21 Items

Book

Democracy in Hard Places

| Aug. 05, 2022
  • Includes chapters written by a distinguished cast of experts on democracy and comparative political regimes
  • Presents new case studies of democratic survival in the developing world
  • Offers theoretically incisive debates about what enables democracy to survive under difficult conditions
  • Provides new interpretations of the recent political histories of key "Third Wave" democracies

Photo of student exploring a xxxxxx

Photo by Alison Hillegeist

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

In-Person Insights Into the Middle East

| Spring 2022

In March, a 13-member delegation of Harvard students traveled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to participate in a Harvard Kennedy School experiential field course on “Leadership and Social Transformation in the Arab World.”

Conceived and designed by Tarek Masoud, Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Governance and faculty director of the Middle East Initiative (MEI), the original model was a comparative, two-week January-term course visiting several Middle Eastern countries. However, due to the surge in COVID-19 cases in late 2021, Masoud and his co-instructor, MEI Senior Fellow Sultan Al-Qassemi, reshaped the course into a condensed module—held March 11-20, 2022—focused on the UAE.

Mosaic Cover

Vinci Design

Report

Middle East Initiative Mosaic 2020-2021

| Aug. 01, 2021

The 2020-2021 issue of the Mosaic highlights MEI programs and activities during the academic year. This year's issue features the work of students, fellows, faculty, and staff on public policy issues in the Middle East, including a focus on innovative research on the challenges and opportunities facing the region from our scholarly community, Kennedy School students' remarkable contributions on campus and in the region, and a dynamic year of public engagement.

A full moon rises over the Bosporus in Istanbul on March 28, with a view of the Camlica Mosque, the largest mosque in Turkey.

Emrah Gurel/AP

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

Will the pandemic spark a religious revival in the Muslim world?

| Apr. 02, 2021

Times of strain often lead to explosions of religiosity, as people turn to faith as a balm against misfortune. The coronavirus pandemic, with more than 2.8 million lives lost to date, certainly qualifies as one of the most cataclysmic events in recent memory. Faced with the major disruptions of the past year, did people turn to faith, or do we instead see evidence of a “religious recession”?

 

Arab Spring at 10

James A. Dawson

Analysis & Opinions - Journal of Democracy

The Arab Spring at 10: Kings or People?

| Jan. 01, 2021

Ten years after the onset of the Arab Spring, the Middle East and North Africa are torn between two visions of progress: a democratic one that seeks to replace the leaders who dominate the region, and an ostensibly modernizing one that seeks to replace the people who inhabit it. Though the latter project is currently ascendant, it is likely to founder on its own internal contradictions. Arab publics may be ambivalent about democracy, but the region retains considerable democratic potential.

A man holds the Lebanese flag, as he looks at the scene of Tuesday's explosion that hit the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Aug. 7, 2020.

AP Photo/Hussein Malla

Announcement - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Beirut Will Rebuild: A Message from the Middle East Initiative Faculty Director

| Aug. 07, 2020

In a year marked by widespread illness, unrest, and uncertainty for all of us around the world, what Lebanon and its people have just undergone touches all of our hearts, and fills us alternately with gloom over what was lost and awe for the indomitability of the Lebanese spirit in tragedy’s wake.

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Spotlight: Tarek Masoud

| Spring 2020

Our Spotlight in this newsletter is on Prof. Tarek Masoud, Faculty Chair of the Middle East Initiative (MEI).  In talking about MEI, Masoud says the Initiative is one of the most important ways in which HKS and Harvard engages with the contemporary Middle East. “It’s a bridge," he says. "My goal to make it into a superhighway.”

 

 

 

A crowd gathers on Tunis' main avenue, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2019. Tunisian polling agencies are forecasting that conservative law professor Kais Saied has overwhelmingly won the North African country's presidential election.

AP Photo/Hassene Dridi

Analysis & Opinions - Harvard Kennedy School Magazine

A Fragile State

| Feb. 04, 2020

PRIOR TO THE ELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP, and the current season of hand- wringing about democracy’s prospects for survival in the United States and Europe, Western social scientists tended to think of democracy as something “we” had achieved and “they”—that is, the peoples of the so-called developing world—had yet to grasp. The hypothesized reasons for this gap between “us” and “them” were many.

In this Sept. 18, 2016 photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, center, attends a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guard commanders in Tehran, Iran.

Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Impacts of the U.S. Killing of Qassem Soleimani

Belfer Center experts weigh in on potential impacts of the U.S. killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Photo by Evgenia Eliseeva

Photo by Evgenia Eliseeva

Magazine Article - Harvard Gazette

A revolutionary musical

| May 17, 2019

Love. Music. Freedom. These are the universal themes at the heart of “We Live in Cairo,” a new musical by Daniel and Patrick Lazour, which is having its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater. Set during the January 25 Revolution, the 2011 uprising in Egypt, the work, under the music direction of Madeline Smith and music supervision of Michael Starobin, celebrates the hope and exuberance of the uprising, even as it acknowledges the turmoil that has followed.