Ilyas Saliba
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DVPW Section meeting Comparative Politics in Hamburg

3/10/2015

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View towards the GIGA from the opposite side of the Alster lake in dowtown Hamburg

The DVPW (German association for political science) meeting of the section on comparative politics (twitter #DVPWGIGA) was held in my hometown Hamburg at the GIGA (German institute for Global Area Studies) in February 2015. Once again (after the IDCAR confernce in december '14) a pleasent reason for me to return to my hometown for professional reasons.

In general the conference had attracted more than 220 researchers from all over Europe. This alone can probably already be judged quite a success. The wide -range of panel themes to some extend resembled the diversity of topics within the subfield of comparative politics (find the program of the conference with all paper titles & authors here). However there was some clear centres of gravity that could be identified. 

Overall there were four panels with a total of 28 papers dealing with authoritarian regimes. A clear sign that the trend towards political science research on non-democratic contexts is still ongoing. Other main themes at the conference were political behavoir and attitutes, regionalism and regional institutions as well as democratization and transitology.  I participated in the conference with two papers in two different panels both dealing with non-democratic regimes.

The first panel was entitled: "Legitimation, policy instruments and policy performance in autocracies" and organized by Steffen Kailitz (Hannah-Arendt-Institute Dresden) and Stefan Wurster (University of Heidelberg). Most of the contributions in this panel aimed at improving our conceptual understanding of legitimacy and legitimation processes under non-democratic circumstances and to increase our ability to operationalize and measure different types and mechanisms of legitimacy. I presented a paper dealing with legitimation strategies via the institutional reform process initiated by the Morrocan regime in the aftermath of the 2011 demonstrations (working paper paper can be found here).

The second panel was organnized by the IDCAR initiators Christian von Soest and Thomas Richter (both GIGA). Accordingly the panel was named: "Democracy Prevention by International Means: Diffusion and Cooperation of Authoritarian Regimes". In this rich panel with contributions on the post soviet space, the Gulf countries, Sub-Sahara Africa and the Middle East by scholars from all career stages I presented a draft outline on my conceptual dissertation chapter entitled: "The Influence of Authoritarian Learning on Regime Survival in times of Contentious Politics" (the working paper can be found here).

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IDCAR Kick-off Conference at  the GIGA in Hamburg

12/30/2014

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Just before the holidays I was participating at a confernce in my hometown Hamburg. The IDCAR Network kick-off Conference in Hamburg at the German Institute for Global Area Studies (GIGA). The Acronym IDCAR stands for International Diffusion and Cooperation of Authoritarian Regimes. The Network which is sponsored by the Leibniz foundation aims to bring together scholars working on relevant issues with different regional, theoretical and methodological backgrounds in order to foster and institutionalize exchange between them. It wants to lay the ground for further more specific research projects and collaboration between the participants. The participation in the conference was partly coming home to my alma mater as the GIGA is also cooperating with the University of Hamburg, from where I received my undegraduate degree. As an undergaduate student I oftentimes visited the GIGA to work in the library or listen to talks and debates just as the one that started of the IDCAR conference on the first evening. Being back a few years later as a participant was a very nice possibility to meet people that have already known during my studies in Hamburg.

Although the first conference (as Christoph Stefes rightly pointed out during the conference) was dominated by comparativists from political science field the network aims to bring together scholars from International Relations, Area Studies and Comparative Politics to discuss a common research agenda.

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some impressions from the first IDCAR conference @ GIGA in Hamburg. Foto copyright lies with the GIGA. Fotos are taken from the IDCAR Twitter account: @idcar_network
Amidst the grey in grey and rainy weather in my hometown Hamburg the conference was overall in high spirits and most of the participants seemed to be looking forward to further exchange of the network. It was interesting to hear that other scholars working on similar topics also encountered similar problems of operationalization and empirical assessment of diffusion and cooperation processes between authoritarian regimes. I am convinced that a continuation of exchange and discussions within the network will lead to progress that benefits all participants and hopefully leads to new insides and a more comprehensive understanding of diffusion and cooperation processes amongst authoritarian regimes.

The list of the participating scholars was impressive and the paper presentations and discussions were very interesting and inspiring. Especially because the international dimension of authoritarian rule has thus far received little attention by the scholarly community. For me as a PhD student working on authoritarian learning during the Arab Uprisings the IDCAR network provides a unique opportunity to discuss current research projects related to the topic and meet distinguished scholars working on similar issues. I am happy to participate in the network for the WZB (Social Science Center Berlin) with my supervisor and looking forward to future workshops and conferences.

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view over the city center of Hamburg from the Alster just in front of the GIGA after the first conference day
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MESA Meeting in Washington DC

12/2/2014

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Just a few months after the #APSAonfire breakdown in the Wardmann Park Marriot in DC the Middle Eastern Studies Association yearly meeting (MESA) #MESA14DC was held in the same place this November. 

I went there to present a work in progress paper titled: "Authoritarian learning: Morocco during the Arab Uprisings" at the panel: Logics and Legitimacy in State Formation.
The papers presented at this panel were quite diverse and covered case studies from the Gulf (Barhain, Qatar, UAE) to Iraq, Oman and Morocco. They were all trying to come to grasp with legitimation strategies in those authoritarian regimes. Although looking into very different phenomena and means applied by the rulers: From coordinated settlement and the provision of goods to ideology and reinterpretation of national history, in order to assure the loyalty of citizens or even non-citizens as in the case of migrant workers in the Gulf. All in all the presentations at the panel were interesting but as it was a total of five papers there was unfortunately only little time left for a discussion afterwards.

In general the line-up at MESA of scholars working on topics I am primarily interested in, such as authoritarianism in the MENA Region, transition in Tunisia, contentious politics and protest under authoritarian rule and the Syrian conflict was quiet impressive. I tried to see many panels in order to  hear some of the researchers that I have been reading and citing since the beginning of my graduate studies. In that respect the congress was a great opportunity to engage with other scholars working on similar topics or the same cases and exchange ideas, arguments and experiences.

Especially interesting was the roundtable on researching contentious politics in the region in which  sociologists studying social movements and political scientists focusing on authoritarian governance engaged. Besides an interesting methodological debate on variable based vs experience based research and related why and how questions, the discussion went on to the problems of account evidence and post-script rationalization of events by interviewees. I also really liked the statement by one of the presenters who said: "After the Arab Uprisings Middle Eastern scholars are in the spotlight of the social sciences, but we have to decide what to do with this opportunity." In my opinion researchers of the region should pave the way for a more mechanism oriented approach to the social sciences in times of contentious politcs. This to some extend of course is a plea for more esxperience based research engaging with the field in order to complement the (predominant) model based attempts of conceptualizing authoritiarian politics. This is definately one of the driving motivations behind my work.
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to prepare for the conference I went to the stunning study room of the library of congress

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    Ilyas Saliba

    is a researcher and PhD student in political science, freelance journalist and photographer interested in Democracy, Transition, Authoritarianism and Security especially in the MIddle East and North Africa.

    From time to time I will publish links, comments and thoughts relating to my research, events, current political issues and the life as a PhD student on this Blog.

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