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Summit Schedule

 

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Day 1: Wednesday 11 April
	2:00 – 5:30 PM Paul Brest Hall	“Technology, Social Media, and Innovation” AMENDS Talks Speakers:Aymen Abderrahman, Selma Chirouf, Rawan Da’as, Elizabeth Harmon, Sonya Kassis, Heather Libbe, Ifrah Magan, Sherif Maktabi, Brian Pellot, George Somi
	6:30 – 8:30 PM	Innovation and Entrepreneurial Leadership Dinner Co-Sponsored by TechWadi By Invitation Only

 

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Day 2: Thursday 12 April

	2:00 – 5:30 PM Paul Brest Hall	“Building Civil Society” AMENDS Talks Speakers: Firas Al-Dabagh, Abdullah Al-Fakharany, Marwan Alabed, Cole Bockenfeld, Nadir Ijaz, Selma Maarouf, Matthew Morantz, Alaa Mufleh, Fadi Quran, Nada Ramadan

 

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Day 3: Friday 13 April

	9:00 AM- 12:00 Gunn-SIEPR Building	“Peace and Conflict Resolution” AMENDS Talks Speakers: Sherihan Abdel-Rahman, Sam Adelsberg, Mohammad Al-Jishi, Abdulla Al-Misnad, Yahya Bensliman, Ilyes El-Ouarzadi, Sandie Hanna, Priya Knudson, Megan McConaughey, Gavin Schalliol
	1:30 – 5:00 PM Gunn-SIEPR Building	Speakers and Panelists Sami Ben Gharbia Tunisian political activist, Foreign Policy Top 100 Thinker Professor Allen Weiner Co-Director of Stanford Univeristy Center on International Conflict and Negotiation Thomas T. Riley Former Ambassador to Morocco Radwan Masmoudi Founder and President of the Center of the Study of Islam & Democracy
	6:30 – 8:30 PM Paul Brest Hall	Networking Dinner By Invitation Only

 

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Day 4: Saturday 14 April

	9:00 AM- 12:00 Bechtel Conference Center, Encina Hall	“The New Middle East”   AMENDS Talks Speakers: Firyal Abdulaziz, Lubna Alzaroo, Hoor Al-Khaja, Ali Al-Murtadha, Jessica Anderson, Seif Elkhawanky, Micah Hendler, Salmon Hossein, Ram Sachs, Rana Sharif
	1:30 – 5:00 PM Bechtel Conference Center, Encina Hall	Speakers and Panelists Rami Khouri Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut Ahmed Benchemsi Moroccan journalist and pro-democracy activist Professor Aaron Hahn Tapper Founder of Abraham’s Vision Nasser Weddady Civil Rights Outreach Director, American Islamic Congress

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Abstract:  

The "spirit of democracy" has recently been undermined in several African countries as authoritarian methods have been the preferred approach. In countries such as Kenya, Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire, Niger and Gabon political change has come through the following means; military interventions ousting former presidents clinging to power after their terms; violently repressed popular unrests leading to power-sharing solutions, or former presidents being replaced by their sons. In few countries such as Guinea, free elections were organized after several decades of dictatorship.   

In this seminar, CDDRL Post-Doctoral Fellow Landry Signé will examine what makes certain countries adopt and consolidate liberal or electoral democracies when others stay authoritarian - whether competitive, hegemonic or politically closed. Signé will analyze the transformations of political regimes and democratization in the 48 Sub-Saharan African countries over the two last decades contrasting various political trajectories, comparing results between successful and failed countries, and exploring the conditions that create, maintain and sustain democracies. 

Speaker Bio:  

Landry Signé is a recipient of the 2011-2013 Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship Award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada hosted by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. He is working on a project entitled “The Efficiency of the Political Responses to the Global Financial and Economic Crisis in Africa: Does the Political Regime and Economic Structure Matter?”. He completed his PhD in Political Science (2010), with the Award of Excellence, at the University of Montreal, and has been bestowed the Award for Best International PhD Dissertation of 2011 by the Center for International Studies and Research (CÉRIUM). His dissertation is entitled “Political Innovation: The Role of the International, Regional and National Actors in the Economic Development of Africa”. 

Prior to joining the CDDRL, Dr. Signé was a visiting scholar at the Stanford Center on African Studies, lecturer on Emerging African Markets: Strategies, Investments and Government Affairs at the Stanford Continuing Studies, founding president of a Canadian corporation specialized in public affairs and business development, part-time professor and lecturer in political science at Ottawa University and the University of Montreal, administrator at the United Nations Association of Canada-Greater Montréal, and president of the Political Commission of Montreal-CJ. He has worked or interned at the United Nations Department of Political Affairs, the Senate of France, the National Assembly of Cameroon, and the French Distributor, Casino Group. He studied Political Science, International Relations, Communication and Business at the University of Montreal, Lyon 3 University, Sciences Po Paris, Sandar Institute, Stanford Continuing Studies, and McGill University.

Abstract:

We present a new framework for conceptualizing and assessing the extent to which countries adhere to the rule of law in practice. This framework constitutes the backbone of the WJP Rule of Law Index^® and is organized around nine basic concepts or factors: limited government powers; absence of corruption; order and security; fundamental rights; open government; effective regulatory enforcement; access to civil justice; effective criminal justice; and informal justice. These factors are further disaggregated into 52 sub-factors. We estimate numerical scores of these factors and sub-factors for a group of 66 countries and jurisdictions. These estimates are built from two novel data sources in each country: (1) a general population poll; and (2) qualified respondents’ questionnaires. All in all, the data contain more than 400 variables drawn from the assessments of over 66,000 people and 2,000 local experts. Our presentation will conclude with an overview of some highlights from Index data findings, as well as examples of ways in which the data have been applied in different contexts.

The World Justice Project (WJP) is an independent, non-profit organization that works to advance the rule of law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity worldwide. The WJP’s multinational and multidisciplinary efforts are aimed at: government reforms; development of practical programs on the ground in support of the rule of law; and increased awareness about the concept and impact of the rule of law. The Project has three complementary programs: Research and Scholarship, the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, and mainstreaming practical on-the-ground programs to strengthen the rule of law.

Speaker Bio: 

Dr. Alejandro Ponce joined The World Justice Project as Senior Economist in 2009. He is a co-author of the WJP Rule of Law Index. Dr. Ponce has extensive experience in the development of cross-country indicators. Before joining the World Justice Project, he served as an Economist at the World Bank collaborating in the design of surveys to measure financial inclusion around the world. Earlier in his career, he worked as a consultant in the design of the index of judicial efficiency and regulation of dispute resolution as part of the Doing Business Indicators of the World Bank and served as Deputy Director for the Mexican Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV). Dr. Ponce has also conducted research on behavioral economics, financial inclusion and on the linkage between economic development and the rule of law. He holds a B.A. in Economics from ITAM inMexico, and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University.

Speaker Bio: 

Mr. Juan Carlos Botero is The World Justice Project's Interim Executive Director and Director of the Rule of Law Index, where he has led the development of an innovative quantitative tool to measure countries’ adherence to the rule of law worldwide. Mr. Botero’s previous experience includes service as Chief International Legal Counsel of the Colombian Ministry of Commerce; Deputy-Chief Negotiator of the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement; Consultant for the World Bank; Associate Researcher atYaleUniversity; and Judicial Clerk at theColombian Constitutional Court. He has taught legal theory and comparative law at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia and Universidad Privada Boliviana in Bolivia. His academic publications focus on the areas of rule of law, access to justice, labor regulation, and child labor. Mr. Botero is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on the Rule of Law 2011. A national of Colombia, Mr. Botero holds a law degree from Universidad de los Andes and a Master of Laws from Harvard University. He is also a Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) candidate at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Abstract:

The hegemony of the democratic ideal may be waning. Until recently, even the custodians of dictatorships claimed democratic status for their regimes. Many still do. But other rulers now drop the pretense of democracy and claim that their nondemocratic regimes provide the people with conditions that are superior to those found in democracies. They portray themselves as demophiles rather than democrats, and claim that their concern for their people provides a superior alternative to popular control over the state. What is more, some actually do pursue policies that differ meaningfully from the predation that characterizes the behavior of elites in many nondemocratic regimes. How may we understand contemporary demophily, and how does it challenge democracy?

Speaker Bio:

M. Steven Fish is a comparative political scientist who studies democracy and regime change in developing and postcommunist countries, religion and politics, and constitutional systems and national legislatures. He is the author of Are Muslims Distinctive? A Look at the Evidence (Oxford, 2011). He is also author of Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics (Cambridge, 2005), which was the recipient of the Best Book Award of 2006, presented by the Comparative Democratization Section of the American Political Science Association, and Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution (Princeton, 1995). He is coauthor of The Handbook of National Legislatures: A Global Survey (Cambridge, 2009) and Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy (Princeton, 2001). He served as a Senior Fulbright Fellow and Visiting Professor at the Airlangga University, Surabaya, Indonesia, in 2007 and at the European University at St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2000-2001. In 2005, he was the recipient of the Distinguished Social Sciences Teaching Award of the Colleges of Letters and Science, University of California-Berkeley.

Abstract:

Tamara Cofman Wittes, who helped manage the State Department's response to the Arab Awakening and now directs the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, will reflect on the US government's reactions to the dramatic change underway in the Arab world -- how the Obama Administration viewed the uprisings, and how its policy evolved over time as different cases emerged from Tunisia to Libya and Syria. What were the key concerns shaping the US policy response to events? How much difference did American policy make to outcomes on the ground? And, given the complex variety of outcomes now visible in the region, where is American policy toward Arab political change headed over time? 

Speaker Bio:

Tamara Cofman Wittes directs the Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, a regional policy center at The Brookings Institution. The MEDD Project conducts research into political and economic reform in the region and US efforts to promote democracy there. It also hosts visiting fellows from the Middle East.

Before joining the Saban Center in December 2003, Dr. Wittes served as Middle East specialist at the US Institute of Peace and previously as director of programs at the Middle East Institute in Washington. She has also taught courses in International Relations and Security Studies at Georgetown University. Dr. Wittes was one of the first recipients of the Rabin-Peres Peace Award, established by President Bill Clinton in 1997.

 
Dr. Wittes’s latest book is Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy (Brookings Press). She is also editor of How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process (USIP, 2005). Her recent work includes “What Price Freedom? Assessing the Bush Administration’s Freedom Agenda,” and “Back to Balancing in the Middle East,” co-authored with Martin Indyk.

 Her analyses of US democracy promotion, Arab politics, the Middle East peace process, and other policy topics have been published in the Washington Post, Policy Review, Political Science Quarterly, the American Interest, the Weekly Standard, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. Dr. Wittes holds a B.A. in Judaic and Near Eastern Studies from Oberlin College; her M.A. and Ph.D. in Government are from Georgetown University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Abstract:

Nunn's paper examines the effect of U.S. food aid on conflict in recipient countries. To establish a causal relationship, he and Nancy Qian exploit time variation in food aid caused by fluctuationsin U.S. wheat production together with cross-sectional variation in a country's tendency to receive any food aid from the United States. Their estimates show that an increase in U.S. food aid increases the incidence, onset and duration of civil conflicts in recipient countries. The results suggest that the effects are larger for smaller scale civil conflicts. No effect is found on interstate warfare.

Speaker Bio: 

Professor Nunn was born in Canada, where he received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 2005.  In 2009, Professor Nunn was selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and grant recepient.

Professor Nunn’s primary research interests are in economic history, economic development, political economy and international trade. One stream of Nunn’s research focuses on the long-term impact that historic events can have on current economic development. In “Historical Legacies: A Model Linking Africa’s Past to its Current Underdevelopment”, published in the Journal of Development Economics in 2007, Nunn develops a game-theoretic model showing how the slave trade and colonial rule could have had permanent long-term effects on economic performance. In “The Long-Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades” (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2008), Nunn documents the long-term adverse economic effects of Africa’s slave trades. His current research continues to examine the specific channels through which the slave trade affects current development within Africa. In "The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa" (American Economic Review, forthcoming), coauthored with Leonard Wantchekon, he empirically documents how the slave trade engendered a culture of mistrust amongst the descendants of those heavily threatened by the slave trade.

A second stream of Professor Nunn’s research focuses on the importance of hold-up and incomplete contracting in international trade. He has published research showing that a country’s ability to enforce written contracts is a key determinant of comparative advantage (“Relationship-Specificity, Incomplete Contracts and the Pattern of Trade,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2007). Other work, coauthored with Daniel Trefler, examines the relationship between the cross-industry structure of a country's tariffs and its long-term economic growth (“The Structure of Tariffs and Long-Term Growth,” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2010). The study identifies growth-promoting benefits of a tariff structure focused in skill-intensive industries. It also shows how and why governments that succumb to political influence and rent-seeking are unable to focus tariffs in these key industries.