Transformation in the MENA region

The IDCR is monitoring and watching the developments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

These countries are in many ways a set of ‘least likely’ cases to experience the kinds of changes that have been on our TV screens, iPads, and computers for the last month or so. There are least likely, since prevailing expectations drawn on some theories of democratization would suggest that they would be highly unlikely to go through such rapid transformations.

Yet, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have undergone profound changes owing to mass popular mobilizations that have or are seeking to oust their incumbent regimes from power. The cases are more examples of how social mobilization is possible under authoritarian conditions, and that such mobilization can and does lead to significant political change. We are equally fascinated with the role that technology has played in these transformations, where the diffusion of ideas movd quickly from Tunis to Cairo to Tripoli.

The world waits for what kind of change will occur as well as what form the new politics of the region will take. Naturally, it is our hope that these and other countries in the region embrace democracy and respect for human rights.

For an interesting set of perspectives on the current situation in the region, please see the Roundtable at Human Rights and Human Welfare HERE

US Cultural Attaché visits IDCR

As part of a day long visit to the University of Essex, Karen Huntress, Assistant Cultural Attaché from the US State Department met with IDCR Director Professor Todd Landman and Dr Tom Scotto from the Department of Government.

Ms. Huntress is talking to Essex students in class, giving a public lecture on Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy, and is conducting a special meeting with Egyptian students to discuss the developments taking place in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East.

IDCR takes part in Foreign Office event

The IDCR took part in a roundtable and consultation event today at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office along with partner organisation The Greater London and East Anglia Mediation (GLEAMED). The event was held to discuss the strategy for building stability overseas, and in particular the combination of capacities and expertise from the Ministry of Defence (MOD), the Department for International Development (DFID, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

The roundtable presenters raised the complex issues and challenges associated with achieving long term stability in combining efforts in development, security and diplomacy.

The event was attended by IDCR Director Professor Todd Landman and GLEAMED Managing Director Tom Thomas.

IDCR analysis features in business magazine

Exchange magazine, published by International Business and Diplomatic Exchange features a new article on the economic benefits of greater human rights protection. Co-authored by Professor Todd Landman, Professor David Kernohan, and Dr Terence Huw Edwards, the article argues that the improvements in human rights protection in neighbouring states has an impact on human rights protection at home. The analysis draws on a popular ‘gravity model’ from economics and involves weighted values of performance based on the relative size and distance of countries from one another. For international business and diplomacy, the ideas put forward in the article should be of interest since they breakdown the false dichotomy between doctrinaire economics and international norms characteristic of the human rights regime. Good human rights performance and good business practice actually go together in a way that is not ‘frightening’ or at least it should not be to diplomats and external representatives of poorer or emerging states.

For the full text of the article, see the IBDE.

Human Security Report published

The new Human Security Report has been publishd by the Human Security Report Project (HSRP) at Simon Fraser University. The number of state-based armed conflicts have risen during the first ten years of the 21st Century, but the report is optimistic about long term trends, which suggest improvements. Non-state conflicts rose significantly in 2008 with a large proportion found in Sub-Saharan Africa. During the post Cold War period there has been a larger percentage of countries in the world involed in wars than at any time since the end of World War II.

For the overview and whole report, see the HRSP; and CLICK HERE for the press release.

Cooperation in Chile

IDCR Director Professor Todd Landman met with the Former President of Chile, Patricio Aylwin to discuss the work of the IDCR and the importance of Chile in the larger story of democracy in the world.

President Aylwin was the first democratically elected President of Chile after the Pinochet Dictatorship, which lasted from 1973 to 1989. He was elected as a candidate from the broad coalition of opposition parties entitled Concertación.

In the meeting held at the President’s home in Santiago, a decision was taken to forge a a new relationship and formal cooperation between the IDCR and the President’s foundation Corporación Justicia y Democracia. The foundation is keen to share its archives on the last four governments and to provide an example of best practice to the world in forging democracy after a period of prolonged authoritarian rule. The IDCR is keen to nurture this new relationship, as the University of Essex has over 200 alumni from Chile and has had a large number of scholars and staff that came to the campus in the 1970s and 1980s as exiles during the dictatorship. In 2009, the University of Essex awarded an honorary degree to Michelle Bachelet, former President of Chile from 2005 to 2009, also from Concertación.

Government-IDCR Joint Seminar

“Media Systems, Election Outcomes, and Quality of Governance”

Prof. Gabor Toka

Central European University, Budapest

Wednesday, 24th November 2010

1.00 pm until 2.30 pm

Room 5N.4.8

Prof. Gabor Toka is a scholar with research expertise in the areas of voting behaviour and democratic institutions, and particularly the impact of the former on the latter. He is also interested in public opinion, survey methodology, and East European politics. He is co-author of Post-Communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation (Cambridge University Press, 1999), author or co-author of over five dozen articles on electoral behaviour, public opinion, political parties and democratic consolidation in edited volumes, political science and sociology journals.

This is an event sponsored by the Department of Government and the Institute for Democracy and Conflict Resolution.

Please address questions to Dr. Thomas Scotto, Department of Government at [email protected]

IDCR Director Travels to Chile

Director of the IDCR Professor Todd Landman travels to Chile 21-30 November to assist in research on Chilean political parties; deliver lectures to postgraduate students on comparative methods; meet with leading Chilean political scientists, members of the Chilean Congress and members of the military; and to develop stronger links between the IDCR and different Chilean institutions.

In particular, Professor Landman will be working with La Corporación de Estudios para Latinoamérica (CIEPLAN), the Academia Nacional de Estudios Politicos y Estrategicos (ANAPE), the Institute for International Studies (IEI), the Institute for Public Affairs, and the University of Chile.

The two coordinators primarily responsible for the mission are Essex PhD graduates Dr. Miguel Angel Lopez and Dr. Jaime Baeza Freer, who are both based in Santiago.

NATO considers path out of Afghanistan

The New York Times is reporting that the United States will prpose a four year phased withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is expected that the plan will see the conclusion of US combat activties and the withdrawal of NATO forces from the country by 2014.

For more on this story, see the New York Times.

Assessments of ongoing violence in the conflict suggest that conditions are not improving. See the BBC for a full story.

For more on the conflict in Afghanistan, please see the IDCR Afghanistan Watch pages.

Advancing Human Rights in China

IDCR Director along with Professor Rhona Smith from Northumbria University and Professor Bill Simmons from Arizona Stae University were in Oslo 1-3 November as part of the culmination of a 16 month project on human rights research methods training in China.

The project concentrated on multi-disciplinary research training for 14 Chinese academics from different disciplines who selected a wide variety of topics to research. The projects ranged from villagers affected by water pollution to occupational disease in Shanghai to an assessment of an anti-trafficking programme, and each project focused on the best way to research complex and significant problems in human rights.

Research training took place in Shanghai in April 2009, Shantou in November 2009 and on-line throughout 2010, with the final meeting in Oslo. The focus on method allowed the scholars to choose their own topics and narrow their research questions in ways that made them possible to complete within the timeframe of the project.

The project was funded by the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights through its China Programme and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law through its China Cooperation Programme.