Session 4 - Meaning and democratic practices in Europe and the Arab world : comparative approaches

Moderated by : Alain Gresh

Abstract

• knowledge "producers" put to the test of transition (Asma Nouira)
• What can a comparison of protest mobilizations in Europe and the Middle East teach us about social structures?
• What do European readings of the Arab Spring tell us? (François Burgat)

This fourth round table analyzes the impact of the Arab Spring on Europe, particularly in terms of the production and dissemination of knowledge about Arab societies between the two shores of the Mediterranean. What has been the European social science reading of the Arab Spring?

In the same vein, she takes a comparative approach to post-2011 social movements in Europe and the Arab world?

Asma Nouira

Asma Nouira is a lecturer in political science at the Tunis Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tunis-El Manar. She is co-founder and president of the Observatoire tunisien de la transition démocratique. Her main areas of research are politics and religion, and Tunisia's democratic transition.

Gilles Dorronsoro

After obtaining a PhD in political sociology from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in 1996 for his research on Afghanistan, he was Professor of Political Science at the Institut d'études politiques de Rennes, as well as scientific coordinator at the Institut français d'études anatoliennes. He was a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He currently teaches international relations at the University of Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne. He is co-founder of the European Journal of Turkish Studies1 and the South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal.

François Burgat

Director of research emeritus at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) at the Institut de recherches et d'études sur les mondes arabes et musulmans (IREMAM), he devotes most of his work to the study of political dynamics and Islamist currents in the Arab world. François Burgat has held various positions: researcher at the Centre d'études et de documentation économiques, juridiques et sociales (Cedej) in Cairo (1989-1993), director of the Centre français d'archéologie et de sciences sociales (Cefas) in Sana'a (1997-2003) and finally director of the Institut français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo), in Damascus (2008-2012) then Beirut (2012-2013). He is Chairman of the Board of CAREP Paris.