Session 3 - Vicissitudes of democratic transition: between authoritarian regimes and external interference

Moderation : Salam Kawakibi

Abstract

• European policies and the Arab Spring: between discourse and practice (Muriel Asseburg) lecture in English
• How do democratic forces deal with military power in times of transition: the Egyptian case in the light of previous European and international experience (Abdel Fattah Mady)
• After authoritarianism, what authority? Iraq as a model (Loulouwa Al Rachid)

Between the institutional reluctance of states and the circulation of modes of political commitment, what do Arab democratic mobilizations tell us about European democracies? Can Europe learn from democratic processes in the Arab world to reinvent democratic landscapes threatened by the rise of populism?

The European Union in the face of Arab democratic uprisings: what is Europe's role in the face of popular aspirations to democracy, as witnessed by the Sudanese and Algerian revolts, and in the maintenance of an authoritarian order between concern for stability and defense of political rights: will Europe maintain the authoritarian institutions that ensure its commercial and security interests, and on the other hand stability over the uncertainties of democratic transition?

Salam Kawakibi (moderator)

Salam Kawakibi is a political science researcher and director of the Centre arabe de recherches et d'études politiques de Paris (CAREP Paris). Between 2000 and 2006, he directed the Institut français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo) in Aleppo. From 2009 to 2011, he was Senior Researcher at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Amsterdam. Formerly Deputy Director of the Arab Reform Initiative, he is Associate Professor at Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne University.

Muriel Asseburg

Muriel Asseburg heads the Middle East and Africa research group at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), the German Institute for International Politics and Security in Berlin. His current research focuses on conflict dynamics and peacekeeping in the Middle East. She holds a doctorate in political science from Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, and is the author of The End of a Two-State Settlement? Alternatives and Priorities for Settling the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict; Dynamics of Transformation, Elite Change and New Social Mobilization in the Arab World and The Arab Spring and the European Response.

Abdel-Fattah Mady

Currently head of the Democratic Transitions program at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) in Doha, Abdel-Fattah Mady was formerly Professor of Political Science at Alexandria University in Egypt. He joined the Woodrow Wilson International Center of Scholars as a visiting scholar (2015 to 2016). He was also an expert at the UNDP (2007 to 2008) and a visiting scholar at the University of Denver in spring 2015. He holds a PhD in political science from Claremont Graduate University. His research focuses on regime change and democratization processes in the Middle East. He is the author of numerous books and research articles and also works as a consultant and political analyst for several major media including the BBC and Al Jazeera.