Gastvortrag von Prof. Steven Heydemann (Smith College, USA): "Beyond Fragility: Authoritarianism & Reconstruction in the Middle East"am Dienstag, den 11. Dezember von 13:30 - 15:00 Uhr am GIGA, Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, Raum 550 (in englischer Sprache)
4. Dezember 2018
Abstract:
How does authoritarian governance affect conflict dynamics and processes of post-conflict reconstruction? In 2011, a wave of mass protests swept across the Middle East, threatening the stability of consolidated authoritarian regimes. Though often described as a result of poor governance by regimes that were authoritarian but fragile, such diagnoses are misleading. In fact, the conflicts unfolding in the Middle East challenge fragility-based models of conflict and post-conflict reconstruction. Such models fail to acknowledge that some states coded as "fragile" might be delivering the governance outcomes they were designed to produce. These states are not necessarily fragile. They are more appropriately characterized as "fierce states," in which authoritarian elites elevate survival above all else and design institutions to support this aim. Given the scale of conflict in the MENA region, understanding the legacies of authoritarian governance for the political and economic orders that emerge under conditions of conflict, and assessing how such legacies will, in turn, shape processes of post-conflict reconstruction, are critical tasks for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers.
Short bio:
Steven Heydemann is the Janet Wright Ketcham 1953 Professor in Middle East Studies, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government, at Smith College in Northampton, USA. Prof. Heydemann is a world-leading expert on authoritarianism and conflict in the Middle East in general and on Syria in particular. He continues to serve as a nonresident senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Foundation. From 2007-15, Prof. Heydemann held a number of leadership positions at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. Among his many publications are "Civil War, Economic Governance & State Reconstruction in the Middle East", Daedalus (2018, 147, 1, 48-63), Middle East Authoritarianisms: Governance, Contestation, and Regime Resilience in Syria and Iran (2013, co-ed. with Reinoud Leenders, Stanford UP), Upgrading Authoritarianism in the Middle East (2007, Saban Center, Brookings Institution) and Networks of Privilege in the Middle East: The Politics of Economic Reform Revisited (2004, ed., Palgrave).