Publications
The Idea of Secularism and the Supreme Court of India
Justice Aftab AlamMobilising Social Justice in South Africa - perspectives from Researchers and Practitioners
How do civic actors in South Africa deal with contemporary developmental challenges such as socio-economic inequality, limited access to basic services, xenofobic tensions and governance constraints. At a time of rising social tensions, the country’s institutions are in danger of losing the legitimacy they gained in the wake of democratic dispensations of the 1990s.
The Uncertain Future of Democracy Promotion
30/08/2010 Democracy promotion has had a tough decade, nowhere more so than in the Middle East. Ten years ago, the democratic optimism that followed the end of the Cold War was in relatively good health. Today, after a decade of authoritarian reversals, a sustained “backlash against democracy promotion,” and authoritarian resurgence from Russia to Africa to Latin America, post-Cold War optimism has given way to a darker, more sober assessment of democratization’s limits. The Middle East in particular,...The Private Media in Syria
Working Paper 11 is about the private media in Syria. A new publishing law was passed in 2001, which allowed the private sector to re-enter the media industry, having been banned from it since 1963. The relatively high number of approved publications since 2001 provides the Ministry of Information with an argument in its favour, which it uses every time the media situation in Syria is discussed. However, even though the new law does not impose censorship as a prerequisite, it does remain...
Internet or Enter-Not: the Syrian Experience
Working Paper 10 discusses the status of the internet in Syria. Syrian authorities show a large amount of distrust vis-à-vis the new technology and there is much state control. The list of banned sites is long, varied and flexible. Website bans are about muzzling free expression and controlling access to information. Syrians are arrested because of their beliefs they express on the Web. Is there a future for the use of internet as a tool of expression in Syria? Syrians try to find their w...
East European and South American Conceptions of Civil Society
Working Paper 9 focuses on those countries in Eastern Europe and South America where civil society emerged as a cause celebre in the successful transition to democracy: Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, Argentina, Brazil and Chile.It offers a theoretical analysis of precisely how civil society was conceptualized by its protagonists in their pre-democratic contexts by studying their writings from the pre-democratic period. The latter have been largely ignored in later narratives which chart...
Package Politics: Antagonism, Resistance, and Peace in Syrian Political Discourse
Working Paper 8 examines ways in which regional conflicts, especially the relationship with Israel, have an influence on the resilience of the Syrian regime. It does so based upon the analytical notion of discourse, which examines the role of discursive assumptions and norms in framing social practices. The norms and mechanisms inbuilt within discourse contribute to the shaping of the choices and practices of political actors in many ways: by determining the range of possible action, by legi...
Civil Society and Democratization in Jordan
Working Paper 7 provides an analysis of the state of civil society and democratization in Jordan. It analyzes the nature of the governing system and its institutions, examines the state of democracy in the kingdom, the nature of the regime and the ruling elite (including key ethnic components), the status of economic liberalization, the role of religion in political life, the nature of political opposition and the question of deliberalization.
State-Business Relations in Morocco
Working Paper 6 studies how the relationship between the state and the business community in Morocco has changed over the past two decades. Recent scholarship by social scientists on political change in the Middle East and North Africa has mostly focused on civil society. Relatively less attention has been paid to the role of business associations. Given the more prominent role for the private sector in a market economy it is of interest to examine how the relationship between the state and...
Democratization through the Media
Working paper 5 is the result of a review of the work of IKV Pax Christi in Morocco in the period 2007 – 2009. The review is commissioned by IKV Pax Christi to the University of Amsterdam and conducted by Dr. Francesco Cavatorta. IKV Pax Christi has co-organized a series of debates between Islamists and secularists in Morocco as part of a programme with Press Now entitled ‘Democratization through the media’. In these debates, participants discussed about various actual political problems in...