Articles

9 Items

Photo of protesters taking part in a march denouncing heavy sentences against Hirak activists, in Rabat, Morocco, Sunday, July 15, 2018.

(AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Journal Article - Middle East Journal

How Do Liberalized Autocracies Repress Dissent?

| Summer 2021

The Moroccan regime has used repression to successfully contain numerous types of opposition. Although research on its repressive policies is now extensive, impartial scholarly work that systematically examines its rational use of repression remains limited. This article addresses this gap by investigating the causal mechanisms behind the regime's repression of opposition actors between 1956 and 2018. Examining these mechanisms sheds light on the multilevel games between ruling actors and opposition groups during various opposition events and shows that liberalization does not ensure the reduced use of repression. Rather, repression remains a strategic policy employed by the regime to pursue important political objectives such as maintaining power.

Journal Article - Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University

Building Solidarity: Challenges, Options, and Implications for COVID-19 Responses

| Mar. 30, 2020

In this white paper, authors Melani Cammett and Evan Lieberman try to shed light on what social solidarity is, how it might affect attitudinal and behavioral change; and given its desirable properties, what strategies impede and which facilitate the building of solidarity, particularly given the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

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Newspaper Article - Santa Fe New Mexican

Nick Burns ‘Worried’ about Trump’s Impact

| Oct. 20, 2017

The presidency of Donald Trump is challenging nothing less than the foundation of American democracy, says R. Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. ambassador and undersecretary of state for President George W. Bush. “That generation between 1945 and the last couple years produced, despite all the problems we have, a stable world,” said Burns. “And I am now worried.”

Supporters (background) of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi clash with anti-government protesters following demonstrations in Cairo on January 25, 2015, marking the fourth anniversary of the 2011 uprising that ousted veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Getty Images (Mohamed El-Shahed)

Journal Article - Perspectives on Politics

The Politics of Ignoring: Protest Dynamics in Late Mubarak Egypt

| December 2015

The concept of "ignoring" refers not only to actions by regime officials but also captures protesters’ perceptions of those actions. Examples of ignoring include not communicating with protesters, issuing condescending statements, physically evading protesters, or acting with contempt toward popular mobilization. Existing conceptual tools do not adequately capture these dynamics. By integrating protesters’ perceptions of the behavior of the targets of mobilization, not just of the security forces, the concept of “ignoring” helps explain protesters’ reactions and their future mobilization, in a way that conventional concepts such as tolerance cannot capture.

Cairo, Egypt - June 30, 2013: Unidentified police man shouts slogans against the President Muhammad Morsi in a rally in el-Tahrir street

iStockphoto

Magazine Article - GlobalPost

Egypt's chaos: 3 questions with Ambassador Nicholas Burns

| August 14, 2013

Today's violence and chaos in Cairo is a stark reminder of the complexities of political revolution in one of the most important countries in the Middle East, to say nothing of the tricky international diplomacy that surrounds it. On August 14, GlobalPost interviewed Professor Nicholas Burns about events in Egypt.