The Project on Middle East Democracy is now accepting applications for our Fall 2013 internship term, which runs from August-December 2013. We have openings for the following positions: Policy Intern, Civil Society Partnerships Intern, Research Intern, Egypt Programs Intern, and Iran Programs Intern. Applicants are encouraged to apply to multiple positions that fit their interests. Please see the description for each internship and direct any questions you have to Todd ...

The National Endowment for Democracy hosted a lecture titled “The Role of Economics in Democratic Transitions: The Case of Tunisia.” It featured Mondher Ben Ayed, President and CEO of TMI – a Tunis based technology firm – and former advisor to the Prime Minister of Tunisia. The lecture was moderated by Larry Diamond, Co-Chair of the Research Council of the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for ...

On Tuesday, June 18, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing titled “Elections in Iran: The Regime Cementing its Control.” Mr. Alireza Nader, Senior International Policy Analyst at RAND Corporation, Dr. Suzanne Maloney, Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and Mr. Karim Sadjadpour, Senior Associate at the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, testified. The subcommittee’s ...

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted a panel on Thursday, June 13, 2013 from 3-5pm on Turkey’s role in and response to the Arab Spring protests, political transitions, and revolutions. The panel was hosted by Christian Ostermann, director of the History and Public Policy Program (HAPP) and the director of the European Studies (ES) program at the Wilson Center, and featured  Bülent Aras, Chairman of the Turkish Foreign ...

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) co-hosted a conference titled "Dynamic Gulf: Forces of Change in a Strategic Region." The second panel, “A New Ruling Bargain? Reform and Gulf Elite Dynamics,” was moderated by Prof. Marc Lynch, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University, and featured panelists Andrew Hammond, former Reuters correspondent for Saudi Arabia, Ali Al Shihabi, ...

The Middle East Institute's event "Egypt's Draft NGO Law: Impact and Implications" was moderated by Kate Seelye, senior vice president of the Middle East Institute, and featured Sarah Morgan, deputy Washington Director of Human Rights Watch, and Nancy Okail, director of Freedom House' s Egypt program. The panelists outlined the potential threats Egypt's proposed NGO law poses to civil society, human rights, and democracy, and also discussed the impact the ...

At an event hosted by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution on June 6, 2013 at 2:15pm, Senator John McCain gave his first public remarks on the conflict in Syria and his thoughts on wider Middle East policy for the first time since he visited Syria last month. Brookings Institution Vice President and Director for Foreign Police Martin Indyk provided introductory remarks and Senior  Foreign ...

On Tuesday, June 5, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing titled “Obama’s Failed Syria Policy.” Mr. Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Ms. Danielle Pletka, Vice President of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and Dr. Jon Alterman, Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, testified. The committee’s chairman, Rep. ...

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) hosted a panel titled “Democracy Think Tanks in Action: Translating Research into Policy in Young and Emerging Democracies” on June 3, 2013 at their office on F Street in Washington, DC. Christopher Walker of the International Forum for Democratic Studies (a component of NED) moderated the panel, which featured report contributors Orazio Bellettini, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Grupo FARO in Ecuador and Sami ...

The Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) hosted its 14th Annual Conference titled "Democratic Transitions in the Arab World" on May 29th, 2013. The conference included several panel discussions, one of which examined whether the Tunisian experience could succeed as a model for other post-revolution Arab countries and featured John Carey, Chair of the Department of Government at Dartmouth College; Joelle Fiss, Senior Associate at Human Rights ...

The Center for the Study of Democracy's event titled "Democratic Transitions in the Arab World" featured a keynote speech by Rached Ghannouchi, founder and President of the Nahda Movement in Tunisia. Ghannouchi began by emphasizing that the success of Tunisia's democratic transition was important not just for Tunisia, but for the region as a whole. Ghannouchi pointed to his party's willingness to form a broad coalition with support from across ...

The Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy hosted a conference titled "Democratic Transitions in the Arab World."  The conference included a panel on "What the U.S. Can Do to Support Democratic Transitions in the Middle East" featured Radwan Ziadeh, founder and Director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies in Syria and cofounder and Executive Director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies; Peter Mandaville, ...