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 char...

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

22/06/2010 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...

Discourse Analysis and the Syrian Regime

25/03/2010 Sottimano has been studying Syrian authoritarianism and civil society from the point of view of discourse analysis. This perspective maintains that social facts are constructed within discourses, which is instrumental in defining what is right or wrong and the roles that political actors take. Read the report seminar on Discourse Analysis and the Syrian Regime.

Launch Publication Beyond Orthodox Approaches

Within the framework of Knowledge Programme Civil Society in West Asia, Hivos in collaboration with NIMD ad University of Amsterdam, will launch on 26 March 2010 the policy paper ‘Beyond Orthodox Approaches, Assessing Opportunities for Democratic Support in the Middle East and North Africa. This publication aims to explore what role - if any - external organisations, such as Hivos and NIMD, can play to further democratisation in the region. Hivos and NIMD are fully aware that the political s...

Imitation of the West'? Civil society in the Arab world

On Thursday 28 January 2010, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi declared in a televised address to the General People's Congress that the idea of civil society "is a bourgeois culture and an imitation of the West that has no place here [in Libya]" . Gaddafi's statement last week drew particular media attention because it came on the eve of a proposal due to be announced by his son, Saif al-Islam, which would have permitted the creation of NGOs. Gaddafi's comments were grounded in Lib...