NOTE: LOCATION HAS BEEN MOVED TO FED EX GLOBAL EDUCATION CENTER.
Seven experts on democratization and the Arab world will participate in a panel discussion on the Arab Spring at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 18 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The free public program will be in the Nelson Mandela Auditorium at the FedEx Global Education Center, off McCauley Street south of the Carolina Inn.
The program will investigate elements of democratic reform and explore the prospect of stability in the Arab world.
“The cases touched by the turmoil of 2011 are fascinating in juxtaposition, as they take very different paths: from optimistic democratization moves in Tunisia to a fragile and military-dominated process in Egypt to the violent repression of Syria,” said Andrew Reynolds, associate professor of political science and chair of the global studies curriculum in the College of Arts and Sciences.
The panel will include:
- Jason Brownlee, associate professor in the government department at the University of Texas, previously a fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
- Charlie Kurzman, UNC sociology professor and co-director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations, author of books on Middle East and Islamic studies including “The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists” (Oxford University Press, 2011).
- Tarek Masoud, assistant professor of public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, named a Carnegie Scholar in 2009 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
- Reynolds, who has worked for the United Nations, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and the U.S. State Department and has consulted on issues of electoral design for countries across the globe. He recently advised disparate groups in Libya about democracy. He reHe
- Jillian Schwedler, associate professor of government and politics at the University of Massachusetts and chair of the board of directors of the Middle East Research and Information Project. She publishes the quarterly “Middle East Report” and wrote “Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen” (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
- Alfred Stepan, Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government at Columbia University and founding director of its Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion. Stepan co-wrote “Democracy in Multinational Societies” (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and wrote “Democracies in Danger” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009).
- Carrie Wickham, associate professor of political science at Emory University, selected as a Carnegie Scholar in 2004. With support from the Carnegie Corporation and the United States Institute of Peace, she is researching democratization and Islamist opposition goals and strategies in the Arab world.
UNC sponsors are the College of Arts and Sciences, global studies curriculum, Center for Global Initiatives, UNC Global, political science department, Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations and the African Studies Center. Also sponsoring is the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies.
For more information, contact Lara Markstein at (919) 962-5442 or laram@email.unc.edu.
