International Conference "Elusive State Building: The Middle East and North Africa 1917-2017"
27-28 septembre 2017, Maison de la Paix, the Graduate Institute, auditorium 2, 1202 Geneva. Avec François Burgat (politologue IREMAM).
The Middle East and North Africa regained international (policy and media) attention through the 1990-1991 Gulf War and the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks and their ‘Global War on Terror’ aftermath, which in turn yielded to the 2011 uprisings of the ‘Arab Spring’. These momentous recent events are just the latest in a historical sequence of developments, which can be traced back to the 1910s and at the heart of which stand the challenge of establishing viable and functioning states.
A century after the modern-day statebuilding project was launched in the region, amidst new-old dynamics of neoauthoritarianism and coercive democratisation, the active pursuit of state-building by nonstate actors is but one of the many perplexing features of the contemporary regional scene.
The Pierre du Bois Annual Conference brings together experts from The Graduate Institute, Harvard, Sciences Po, Oxford University, Princeton, the American University in Cairo, Columbia University and others to debate topics including The Sykes-Picot Paradigm, The Iraq Wars, The Palestine Question, The Arab Spring, Alternative Statehood and Armed Militancy, and The Rise of Orientalism. There will be a keynote presentation from Professor Bertrand Badie on Autoritarismes, Interventions et le Nouveau Grand Jeu au Moyen-Orient.