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The Knowledge Programme on Civil Society in West Asia is a joint initiative by Hivos and the University of Amsterdam with the purpose of generating and integrating knowledge on the roles and opportunities for civil society actors in democratization processes in politically challenging environments. This programme integrates academic knowledge and practitioner’s knowledge from around the world to develop new insights and strategies on how civil society actors in Syria and Iran can contribute to various processes of democratization and how international actors can support this.
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The Uncertain Future of Democracy Promotion, by Steven Heydemann
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,”[1] 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 particula...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...