Legacies of Authoritarianism: Gordner and Martin at MESS

Our next Middle East Scholars Society event this semester will be on Thursday February 26. We are pleased to have: Matt Gordner: a PhD Student at the University of Toronto's Department of Political Science. His research is supported by a Trudeau Scholarship and a Ranjit Kumar Fellowship. Geoff Martin: a PhD Student in Political Science at the University of Toronto. He is supported by a Joseph Bombardier Scholarship awarded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council.
DATE: Thursday, February 26, 2014
TIME: 5:00 pm
LOCATION: MacKinnon Building, Room: 223

Title: Legacies of Authoritarianism
The spread of protests in the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring in 2011 was one of the most startling and provocative moments in the region’s history. Even more perplexing, was the failure of activists to capitalize on their earlier successes in later years. In this paper we review the literature on authoritarian legacies in Latin America and Eastern Europe to explain cycles of contention in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and Kuwait. Looking at the structural conditions of authoritarian repression, and the relationships and interactions between social and protest movements, political parties, and other political elites within the Mubarak, Ben Ali, Saleh, and Sabah regimes, we argue that authoritarian legacies play an important part in the outcome of the post-"Arab Spring" political transformations in these four states.

The event is free and open to the public. I hope you will be able to attend the lecture, and that you also might help us publicize it by circulating the attached flyer to interested colleagues. Attached is a detailed flyer.