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Social Media in Democratic Mobilization in Egypt: New Trends

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A lot of ink has been spilled on the role of social media in the overthrow of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, but a lot less has been said on its role in Egypt’s future. The Program on Liberation Technology at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law will host a seminar with two prominent Egyptian activists to examine this question.  Ahmed Salah, one of the co-founders of Kifaya, will discuss the future of technology in democratic mobilization. While Sabah Hamamou, a journalist who works in both traditional and new media, will comment on the role of new media in Egypt's post-revolutionary period. Please join us for this special discussion and rare opportunity to meet two Egyptian activists who have been at the center of the January 25th movement.

About the Speakers

Ahmed Salah is the executive director of the House of New Future and Center For Legal and Human Rights Studies. Salah wears a number of other hats including that of a freelance reporter and independent political activist. He is one of the co-founders of Kifaya and Youth for Change. He is also a co-founder, strategist, ideologist, and foreign affairs representative of the April 6 Youth Movement. His plan to initiate a number of small rallies in the poor and middle class areas across Egypt subsequently helped create the first day of the revolution, January 25th. He is currently working on creating democratic representations from every part of the country.

Sabah Hamamou is one of Egypt’s most acclaimed new media journalists. Her YouTube channel has been viewed over 370,000 times. Hamamou is also a deputy editor at Al Ahram, Egypt’s most prestigious newspaper. Sabah initially joined the protests as a reporter, but when the protesters came under attack on the first evening of the revolution, she posted the videos she had taken from Tahrir Square, instantly getting 90,000 hits. Sabah then led successfully an in-house revolt at Al-Ahram over the newspaper’s insistence on reporting regime propaganda about the revolution.
Lunch will be served.

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CISAC Conference Room

Ahmed Saleh Egptian Activist Speaker
Sabah Hamamou Egyptian Activist Speaker
Conferences

The Inside Scoop on Latin America's Largest Microfinance Institution

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The Stanford Students for Engagement and Activism in Microfinance (SEAM), together with the Program on Poverty and Governance at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and the Center for Latin America Studies present, The Inside Scoop on Latin America's Largest Microfinance Institution. This event will feature Carlos Danel, Co-founder and Vice President of Compartamos Banco with an introduction by Professor Beatriz Magaloni of the Political Science department.

COMPARTAMOS BANCO was founded in 1990 as an NGO to help create opportunities for development and to allow micro-businesses to grow. In 2006, it established itself as a commercial bank, and in 2008 opened for public investment. Its growth has been unprecedented, currently serving more than 1.6 million clients. Compartamos has been recognized numerous times as one of the best companies to work for in Mexico. Moreover, it is the largest microfinance institution in Latin America.

CARLOS DANEL has been with Compartamos from the beginning as Co-Founder and is the Co-CEO. At the World Economic Forum in 2003, Danel was named a Young Global Leader. He serves on the board of Progresso Financiero, Vista Desarrollos, Grupo CP, and VIFAC A.C. He holds a degree in architecture from the the Universidad Iberoamericana and an MBA from the Instituto Panamericano de Alta Dirección de Empresas.

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Koret Pavilion
Ziff Center (Hillel)
Stanford University

Beatriz Magaloni

Dept. of Political Science
Encina Hall, Room 436
Stanford University,
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-5949
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Professor of Political Science
beatriz_magaloni_2024.jpg MA, PhD

Beatriz Magaloni Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.

She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.

Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.

Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.

Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.

She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.

Director, Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab
Co-director, Democracy Action Lab
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Beatriz Magaloni Associate Professor Moderator Department of Political Science, Stanford University
Carlos Danel Co-Founder and Vice President Speaker Compartamos Banco
Conferences

2011 Draper Hills Summer Fellows Selected

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Twenty-eight rising leaders from emerging democracies around the world have been named to the 2011 class of Draper Hills Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development at CDDRL.

This group represents the seventh class of Draper Hills Summer Fellows and is composed of democracy activists, development practitioners, academics, policymakers, journalists, and entrepreneurs representing societies where democracy is most threatened. The finalists were selected from a competitive pool of over 200 applicants and represent a dynamic cohort of mid-career professionals who are committed to improving or establishing democratic governance, economic growth, and rule of law in their home countries.

The program is funded by generous support from Bill and Phyllis Draper and Ingrid von Mangoldt Hills.

Some interesting statistics to illustrate the diverse nature of this class are as follows; 50 are women, the average age is 37 years, almost half hold graduate degrees, and Africa and the Middle East represent the largest geographical proportion of the incoming class.

Together, the Draper Hills Summer Fellows are helping to accelerate social and political change by developing multiparty democracy in Ghana, fighting for minority rights in Nepal, promoting good governance in Zimbabwe, training political parties in Iraq, and advocating for constitutional reform in Venezuela.

This group will convene at Stanford University July 25-August 12, for a three-week intensive executive education program led by an interdisciplinary team of leading faculty affiliated with CDDRL. During this time, the Draper Hills Summer Fellows will hear from distinguished speakers, engage in peer learning, and meet with executives of leading Silicon Valley companies and non-profit organizations to share best practices and expand their professional networks.

This high-impact program helps to create a broader community of global activists and practitioners, intent on sharing experiences to bring positive change to some of the world's most troubled regions.

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On the Demos and its Kin: Nationalisms and Democratic Legitimacy

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Abstract
Both cultural nationalism and democratic theory seek to legitimate political power by rendering it compatible with the freedom of those over whom it is exercised, i.e., by appeal to a notion of collective self-rule. Both doctrines thus advance a self-referential theory of political legitimacy: their principle of legitimation refers right back to the very persons over whom political power is to be exercised. Since self-referential theories base legitimation in a collective self, they must necessarily combine the question of legitimation with the question of boundaries. The problem is that it is impossible to solve both problems together once it is assumed that the collectivity in question is in principle bounded. Cultural nationalism claims that political power is legitimate insofar as it authentically expresses the nation's pre-political culture, but it cannot fix the nation's cultural boundaries pre-politically. Hence the collapse into ethnic nationalism. The democratic theory of bounded popular sovereignty claims that political power is legitimate insofar as it expresses the people's will, but cannot itself legitimate the pre-political boundaries of the people it presupposes. Hence the collapse into cultural nationalism. Only a theory of unbounded popular sovereignty avoids this collapse of demos into nation into ethnos, but such a theory departs radically from traditional theory. It abandons the notion of a pre-politically constituted "will of the people," supports the formation of global democratic forums, and challenges the legitimacy of unilaterally controlled political boundaries.

Arash Abizadeh is associate professor in the Department of Political Science and associate member of the Department of Philosophy, McGill University, and specializes in contemporary political theory and the history of political philosophy. His research focuses on democratic theory and questions of identity, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism; immigration and border control; and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy, particularly Hobbes and Rousseau. He is currently finishing a book titled The Oscillations of Thomas Hobbes: Between Insight and the Will.

Graham Stuart Lounge

Arash Abizadeh Associate Professor, Department of Political Science Speaker McGill University
Workshops

''Origins of Political Order - From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution'' book launch for Francis Fukuyama

''Origins of Political Order - From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution'' book launch for Francis Fukuyama

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