Joshua Stacher spoke about his new book, “Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria” on Monday, October 22, at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Stacher, who has performed extensive research in both countries, is a Fellow at the Wilson Center and a Professor of Political Science at Kent State University. In his book, Stacher argues that political power structures explain the resilience of autocracies in Egypt and Syria, as well ...

On Thursday (10/25), The Brookings Institution co-hosted a panel discussion with Vital Voices Global Partnership and Project on Middle East Democracy entitled “Women After the Arab Awakening.” The panel included Souad Slaoui, of the Isis Center in Morocco; Randa Naffa, of Sadaqa in Jordan; Marianne Ibrahim, of al-Gisr Center for Development in Egypt; and Lina Ahmad, of the Lebanese League for Women in Business. Tamara Cofman Wittes, Director of the Saban Center for Middle ...

The Atlantic Council and Project on Middle East Democracy hosted an event Thursday at the Atlantic Council, entitled "Looking Forward in Yemen: Challenges, Opportunities, & the International Community's Role." Moderated by Executive Director of Project on Middle East Democracy, Stephen McInerney, the panel featured Atiaf Alwazir, Co-Founder of the SupportYemen Campaign, Laura Kasinof, freelance journalist previously based in Sana'a, and Ibrahim Mothana, Co-founder of the Watan party and Advisory Committee ...

On Tuesday, The Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University held a panel titled, “Jordan in the Crosshairs,” as part of the Middle East Policy Forum. The panel included Marwan al-Muashar, Vice-President of Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former deputy prime minister of Jordan, and Curtis Ryan, associate professor of political science at Appalachian State University. Edward Skip Gnehm, Director of the Middle East ...

The United States Institute of Peace hosted a panel discussion entitled "Religion, Violence, and Coexistence," which looked into civil society's role in preventing and addressing provocative statements of religious bias and violent responses to it. The discussion featured Suzan Johnson Cook, Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom; Hoda Elshishtawy, legislative and policy analyst at the Muslim Public Affairs Council; Marc Gopin, Director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, ...

Dr. F. Stephen Larrabee discussed Turkey’s new role in the broader Middle East on Tuesday at the Rumi Forum. Larrabee is a Senior Staff member at the RAND Corporation in Washington, D.C. and holds the RAND Corporate Chair in European Security. After delivering his remarks, entitled “Ankara, Washington and the Syrian Crisis: Geopolitical and Regional Implications,” Larrabee took questions on Turkey’s relationship with the U.S. and fallout from the Syrian ...

The Middle East Institute hosted “A Conversation on the Current Middle East Situation with Walid Khalidi” on Thursday. Khalidi is a renowned Palestinian historian and co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies and the Royal Scientific Society of Amman. Khalidi’s remarks focused on contextualizing the “Palestine Question” by investigating the prevailing views in Israel, Palestine, the Arab World and the U.S. In the Q&A period, Khalidi also outlined an interesting ...

The Middle East Policy Council hosted an event Wednesday (10/17) entitled “Policy Choices for the New Administration.” The event examined the Middle East policy issues which the next U.S. president should address. Questions posed included “Will the next administration seek an Israel-Palestinian solution?” “How will they address the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah issue?” “Is there a prospect for bringing Assad down, and if so, is there a post-Assad role for the U.S.?” Additionally, ...

The United States Institute of Peace hosted an event Tuesday (10/16) entitled “Transforming Terrorism and Radicalism with Muslim Nonviolent Alternatives.” The event aimed to examine the ethos of pluralism, peace building activities, and the culture of sustainable peace in conflict zones in Muslim-majority countries. The panel was moderated by Qamar al-Huda of USIP and included Dr. Chaiwat Satha-Anand, professor at Thammasat University, and Dr. Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana, visiting assistant professor at Georgetown University. The panel ...

USIP hosted its final panel in a three-part Democracy & Conflict series, entitled, "Religion, Culture, and Interpretations of Democracy: Implications for Peacebuilding." The panel included Mohammed abu-Nimer, Professor in the School of International Service at American University, Marc Gopin, Director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution, James Patton, Executive Vice President of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, and Juliette Schmidt, Director of Partners in ...

On Wednesday, Georgetown University’s Law School hosted a panel discussion titled “Rule of Law: Rhetoric vs. Reality in Egypt’s Transition to Democracy.” The panel included Michele Dunne, Director of the Atlantic Councils’ Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Brian Wolfman, professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and Sahar Aziz, professor at Texas Wesleyan Law and president of the Egyptian American Rule of Law Association. For full notes continue reading, or click here for ...

On Tuesday, Nursin Guney spoke about “Turkish-U.S. Relations in an Evolving Middle East” at Georgetown University in an event co-hosted by Georgetown’s Institute for Turkish Studies and the Middle East Institute’s Center for Turkish Studies. Guney is a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul and a member of the Istanbul-based Foundation of Balkan and Middle Eastern Studies. Guney’s remarks focused ...

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hosted a hearing on Wednesday (10/10) entitled "The Security Failures of Benghazi." The witnesses included Charlene Lamb, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, U.S. Department of State; Eric Nordstrom, Regional Security Officer, U.S. Department of State; Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, Utah National Guard, U.S. Army; and Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, Under Secretary for Management, U.S. Department of State. For full ...

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy hosted an event Thursday (10/10) entitled “The Future of the Palestinian Authority: Is Collapse an Option?” The organization noted that while Mahmoud Abbas approaches what might be a last hurrah in terms of upgrading the Palestinian Authority's U.N. status, talk among West Bankers has increasingly turned to the gloomy, fractious outlook facing the PA in the post-Abbas era. Panelists, Ehud Yaari, Lefer International Fellow at The Washington ...

The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) brought Syrian opposition members together on Thursday (10/4) to discuss the Day After Project, an eight-month effort to plan for a post-Assad Syria, coordinated by USIP and created by a group of 50 academics and opposition members. Although the report was released in August, this was the first presentation the report to the U.S. public. The project was divided into working groups, and each ...

On Thursday, the Atlantic Councils’ Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East hosted a roundtable discussion titled “The Economics of the Arab Spring: Populism or Reform?” The discussion included Dr. Mohsin Khan, Senior Fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council, Dr. Zubair Iqbal, Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute, and Michele Dunne, Director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, who led ...

On Thursday (10/4) the Atlantic Council hosted an event titled "Rethinking U.S. Policy on Iran," which sought to answer questions about sanctions and how Iran views itself. Barbara Slavin, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, acted as moderator, with remarks from Stuart E. Eizenstat, Board Director of the Iran Task Force at the Atlantic Council and a discussion with Suzanne Maloney, Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East ...

Yemen's President Abd Rabbo Mansur al-Hadi made a public appearance at the Woodrow Wilson Center on Friday, addressing an overflow audience two days after his much-publicized speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. The title of Hadi’s remarks was “Yemen’s Transition: The Way Forward,” although the Yemeni president also offered a brief overview of the country’s recent history, major security accomplishments and challenges, and the threat from Iran, ...

The Woodrow Wilson Center International Center for Scholars hosted an event on Wednesday (9/26) entitled “Beyond Dichotomy: Building a New Egypt,” featuring Wilson Center Senior Scholar Margot Badran. Over the past year in Egypt she saw how a society which has been polarized for several decades along the lines of “the religious” and “the secular” has witnessed a decrease in significance of such categories. According to Badran, such distinctions are ...