Middle East Initiative

After months of mass anti-government protests, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika stepped down in early April after 20 years of rule. Protesters sought to take down a political system they said was corrupt, concentrating power in the hands of a few military, intelligence and business leaders. The tipping point came when Bouteflika, 82, announced he would run for a fifth term in office; protesters responded with slogans including “leave means leave” and “no fifth term.”

The Syrian refugee crisis has displaced more people than any conflict since the Second World War and garnered a great deal of attention among researchers from numerous disciplines. In political science, scholars have conducted field research around the crisis on a wide range of topics including the dynamics of activism and protest within and outside of Syria; host community sentiments and behavior toward Syrians; the response of host states; Syrian refugees’ challenges and responses, including strategies of service access and Syrian community problem-solving; consequences and challenges of the large-scale immigration of Syrians; and Syrians’ attitudes, framing, perceptions, and narration of the conflict.

More and more perpetrators get away with human rights violations and crimes against humanity.

Audio recording of an April 9, seminar with Ambassador Husam S. Zomlot, Head of the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom; Strategic Affairs Advisor to the President of the Palestinian National Authority and State of Palestine.

Co-sponsored by the CMES/WCFIA Middle East Seminar and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Audio recording of an April 4, seminar with Dr. Akihiro Seita, Director of the Health and WHO Special Representative at UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East).

Co-sponsored by the Center for Global Health Delivery-Dubai at Harvard Medical School.

Les économistes Ishac Diwan et El Mouhoub Mouhoud lisent les origines du soulèvement actuel à l’aune de l’évolution des indicateurs de confiance et de sécurité relevés par les enquêtes d’opinion depuis 2011.

Since February, the long-entrenched regime of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been beset by mass protests and demands for economic and political liberalization. The potent mix of anger and hope fueling the demonstrations suggests that the country's elite erred in slow-rolling earlier reforms.