is likely to endure its current bout with state repression, its survival as a political force in the future will depend on its determination to complete this evolution, a process that was both accelerated and interrupted during the critical moments of the Arab uprisings.

SPEAKER BIO

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Abdullah Al-Arian is an associate professor of history at Georgetown University in Qatar where he specializes in the modern Middle East and the study of Islamic social movements. He is the author of Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Sadat's Egypt (Oxford University Press). His upcoming book compares the historical experiences of Islamist movements in six different Arab states and will be published by Cambridge University Press. He is also editor of the Critical Currents in Islam page on Jadaliyya ezine.

*Note: Event time listed above is PST.

ABSTRACT 

This talk is based on the speakers’ recently published edited volume The Unfinished Arab Spring: Micro-Dynamics of Revolts between Change and Continuity. Adopting an original analytical approach in explaining various dynamics at work behind the Arab revolts and giving voice to local dynamics and legacies rather than concentrating on debates about paradigms, we highlight micro-perspectives of change and resistance as well as of contentious politics that are often marginalized and left unexplored in favor of macro-analyses. First, we re-examine the stories of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Algeria through diverse and novel perspectives, looking at factors that have not yet been sufficiently underlined but carry explanatory power for what has occurred. Second, rather than focusing on macro-comparative regional trends – however useful they might be – we focus on the particularities of each country, highlighting distinctive micro-dynamics of change and continuity. ​

SPEAKERS BIO

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ABSTRACT

Democracy promotion has been a longstanding goal of US foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere. President George W. Bush championed democracy promotion as a way to counter the ideology and extremism that led to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks against the United States. After Bush’s attempts ended in abject failure, President Barack Obama sought to repair relations with the Muslim world but also withdraw the US footprint in the Middle East. But Obama was forced to take a far more hands-on approach with the outbreak of the 2010-2011 uprisings known as the Arab Spring. President Donald Trump, who has displayed an almost allergic aversion to Obama’s policies, has openly embraced the region’s autocrats with little regard for their abuse of human rights or absence of attention to political or economic freedom. How the United States approaches the region matters – both for aspiring democrats and for those who wish to silence them. Despite the rise of Russia and China, the United States remains the sole superpower, with the loudest voice on the world stage. Thus, the shift from democracy promoter – albeit reluctantly at times – to authoritarian enabler has made the task of democratic political reform far more challenging for people across the Middle East. This discussion will examine the recent democracy promotion efforts of the United States, with a focus on the Obama and Trump years.

SPEAKER BIO

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DAY 1: Friday, April 27

8:30-9:00 a.m.    Breakfast

9:00-9:15 a.m.    Introductory Remarks

9:15-11:00 a.m.  Panel 1: Youth, Culture, and Expressions of Resistance

Ayca Alemdaroglu, Stanford University

“Affective Pedagogies: Governing Youth in the Times of Dissent in Turkey”

Adel Iskandar, Simon Fraser University

“Uprisings Upended: Arab Youth Between Dissociation, Disenchantment, and Desecration”

Yasemin Ipek, Stanford University

“Imagining Social Change after the Syrian Civil War: Entrepreneurial Activism and Cross-Sectarian Political Mobilization in Lebanon”

Chair: Hicham Alaoui, Harvard University

11:00-11:15 a.m. Coffee Break

11:15-1:00 p.m.  Panel 2: Situating Gender in the Law and the Economy

Hanan Hammad, Texas Christian University 

“Democracy from the Gender Edge”

Alessandra Gonzalez, Stanford University

“Do Source or Host Country Practices Dominate in Female Executive Hiring? Evidence from Firms in the GCC Countries”

Ibtesam Al Atiyat, St. Olaf College

“Repealing Rape Article 308: The Missed Opportunity to Women’s Emancipation in Jordan”

Chair: Joel Beinin, Stanford University

1:00-2:00 p.m.    Lunch

2:00-3:45 p.m.    Panel 3: Social Movements and Visions for Change

Dina El-Sharnouby, Freie Universität Berlin 

“The 2011 Revolutionary Movement in Egypt and Youth’s Socio-Political Imaginaries of Transformation and Change”

Mohamed Daadaoui, Oklahoma City University 

“It’s Good to Be the King, or Is It? Protest Movements, the “refo-lutionary” promise of PJD Islamists and the King’s Dilemma in Morocco”

Nora Doaiji, Yale University

“After Saudi Women’s Driving: What Happens When A Marginal Movement Is Centered by the State”

Chair: Amr Hamzawy, Stanford University

DAY 2: Saturday April 28

8:30-9:00 a.m.    Breakfast

9:00-10:45 a.m.  Panel 4: The Economy, the State and New Social Actors

Mona Atia, The George Washington University 

“Territorial Restructuring and the Politics of Governing Poverty in Morocco”

Amr Adly, European University Institute

“Egypt's Shattered Oligarchy and Big Business Autonomy”

Mahmoud El-Gamal, Rice University 

“Egyptian Economic and De-Democratization Trends”

Chair: Lisa Blaydes, Stanford University

10:45-11:00 a.m. Coffee Break

11:00-12:30 p.m. Panel 5: Social Change and International and Regional Dynamics

Hicham Alaoui, Harvard University

"Geopolitical Myths and Realities under Neo-Authoritarianism"

Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University 

“The Roots and Impact of Democracy Resistance and Autocracy Promotion in the Arab World”

Nancy Okail, The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy

"Political Reform, Security, and U.S. Middle East Policy"

Chair: Larry Diamond, Stanford University

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Abstract:

The uprisings that spread across the Middle East in 2011 created new hope for democratic change in the Arab world.  Four years later, the euphoria that greeted the Arab uprisings has given way to a far more somber mood, a recognition of the limits of mass protests to bring about political change, and acknowledgement that the region's entrenched authoritarian regimes are more resilient than many protesters imagined. Yet in responding to the challenge of mass politics, authoritarian regimes in the Middle East have not simply shown their resilience. In adapting to new challenges they have also changed, giving rise to new and more troubling forms of authoritarian rule, suggesting that the turmoil of recent years may be only the beginning of an extended period of political instability, violence, and repression in many parts of the Middle East.

Speaker Bio:

Steven Heydemann

Steven Heydemann serves as the vice president of Applied Research on Conflict at United States Institute of Peace. Heydemann is a political scientist who specializes in the comparative politics and the political economy of the Middle East, with a particular focus on Syria. His interests include authoritarian governance, economic development, social policy, political and economic reform and civil society. From 2003 to 2007, Heydemann directed the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University. From 1997 to 2001, he was an associate professor in the department of political science at Columbia University. Earlier, from 1990-1997, he directed the Social Science Research Council’s Program on International Peace and Security and Program on the Near and Middle East. Heydemann is the author of Authoritarianism in Syria: Institutions and Social Conflict, 1946-1970 (Cornell University Press, 1999), and editor of Networks of Privilege in the Middle East: The Politics of Economic Reform Revisited, (Palgrave Press, 2004), and War, Institutions and Social Change in the Middle East (University of California Press, 2000).

This event is co-sponsored by the Arab Studies Institute

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