Columbia Global Centers | Mumbai invites you to a talk by Safwan Masri, Executive Vice President of the Global Centers and Global Development, Columbia University, on February 22, 2019.
Events of the so-called 'Arab Spring' appeared to challenge convictions that the Middle East was immune to democratization. Elections in countries like Tunisia and Egypt, electoral reform in Jordan and Morocco, and Libya’s perceived democratic transition left observers in the Middle East and abroad optimistic that pluralism and democracy were within reach for millions across the region. Such hopes were all but immediately dashed, as Egypt is back in the throes of a military dictatorship that is more oppressive than Mubarak’s, Libya – along with Syria and Yemen – are entangled in protracted civil wars, and reforms in the Arab Spring’s peripheral countries have proven to be superficial, at best. Emboldened by petrodollars, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Doha have replaced historic centers of gravity in Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad, with both regional and non-regional actors vying to fill a leadership void. Nine years later, are democracy, pluralism and egalitarian societies tenable in the Middle East? Can the region’s lone success story thus far, Tunisia, serve as a model for the rest of the region?
In this talk, Professor Safwan Masri will discuss how the presence, and lack thereof, of civil society, education, secularism and sectarianism affect the prospects of democratic and pluralistic societies in a post-2011 Middle East.
Note: Seating for this event is limited.
To register, send an email to [email protected]
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