Stanford University

Bertel Teilfeldt Hansen

Encina Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

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Visiting Researcher and Anna Lindh Fellow, The Europe Center
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Bertel Hansen is a Ph.D.-fellow from the Copenhagen University Department of Political Science. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Political Science from Copenhagen University in 2009 and 2011, respectively. During his time as a student at the Department of Political Science, Bertel TA’ed and lectured for three semesters in basic and advanced methodology, focusing on quantitative methods, and has since been teaching advanced statistics for political scientist at the master’s level.   

Bertel’s dissertation inspects the causes and consequences of civil war using quantitative methods and realist IR theory. The main contribution of his dissertation is empirical and consists of testing hypotheses derived from realist-inspired models on various sets of conflict data – some existing and some constructed from scratch – with an eye to solving real-world policy questions.

Bertel will work at the Europe Center as an Anna Lindh Fellow from the 8th of February till the 21st of June. During this period, his main focus will be on completing and submitting two papers from his dissertation – one on the effect of conflict on vote rigging and the other on the dangers of the president’s seat shifting from one ethnic group to another.

Democracy in 'New Europe': Reversed Consolidation

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Online campus map:
http://campus-map.stanford.edu/

ONLINE RSVP required by 4 pm on 2/19:
http://creees.stanford.edu/event/roundtable-new-europe

Until recently, democracies in new European Union members and aspirants were believed to be on their way to consolidation. Nonetheless, the recent financial crisis has had important political implications, with renewed fears of instability and even reversal of democratic gains. In Hungary, the Fidesz government has changed the Constitution and the electoral system, and has fired more than 10,000 government employees amid complaints of political discrimination. In Romania, austerity measures have led to in-fighting between the president and the parliament-backed prime minister, resulting in a failed attempt to impeach the president, and EU concerns over government attacks on the independence of the Constitutional Court. Moreover, the December 9, 2012, Romanian elections have dealt a decisive victory to the prime minister’s Social Liberal Union, which will likely make co-habitation with the current president crisis-prone. Bulgaria is another recently admitted EU member wherein concerns over the rule of law negatively affected democratic performance, while Serbia has recently elected a nationalist government with connections to the Milosevic regime. These developments raise doubts over the sustainability of New Europe’s democratic gains, and warrant a reassessment of the consolidation of these democracies.

 

 

Landau Economics Building, SIEPHR conference room A

Grigore Pop-Eleches Associate Professor of Politics and Public International Affairs Panelist Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
Jason Wittnberg Associate Professor of Political Science Panelist University of California, Berkeley
Milada Vaduchova Associate Professor of Political Science Panelist University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Patricia Young Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Sociology Panelist Stanford University
Kathryn Stoner Deputy Director, Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law; Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Panelist Stanford University
Panel Discussions

Arrière-garde as avant-garde: The Paradox of Interwar Realism

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How do we historicize recurring aesthetic forms? In his talk, which addresses themes from his recent book Realism after Modernism, Fore explores the return to figuration in European art of the 1920s, asking if it is possible that the reappearance of aesthetic strategies from the 19th century during the interwar period did not mark a regression to an older set of artistic practices, but, to the contrary, may have heralded a new aesthetic paradigm.

Co-sponsored by the Department of German Studies and the Department of Comparative Literature.

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Building 260 (Pigott Hall)
Room 252 (German Studies Library)

Devin Fore Associate Professor of German Speaker Princeton University
Seminars

Never Waste a Crisis: the European Left Holds the Key to Solving Common Challenges

Amr Adly

Encina Hall
616 Serra Street, C145
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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ARD Postdoctoral Fellow
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Amr Adly has a Ph.D. from the European University Institute-Florence, Department of political and social sciences (Date of completion: September 2010). His thesis topic was "The political economy of trade and industrialization in the post-liberalization period: Cases of Turkey and Egypt". The thesis was published by Routledge in December 2012 under the title of State Reform and Development in the Middle East: The Cases of Turkey and Egypt.

He has several other academic publications that have appeared in the Journal of Business and Politics, Turkish Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies, in addition to articles in several other periodicals and newspapers in English and Arabic. 

Before joining Stanford, he worked as a senior researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, heading the unit of social and economic rights, and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat.

At Stanford, he is leading a research project on reforming the regulatory environment governing entrepreneurship after the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, which will result in policy papers as well as conferences in the two countries.

CV

Islamism vs. Secularism: The Arab Spring, Phase 2

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This event is co-sponsored by the Arab Studies Table

Abstract:

Ahmed Benchemsi, a Stanford visiting scholar and award-winning Moroccan journalist, will introduce "FreeArabs.com". The new media outlet aims to provide the Arab Spring secular generation with a global platform, a digital haven for speaking out, building ties and developing a strong network. Under the editorial line "Democracy, Secularism, Fun" and with a newsy and arty activist tone, Free Arabs will expose corruption and authoritarianism in the Middle East, invoke genuine democracy as a challenge to Islamists, and fight to restore the real meaning of secularism (ie, freedom of choice) in a region where this word has long been demonized by both oppressive governments and religious zealots.

Speaker Bio:

Ahmed Benchemsi is a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. His focus is on "The seeds of secularism in the post-Spring Arab world".

Before joining Stanford, Ahmed was the publisher and editor of Morocco's two best-selling newsweeklies TelQuel (French) and Nishan (Arabic), which he founded in 2001 and 2006, respectively. Covering politics, business, society and the arts, Ahmed's magazines were repeatedly cited by major media such as CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and more, as strong advocates of democracy and secularism in the Middle East and North Africa.

Ahmed received awards from the European Union and Lebanon's Samir Kassir Foundation, notably for his work on the "Cult of personality" surrounding Morocco's King. He also published op-eds in Le Monde and Newsweek where he completed fellowships.

Ahmed received his M.Phil in Political Science in 1998 from Paris' Institut d'Etudes Politiques (aka "Sciences Po"), his M.A in Development Economics in 1995 from La Sorbonne, and his B.A in Finance in 1994 from Paris VIII University.

 

 

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Ahmed Benchemsi

CDDRL
616 Serra Street
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305

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Visiting Scholar Program on Arab Reform and Democracy
Benchemsi_headshot.jpg MPhil

Ahmed Benchemsi is a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. His focus is on the democratic grassroots movement that recently burgeoned in Morocco, as in Tunisia and Egypt. Ahmed researches how and under what circumstances a handful of young Facebook activists managed to infuse democratic spirit which eventually inspired hundreds of thousands, leading them to hit the streets in massive protests. He investigates whether this actual trend will pave the way for genuine democratic reform or for the traditional political system's reconfiguration around a new balance of powers - or both.  

Before joining Stanford, Ahmed was the publisher and editor of Morocco's two best-selling newsweeklies TelQuel (French) and Nishan (Arabic), which he founded in 2001 and 2006, respectively. Covering politics, business, society and the arts, Ahmed's magazines were repeatedly cited by major media such as CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and more, as strong advocates of democracy and secularism in the Middle East and North Africa.

Ahmed received awards from the European Union and Lebanon's Samir Kassir Foundation, notably for his work on the "Cult of personality" surrounding Morocco's King. He also published op-eds in Le Monde and Newsweek where he completed fellowships.

Ahmed received his M.Phil in Political Science in 1998 from Paris' Institut d'Etudes Politiques (aka "Sciences Po"), his M.A in Development Economics in 1995 from La Sorbonne, and his B.A in Finance in 1994 from Paris VIII University.

Ahmed Benchemsi Visiting Scholar and award-winning Moroccon journalist Speaker Stanford University
Seminars

Muslim Politics and Popular Culture in Malaysia: PAS, Hudud, and Rock 'n' Roll

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Malaysia’s 13th general election is imminent and the opposition coalition (Pakatan Rakyat) is fragile. Inside the coalition, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) and the secularist Democratic Action Party have little in common. PAS itself is split along generational lines and ideologically divided between reform-oriented pragmatists and hard-line Islamists. The youth wing of PAS is increasingly vocal in accusing the party of having abandoned key principles in the “Islamic struggle.” Based on anthropological fieldwork, Dominik Müller will review how PAS Youth members are contesting the party’s future in both political and cultural terms.

In Muslim politics in Malaysia, does increasing recourse to popular culture augur an incipient “post-Islamist” turn? Young Muslim activists in PAS are using YouTube and Facebook, commercial brands, celebrity personalities, and rock music to disseminate their call to “purify the struggle” for an Islamic state or “caliphate.” Do these “secular” media dilute if not drown out the politico-religious message? Or, given their popular appeal, do they render it all the more convincing? And with what implications for Islam and politics—in Malaysia and, analogously, elsewhere in the Muslim world?

Dominik Müller obtained his doctorate summa cum laude in 2012 from Frankfurt University, where he works as a research associate in the Department of Anthropology. His dissertation on Islam, politics, and youth in Malaysia will be published in 2013. His research project at Stanford, funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), examines patterns of socio-legal change in the Malay world.

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Dominik Müller Visiting Scholar APARC Speaker Stanford University
Seminars

CISAC welcomes microbiologist David Relman as co-director

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David Relman, a Stanford microbiologist and professor of infectious diseases, has taken up the mantle as CISAC co-director alongside Stanford law professor Tino Cuéllar, both of whom intend to broaden the center’s research in biosecurity and the life sciences.

Relman, the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor at Stanford’s School of Medicine and chief of infectious disease at the VA Palo Alto Healthcare System, has advised the U.S. government about pathogen diversity, dual-use technology and biosecurity. He also is the current president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

“The appointment of a life scientist who focuses on infectious diseases and biosecurity is an innovative step for our work in international security and cooperation,” said Gerhard Casper, president emeritus of Stanford University and director of CISAC’s umbrella organization, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Relman succeeds Siegfried S. Hecker, a nuclear scientist and director emeritus of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, who was the CISAC co-director since 2007. One of the world’s foremost experts on plutonium, nuclear weapons and nonproliferation, Hecker is on sabbatical in New Mexico and the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. He is working on a book about his historic efforts to foster collaboration between U.S. and Russian nuclear labs, as well as traveling to meet his nonproliferation counterparts in parts of Europe and Russia.

Hecker will return to CISAC this summer to resume his teaching in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, as well as his writing and research as a senior fellow at CISAC and FSI.

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ARD Annual Conference: Building Bridges: Towards Viable Democracies in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya

The fourth annual conference of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD) organized in collaboration with the University of Tunis, El Manar and the Centre d'études maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT), took place in Tunis on March 28 and 29, 2013. The conference theme 'Building Bridges: Towards Viable Democracies in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya' examines the cornerstones of democratic transition in those countries.

The conference engaged leading scholars, policymakers, and practitioners from all three countries, as well as international experts, to reflect on the process of democratization in those countries from a comparative perspective. The key issues the conference addressed are:

  • Constitution drafting
  • National dialogues and civil society
  • Political coalitions and Islamism
  • Political participation and pluralism
  • Economic policy
  • Arab relations with the USA and Europe

The conference agenda and report are available for download from the links below.

 
Download pdf
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Sheraton Hotel, Tunis, Tunisia

Conferences
Political Participation, Pluralism, and Citizenship Rights in the Arab World
CDDRL Conferences
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