News & Announcements

In this week's edition of PolicyCast, the HKS weekly podcast on public policy, politics, and global issues, host Matt Cadwallader sits down with former Tunisian Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa and Middle East scholar Paul Salem to discuss Tunisia’s relative success in establishing a stable democracy in the wake of the Arab Spring.

In this installment of “Inside the Middle East: Q&A,” recorded on April 16, 2015, Nabil Fahmy, Former Foreign Minister of Egypt and Dean and Professor of Practice in International Diplomacy, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP), American University Cairo, discusses Egypt’s transitional process, public policy challenges, and foreign policy, including relations with Iran and intervention in Yemen.

In this installment of “Inside the Middle East: Q&A,” recorded on April 1, 2015, Dr. Philippe Fargues, Director of the Migration Policy Centre, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies European University Institute (EUI), discusses the humanitarian crisis of migrants from North Africa, the Levant, and the Sahel, crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe on boats.

Former Prime Minister of Denmark and former Secretary-General of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, delivered an address titled “America and Europe: Quo Vadis?” in March for the Future of Diplomacy Project's annual Europe Week. Prime Minister Rsamussen led a discussion with students, fellows, and faculty on the need for a stronger transatlantic alliance and American leadership to build a “global alliance of liberal democracies” in the 21st century. Prime Minister Rasmussen examined topical issues ranging from unrest in regional hotspots in the Middle East and Ukraine, to threats to liberal democracy, to challenges to U.S. supremacy.

An audio recording from Samer Shehata, Associate Professor of Middle East Studies, University of Oklahoma.

On March 3, 2015 at MEI, Prof. Samer  Shehata assessed the role of the military and pre-2011 regime figures in Egypt's political transition from authoritarianism to apparent democratic opening, and now back to a military-backed authoritarian government, to ask how useful the term 'Deep State' is to understanding Egypt's politics.

Talking to CNN's 'The Lead,' former U.S. Special Representative to Muslim Communities and the Future of Diplomacy Project's former Fisher Family Fellow Farah Pandith criticized the ideological narrative constructed to recruit muslim youths in her response to the recent Paris attack on "Charlie Hebdo" cartoonists.

The ninth Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will be held at the UN Headquarters in New York from April 27-May 22, 2015. This is the fourth such conference since the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995. Participating governments will discuss nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy with a view to arriving at consensus on a number of issues.

An audio recording from Robert S. Ford, former US Ambassador to Syria (2011-2014) and Algeria (2006-2008). He is currently a resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. and teaches at Johns Hopkins University on Middle East politics.

On October 29, 2014 at MEI, Ambassador Ford reflected on his 4½ years working for the U.S. Mission in Iraq and 3 years working on Syria, in a talk moderated by Kennedy School professor and former State Department colleague Nicholas Burns.

An audio recording from Ambassador Marwan Muasher, Vice President for Studies and Director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Jordanian Ambassador to the United States.

On October 22, 2014 at MEI, Ambassador Muasher looked back over four years of popular uprisings in the Arab World and took stock of the hope for transition to genuine stability, prosperity, and democracy and tools necessary to do the job.

Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer gave a public address," Solutions: A Transformative U.S.-Africa Policy," at Harvard Kennedy School's John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on April 7, 2009. Belfer Center Director Graham Allison moderated the event.