After the Revolution of Dignity Ukraine has faced a challenging combination: Hybrid war from Russia side and economic and institutional collapse. Years under Yanukovych rule in conjunction with a lingering post-Soviet legacy created a perfect storm and required rapid, powerful and tailored response both from Ukrainian government and donor community. Inspired by the signing of the EU-Ukraine Association agreement, as well as understanding the weakness of Ukrainian institutions, the Ukrainian Reforms Architecture project was created. Co-invented by EU and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the project focuses on different reform areas such as Public Administration Reform, Business Climate, Public Finance management, Privatization and SOE corporate governance, and many others. This panel of experts will discuss the results of the project on the Ukrainian reform process: What is the future of the project? Can these reforms sustain major political changes with this year's elections? And, if successful, can it be replicated in other countries? 

This event will be moderated by Francis Fukuyama, Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and Steven Pifer, William J. Perry fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

Speaker Bios

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Nataliya Mykolska is the Trade Representative of Ukraine - Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade. In the government, Mykolska is responsible for developing and implementing consistent, predictable and efficient trade policy. She focuses on export strategy and promotion, building an effective system of state support for Ukrainian exports, free trade agreements, protecting Ukrainian trade interests in the World Trade Organization (WTO), dialogue with Ukrainian exporters, and removing trade barriers. Mykolska is the Vice-Chair of the International Trade Council and the Intergovernmental Committee on International Trade.

This event is co-sponsored with The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

ABSTRACT

Islamist movements have dominated popular discussions of opposition and change within Arab politics for the past three decades. Uniquely positioned during the Arab Spring, some have since directly governed, while others have been co-opted or absorbed into existing political structures. Yet outside Tunisia, no Islamist group has been able to deliver upon its promise of political transformation. The reality is that Islamism is not the solution to the problem of authoritarian rule in the Arab world. It is burdened with ideological contradictions, fixated upon principles of doctrinal purity, and beholden to political strategies that have backfired. Islamists have therefore become disconnected from the youth generation that will mobilize the next wave of regional change. The question remains as to how the popular need for religiosity and religious meaning will be taken up by political actors.

SPEAKER BIO

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Hicham Alaoui is a Research Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, specializing in issues of comparative democratization. He is completing his D.Phil. at the University of Oxford, where he focuses upon the relationship between religion and politics in the contemporary Middle East. Through his research foundation, he is overseeing two new research projects on the political economy of educational reform and the politics of governance and local development in the Arab world. He was previously a board member of various research and advocacy organizations, such as the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University and the MENA Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch. He has also served with the Carter Center and UN for overseas elections monitoring and peacekeeping missions. He has published in academic journals such as Politique Internationale, Le Debat, Pouvoirs, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Journal of Democracy. He has also contributed to periodicals such as The New York Times, Le Monde, La Nouvelle Observateur, El Pais, and Al-Quds. He holds degrees from Princeton and Stanford Universities. His memoir, Journal d'un Prince Banni, was published in 2014 by Éditions Grasset, and has since been translated into several languages.

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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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This event is co-sponsored with The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

ABSTRACT

The Arab Spring began and ended with Tunisia. In a region beset by brutal repression, humanitarian disasters, and civil war, Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution alone gave way to a peaceful transition to a functioning democracy. Within four short years, Tunisians passed a progressive constitution, held fair parliamentary elections, and ushered in the country's first-ever democratically elected president. But did Tunisia simply avoid the misfortunes that befell its neighbors, or were there particular features that set the country apart and made it a special case? How does the country consolidate its democratic gains as civil society and government priorities clash over issues of security, transitional justice, and economic reform?

Drawing on his recent book, Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly (Columbia University Press, 2017), Professor Safwan Masri will examine the factors that contributed to Tunisia’s experience after the Arab Spring, focusing on the country’s history of reformism in the domains of education, religion, and women’s rights. Masri will argue that the seeds fortoday's relatively liberal and democratic society were planted as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century. These factors have not only been missing in other Arab counties, but an opposite, regressive trajectory has been followed in much of the rest of the region.

SPEAKER BIO

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Professor Safwan M. Masri is Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development at Columbia University, and a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

Copies of Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly will be available for purchase.

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