Abstract:

The seminar session will present findings from a new study on the entrepreneurship ecosystem in post-revolutionary Egypt and Tunisia. The discussion will focus on the challenges facing entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs in these countries and the MENA region, and will highlight the importance of reform of the legal and regulatory environment.

Speakers bio:

Lina Khatib is the co-founding Head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She joined Stanford University in 2010 from the University of London where she was an Associate Professor. Her research is firmly interdisciplinary and focuses on the intersections of politics, media, and social factors in relation to the politics of the Middle East. She is also a consultant on Middle East politics and media and has published widely on topics such as new media and Islamism, US public diplomacy towards the Middle East, and political media and conflict in the Arab world, as well as on the political dynamics in Lebanon and Iran. She has an active interest in the link between track two dialogue and democratization policy. She is also a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London, and, from 2010-2012, was a Research Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

Amr Adly has a Ph.D. from the European University Institute-Florence, Department of political and social sciences (Date of completion: September 2010). His thesis topic was "The political economy of trade and industrialization in the post-liberalization period: Cases of Turkey and Egypt". The thesis was published by Routledge in December 2012 under the title of State Reform and Development in the Middle East: The Cases of Turkey and Egypt.

He has several other academic publications that have appeared in the Journal of Business and Politics, Turkish Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies, in addition to articles in several other periodicals and newspapers in English and Arabic.

Before joining Stanford, he worked as a senior researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, heading the unit of social and economic rights, and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat.

At Stanford, he is leading a research project on reforming the regulatory environment governing entrepreneurship after the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, which will result in policy papers as well as conferences in the two countries. 

Greg Simpson is Deputy Regional Director of the Middle East and North Africa division at the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), where in addition to co-managing the division with the regional director, he also directly oversees CIPE’s sizeable Egypt portfolio. A veteran of the nongovernmental sector with eighteen years of experience in strengthening democratic institutions, Simpson came to CIPE from the U.S. online political firm New Media Communications, where he focused on developing and managing the company’s international initiatives. Prior to New Media, Simpson worked at the International Republican Institute (IRI), where he held three successive country director posts in the Balkans. There he directed assistance programs in political party development, political communications, local governance, grassroots organization and mobilization, civil society development, public opinion research, and election observation. During this time, Simpson advised and trained hundreds of political activists and elected officials, and directly advised two of the region’s presidents. Before joining IRI, Simpson held positions at the American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL) and the Center for Civil Society in Southeastern Europe. He holds a B.A. in International Studies from American University in Washington, DC. Simpson currently resides in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and two children. 

One of the four core institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy and an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) is a U.S. non-profit organization with the mission of strengthening democracy around the globe through private enterprise and market-oriented reform. CIPE has supported more than 1,300 initiatives in over 100 developing countries, involving the private sector in policy advocacy and institutional reform, improving governance, and building understanding of market-based democratic systems. CIPE provides management assistance, practical experience, and financial support to local organizations to strengthen their capacity to implement democratic and economic reforms.

Lina Khatib is the co-founding Head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She joined Stanford University in 2010 from the University of London where she was an Associate Professor. Her research is firmly interdisciplinary and focuses on the intersections of politics, media, and social factors in relation to the politics of the Middle East. She is also a consultant on Middle East politics and media and has published widely on topics such as new media and Islamism, US public diplomacy towards the Middle East, and political media and conflict in the Arab world, as well as on the political dynamics in Lebanon and Iran. She has an active interest in the link between track two dialogue and democratization policy. She is also a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London, and, from 2010-2012, was a Research Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

Amr Adly has a Ph.D. from the European University Institute-Florence, Department of political and social sciences (Date of completion: September 2010). His thesis topic was "The political economy of trade and industrialization in the post-liberalization period: Cases of Turkey and Egypt". The thesis was published by Routledge in December 2012 under the title of State Reform and Development in the Middle East: The Cases of Turkey and Egypt.

He has several other academic publications that have appeared in the Journal of Business and Politics, Turkish Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies, in addition to articles in several other periodicals and newspapers in English and Arabic.

Before joining Stanford, he worked as a senior researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, heading the unit of social and economic rights, and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat.

At Stanford, he is leading a research project on reforming the regulatory environment governing entrepreneurship after the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, which will result in policy papers as well as conferences in the two countries.

Adel Iskandar is a scholar of media and international communication. He is the author and coauthor of several works including Al-Jazerra: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism (co-authored with Mohammed el-Naway, Basic Books, 2003). Iskandar's work deals with the intersections of media (pring, electronic, and digital) culture, identity, and politics, and he has lectured extensively on these topics at universateries worldwide. His latest publications include two coedited volumes titled Edward SAid: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation (co-edited with Hakem Rustom, University of California Press, 2010) and Mediating the Arab Uprisings (Tadween, 2013). His just published title the uthored anthology Egypt In Flux: Essay on an unfinished Revolution (OUP/AUC Press, 2013. Iskandar is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.

Hesham Sallam is a doctoral candidate in government at Georgetown University and co-editor of Jadaliyya ezine. He is former program specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace. His research focuses on Islamist movements and the politics of economic reform in the Arab World. Sallam’s research has previously received the support of the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Institute of Peace. Past institutional affiliations include Middle East Institute, Asharq Al-Awsat, and the World Security Institute. He is editor of Egypt's Parliamentary Elections 2011-2012: A Critical Guide to a Changing Political Arena (Tadween Publishing, 2013).

Abstract:

Does formalization really matter for developing economies? Informality has been considered as a negative economic factor as it has been associated with low productivity, high barriers to growth (dead capital), low government revenues and lack of access to credit and property rights. The remedy has been often sought in the formalization of informal economic activities, firms, workers and transactions. However, is formalization anyway a good option for development and growth in such hostile institutional settings like the ones existent in most developing countries including the Middle East? Will formalization save small entrepreneurs from rampant corruption, high interest rates, dependent judiciary, and weak rule of law? or are there alternative means to render the present informal settings more productive and developmental?

Speaker Bio: