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 ...

On Friday, June 14, the Middle East Institute held its Fourth Annual Conference on Turkey. The final panel was entitled “The Turkey-Iran-Iraq Nexus” and featured Henri Barkey, professor of international relations and department chair at Lehigh University, Denise Natali, Minerva Chair at National Defense University, and Alireza Nader, senior international policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. The panel was moderated by Phebe Marr, a historian and analyst of modern Iraq. ...

On Friday, June 14, the Middle East Institute held its Fourth Annual Conference on Turkey, which featured keynote speaker His Excellency Besir Atalay, the deputy prime minister of Turkey. During his speech, he discussed the ongoing demonstrations in Turkey, the Kurdish issue as well as the crisis in Syria. For full event notes continue reading or click here for the PDF.  Deputy Prime Minister Atalay began his remarks by commenting on the Gezi Park ...

The Middle East Institute held its Fourth Annual Conference on Turkey on Friday, June 14, which commenced with keynote speaker Representative Ed Whitfield (R-KY), co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Turkey and Turkish Americans. For full event notes continue reading or click here for the PDF. Rep. Whitfield began by saying the American-Turkish relationship is very important, explaining that he was one of the founders of the Turkish caucus in Congress. He added that ...

The Project on Middle East Democracy and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace cohosted a three-panel conference on Friday, June 14, 2013. The final panel was entitled “Continuity and Change in the Gulf: How Stable and For How Long?” It featured Kristian Coates-Ulrichsen, Baker Institute Fellow for Kuwait at Rice University, Bernard Haykel, Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, and Mark Lynch, Associate Professor of Political Science and ...

The Center for a New American Security hosted a conference on June 12, 2013 at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, D.C. entitled “Looking Forward: U.S. National Security Beyond the Wars.” Numerous members of CNAS staff moderated discussions between participants like Senator Bob Corker, Wes Bush, CEO and Chairman of the Northrop Grumman Corporation, Eric Edelman of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Michele Flournoy of Boston Consulting Group, ...

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 first panel, "New Trends in Activism: Youth, Women, and Islamists", was moderated by Stephen McInerney, Executive Director of POMED, and featured as panelists Kristin Smith Diwan, Assistant Professor of Comparative and Regional Studies at the American University School of International Service; Jane ...

On Wednesday, June 13, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing titled "American NGOs Under Attack in Morsi's Egypt." The Honorable Lorne W. Craner, President of the International Republican Institute, Mr. Charles W. Dunne, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Freedom House, Ms. Joyce Barnathan, President of the International Center for Journalists, and Mr. Kenneth Wollack, President of the National Democratic Institute, testified. The ...

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's event "The Changing Dynamics of the Syria Crisis" featured several regional experts who discussed recent developments in the conflict in Syria and their potential ramifications. The panelists included Raphael LeFevre, Gates Scholar and PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge; Paul Salem, Director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut; Yezid Sayigh, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center; and Dmitri Trenin, ...

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 ...

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 ...

An event by Freedom House, "The Role of Women and Islam in the New Tunisia," featured Tunisian activist and researcher Dr. Kedija Arfaoui. The event was held Question and Answer style and was moderated by Freedom House Egypt Program Director Nancy Okail, who began the discussion by commenting on Tunisia's role as a model for the emerging democracies in the region. She mentioned that positive developments in Tunisia are often ...

The George Washington University Law School hosted a panel discussion on Morocco’s rule of law reforms on Sunday. It featured His Excellency Abdellatif Mazouz, Minister Delegate to the Head of Government in charge of Moroccans living abroad, Richard C. Rowson, President Emeritus of the Council for a Community of Democracies, and Samir Bennis, Editor-in-Chief, Morocco World News. For full event notes continue reading or  click here for the PDF. His Excellency Abdellatif Mazouz ...

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. In one session, Rashad Hussain, Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), spoke about the United States’ outreach efforts to Arab and Islamic nations. Robin Wright, Distinguished Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson provided their ...

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 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. The first panel discussed how a proper understanding of Islam could help democracy and featured Dr. John Voll, professor of Islamic history and Associate Director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University; ...

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, ...

POSITION SUMMARY: POMED is currently hiring a Program Director for Civil Society Partnerships fluent in Arabic to manage a portfolio of capacity building projects with nascent policy organizations in transitioning Arab countries. POSITION DESCRIPTION: The position provides a unique opportunity for the candidate to lead POMED’s growing civil society partnerships program and the program’s innovative work to support and strengthen policy-oriented NGOs in the Middle East. This program currently includes nine unique ...

On Tuesday, May 28, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace held an event titled “Institutional Reform in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia.” The panel featured Ellen Lust an associate professor of political science at Yale University, Fredrick Wehrey a Senior Associate in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Jakob Wichmann founder of JWM Consulting. Marwan Muasher, Vice President for Studies and Director of the Middle ...