In this talk, prominent political activist Sanaa Seif and award-winning journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous will discuss the current political conditions in Egypt, the massive expansion of the carceral state under the rule of Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi and the country’s role within the geopolitical shifts reshaping the region. At the heart of the conversation will be the newly released book, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated, authored by Seif's brother Alaa Abdel-Fattah, one of the most high-profile political prisoners in Egypt. The book will be available for purchase at the event.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Sanaa Seif is an Egyptian filmmaker, producer, and political activist. She has been imprisoned three times under the Sisi regime for her activism, most recently from the summer of 2020 until December 2021, when she was abducted by security forces after trying to get a letter in to her brother in prison. Hundreds of cultural figures and dozens of institutions campaigned for her release.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous is an independent journalist based in Cairo. For eight years he worked as a producer and correspondent for the TV/radio news hour Democracy Now! In 2011, he returned to Egypt to cover the revolution. Since then, he has reported for a number of print and broadcast outlets from across the region. He received an Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media for his coverage of the Egyptian revolution and an Emmy award for his coverage of the Donald Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban. He is currently an editor and reporter at Mada Masr, Egypt's leading independent media outlet.

This event is co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University.​

Erin A. Snider joins ARD to discuss her recently released book, Marketing Democracy: The Political Economy of Democracy Aid in the Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

For nearly two decades, the United States devoted more than $2 billion towards democracy promotion in the Middle East with seemingly little impact. To understand the limited impact of this aid and the decision of authoritarian regimes to allow democracy programs whose ultimate aim is to challenge the power of such regimes, Marketing Democracy examines the construction and practice of democracy aid in Washington DC and in Egypt and Morocco, two of the highest recipients of US democracy aid in the region.

Drawing on extensive fieldwork, novel new data on the professional histories of democracy promoters, archival research and recently declassified government documents, Erin A. Snider focuses on the voices and practices of those engaged in democracy work over the last three decades to offer a new framework for understanding the political economy of democracy aid. Her research shows how democracy aid can work to strengthen rather than challenge authoritarian regimes. Marketing Democracy fundamentally challenges scholars to rethink how we study democracy aid and how the ideas of democracy that underlie democracy programs come to reflect the views of donors and recipient regimes rather than indigenous demand. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER 

Erin A. Snider is an assistant professor at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service. Her research and teaching focus on the political economy of aid, democracy, and development in the Middle East. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, a Fulbright scholar in Egypt, a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and a Carnegie Fellow with the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. Her first book, Marketing Democracy: The Political Economy of Democracy Aid in the Middle East was published with Cambridge University Press. Other research has been published in International Studies Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics, and Middle East Policy, among other outlets. She holds a PhD in politics from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in Middle East Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

This event is co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies and the Center for African Studies at Stanford University.​

America in One Room: Climate and Energy, a Helena project, is the largest controlled experiment with "in-depth deliberation" ever held in the U.S.  It addressed this question: What would the American public really think about our climate and energy challenges if it had the chance to deliberate about them in-depth, with good and balanced information?
 
If the American people—or in this case, a representative sample of them—could consider the pros and cons of our different energy options, which would they support? Which would they cut back on? What possible paths to Net Zero would seem plausible to them? Which proposals would they resist? Can the public arrive at solutions to our climate and energy dilemmas that transcend our great divisions, especially our deep partisan differences? Can they also find common ground across differences in age, race, and region?
 
These and other questions will be discussed on Wednesday, December 1, 2021, 12:30-2:00 pm PST
 

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Panelists will include:

• Nicole Ardoin, Director, Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER), Associate Professor of Education and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
• Rep. John Curtis, United States House of Representative, (R-UT)
• Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
• Noah Diffenbaugh, Kara J Foundation Professor and Kimmelman Family Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
• Chris Field, Perry L. McCarty Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, Stanford University
• James Fishkin, the Janet M. Peck Professor of International Communication and Director, Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University
• Rep. Ro Khanna, United States House of Representatives (D-CA)
• Alice Siu, Associate Director, Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University
• Peter Weber, Co-Chair Emeritus, California Forward

This webinar is hosted by:
Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Stanford Center for Deliberative Democracy
Stanford Crowdsourced Democracy Team
California Forward
Other sponsors of America in One Room: Climate and Energy are listed here

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) will be accepting applications from eligible juniors on who are interested in writing their senior thesis on a subject touching upon democracy, economic development, and rule of law (DDRL) from any university department.  The application period opens on January 10, 2022 and runs through February 11, 2022.   For more information on the Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program, please click here.

Join us online via Zoom on Friday, January 21st at 12:00pm (PST) to learn more! 

REGISTER NOW

CDDRL faculty and current honors students will be present to discuss the program and answer any questions.

 

Osman Kavala, a Turkish philanthropist and civil society leader, has been in jail for four years without conviction. He was previously acquitted from two lawsuits to attempt to overthrow the government and the constitutional order; now, he is standing trial for a third. The European Convention on Human Rights ruled in December 2020 that Turkey violated European Convention on Human Rights and ordered his immediate release.

Join us in this webinar about Kavala's work for democracy and his ongoing imprisonment at the intersection of law, politics, and human rights in Turkey.

Hosted by Francis Fukuyama (Stanford University) and Silvia von Steinsdorff (Humboldt University Berlin)

Speakers

• Seyla Benhabib, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Professor of Philosophy at Yale University
• Dani Rodrik, Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and President of the International Economic Association
• Ayşe Bingöl Demir, LL.M. Co-director of Turkey Litigation Support Project
   

We invite the CDDRL community to join the Leadership Network for Change for our first online event of the year, next Wednesday at 12 PM Pacific time.  Leadership Network for Change alumni Amira Yahyaoui, Nancy Okail, Abdelrahman Mansour, and Mohamad Najem will serve as panelists, while Freeman Spogli Institute and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Larry Diamond will moderate and oversee a Q+A session at the end of the panel.  Join our panelists as they elaborate on regional developments through the lens of different fields, including human rights, tech in democracy, and changes to policy and activism throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Leadership Network for Change is a network of mid-career, global public policy reformers who have all completed one of CDDRL's practitioner programs (Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program, The Leadership Academy for Development, and the Ukrainian Emergin Leaders Program). To find out more about these programs and our network, you can visit the individual program pages on CDDRL's main website.