Ilyas Saliba
  • Vita
  • Research
    • Publications
    • Projects
  • Consulting
  • Communication
  • Writing
  • Photos
  • Teaching
  • Impressum

Firenze numero quattro

12/10/2014

0 Comments

 
This is the fourth and the last post on my semester at the EUI which has now unfortunately come to an end.

All in all the four month I spend in Fiesole at this truly inspiring and unique place have been an amazing experience professionally and personally. 

Professionally, the exchange at the EUI with various communities of researchers has helped me a lot to narrow and cut down my research into more doable pieces. The comments I received in different contexts and formats at the EUI have been very valuable. More than that, the place and the people inspired me to follow up on new projects and establishn new collaborations.

I tried to make use of the fact that in terms of my research topics there was not really a clear affiliation to one research group through engaging with various research groups and disciplines at the EUI. During my last weeks I presented my research in the COSMOS group on social movements, in the International Relations working group, the Middle Eastern working group and the Europe in the World seminar series at the Robert Schumann Center. Engaging with researchers stemming from different dsciplinary backgrounds that confront my work from different angles was a truly unique and inspiring experience for me. To some degree the commonalities of the comments have led to major reformulations and a more specific focus of my disseration project on authoritarian learning processes. With regards to the two papers I presented in the working groups, the discussions really helped me to see the weaknesses and the blind spots and was hence very helpful.

Personally, during my time at the EUI I have gotten to know so many lovely people that leaving now feels actually kind of wrong. The christmas festivities during the last week with the EUIs christmas party and the many dinners with groups of friends towards the end of the semester did not contribute to make leaving this place any easier either. However of course no goodbye is everlasting. As I have been ‘recruited’ to play in the EUIs yearly football tournament in June –the famous Copa Pavone– I will return for that occasion and hope to see many familiar faces around.

Surely the picture perfect sunsets, the city that is basically an open air museum and the sorrounding green hills of tuscany have also made the last few months an amazing experience. No doubt I will miss the dolce vita and the italian lifestyle with the passion for good food, coffee and wine.

Picture
sunset from the EUI teracce in Badia, Fiesole in December '14

But enough with the resumee and emotions.

During my last week there was again an interesting conference at the EUI organized by the Robert Schumann Center, which was dealing with the transformation of borders in the MENA Region. It was a very diverse and interdisciplinary group of scholars, discussing the various dimensions of transformation of border regimes and boarders in the wider Region. Researchers from IR & political science, middle eastern studies, geography and anthropology to country experts were participating. The different angles on the topic were eminent also at the roundtable concluding the conference. There was a lot of references to the respective personal or case specific experiences and issues that were important to the scholars themselves in their work.

However there were also some more general trends and commonalities that emerged: At least some borders in the MENA Region are more permeable then they have been in decades. The declining ability of some states to control their borders oftentimes goes hand in hand with the inability to uphold the monopoly of violence across their territory. The formal governments in Kabul, Damasscus, Baghdad, Sanaa or Tripoli are domestically not much more than the majors of the respective capital due to the lack of control over the countries territory.

Often with external support from other states or the US and the EU the states in the region try to regain control over their borders forcefully. Actor constellations on regional and local levels and the interplay with the national state level are thus increasingly important when we want to understand border dynamics in these countries. 

At the same time as an extreme form of external involvement in some occasions trans- or international interference can change the nature of borders quickly. The best example for this are maybe the recent developments at the boarder between Syria and Iraq.

Furthermore the flow of refugees across borders creates new social realities in the border regions of Turkey, Jordan and Libanon. In that sense the crossing of people also transform the boarders themselves, due to the configuration of societies living on either side of them.

Naturally these issues just give a glimpse of what was discussed during the interesting conference
0 Comments

Tunisian Transition and the Parliamentary Elections

11/15/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Election office in a school in Gammarth, Tunis on election day

In the last week of October I went to Tunis in order to experience the second elections after the ousting of the dictator Ben-Ali in 2011. The most important thing first: According to international and domestic observers the parliamentary elections met domestic and international standards and can be considered free, fair and meaningfully democratic. 

During my days in Tunis I spoke to different stakeholders and observers in Tunis from civil society activists to diplomats and election observers. Despite the different perspectives their take on the elections was mainly positive, not least due to the fact that the electoral process went so smoothly and the much feared political violence or contestation of the results did not occur.

However turing away from the elections itself to the broader developments in Tunisia since the fall of Ben-Ali the views widely varied with regards to the evaluation of hitherto accomplishments and future propects of the transition process. Whereas some actors I talked to highlighted the inclusive and consesus-seeking nature of the process and mentioned the crucial role of civil society, others critically noted the polarization of political discourse, the predominance of backdoor politics and the return of ancient regime personel on the political stage.

Picture
tunisian voter at the ballot box
Picture
father with his son on the way to cast his vote

In the running up towards the elections I have written two pieces trying to analyze the unique tunisian trajectories during the last four years. The first one for the Blog Al-Qantara has been dedicated to analyze the process up until the elections and sketch out some of the problematic areas that still remained untouched. A second, more policy oriented piece for the political IPG journal -run by the Friedrich Ebert foundation- has focussed on the challenges ahead for any new tunisian government in place and identified how Europe may help Tunisia in its transition and contribute to consolidate democracy in Tunisia.

  • Der Tunesische Sonderweg – Oped on IPG Internationale politik und Gesellschaft (October 2014) available online (german only)
  • The model student faces difficult tasks – Oped on Al Qantara (October 2014) available online (in german, english and arabic)
Unfortunately the first piece is only vailable in german. The Second one has been translated into english and arabic. However I have decided to shift away from publishing non-academic opeds and blog contributions exclusively within the german media outleds. Consequently on the bucket-list for next year are contributions in english newspapers or blogs.

Picture
young tunisians discussing the elections after they voted over a coffee
0 Comments

Former Tunisian Prime Minister Jebali in Berlin

1/6/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Mr Jebali during his keynote speech at the Freie Universität

On Decemeber 1st Mr Hamadi Jebali the former Tunisian prime minister gave a keynote speech at the campus of the Free University of Berlin.
The topic of the talk was an analysis of the current situation of Tunisia.
Unfortunately Mr Jebalis picture of the situation in Tunisia remained very superficial. On the contrary he went on at length about the international environment around Tunisia and the imminent dangers and problems connected with it. His sometimes involute speech (maybe this was also due to the translators) Mr Jebali painted a picture of Tunisia as an isle of democracy in the middle east that is endangered from all sides (geographically) and dimensions (political, economic, security). the notion of terror triangles situated close to Tunisian boarders was the highlight of this talk (see foto).

The whole story telling finally concluded in Mr Jebali teklling teh audience at the FU that Tunisia is in desperate need for support from Germany & Europe and it could not cope with the challenges it is facing without European support.

To be honest I would have preferred a keynote focussing on the primarily domestic issues and ongoing political developments in the post-revolutionary Tunisia. The challenges do not only lie at Tunisias boarders as implied by Mr Jebali but also in the very heart of Tunisias capital and its constitutional assembly. Three years after the ousting of the cleptocratic autocrat Ben-Ali Tunisia is still struggling to give itself a new jurisiticial foundation for its new polity. Alongside this long lasting process political violence against members of the non islamic political elite is growing. None of these challenges were sufficiently addressed in Jebalis speech.
0 Comments

Workshop & Simulation on the constitutional process in tunisia

11/11/2013

0 Comments

 
In October I spend a week in Tunis at a DAAD funded workshop organized by the University of Tübingen (Chair of Prof Diez), SSC Europe and the Université de Tunis faculty of social sciences and law. 

The workshop was held at the Université de Tunis and half of the participants were invited from germany whereas the other half consisted of graduate students in an international law program at the faculty for social sciences and law in Tunis.

The first part of the workshop involved a theoretical input to constitution giving processes and some case studies.

In the second part of the workshop the participants were teamed up in german-tunisian pairs to represent one of th eparties within the constitutional assembly of Tunisia. We were then supposed to act as this actor within the simulation of the constitutional assembly. In this simulation we debated crucial party of the latest constituional draft version and changed it according to the procedures laid out for the real constiotutional assembly.

In the third part we presented our results to two representatives from the real assembly one from the islamist majority party Enhada and another from a smaller leftist movement. The debate was interesting and informative.

During our weeklong workshop there was also some politics going on outside of the classroom as most students went on strike in response to an aggravation of the study curricilum by the interim education minister (Enhada). The passionate debates on teh campus were at the same time somehow exemplarily of the main cleveages that run through the Tunisian society (rural-urban & secular-islamist) and hence to some extend worrying, while also a good sign that such political issues are politicized in such a way.

All in all it was an amazing week and I got to know a lot of interesting people. The challenges on the way toward a new constituion for Tunisia remain manifold but I am convinced that a consensus can be reached within the foreseeable future. 

For whoever is interested in the political developments of the Tunisian constituion giving process I reccomend the website from la marsad (french only).
Picture
Enhada party representatives at the simulation
Picture
entrance to the faculty grounds
Picture
debate with assembly representatives
Picture
student strike debate at the university
0 Comments

    RSS Feed

    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.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013

    Categories

    All
    Academia
    Arab Uprising
    Authoritarianism
    Authoritarian Learning
    Basic Rights
    Bbaw
    Berlin
    Boarders
    Brazil
    Call For Applications
    Case Studies
    Conference
    Constitution
    Cooperation
    Css
    Daad
    Democracy
    Democratization
    Diffusion
    Direct Democracy
    DVPW
    Ecpr
    Elections
    Eth
    EUI
    Europe From A Different View
    Europe In The World
    Events
    Fes
    Fieldwork
    Florence
    Free University Berlin
    GIGA
    Graduation
    Hamburg
    Hertie Foundation
    IDCAR
    IPSA
    Italy
    Ivorytower
    Jebali
    Joint Sessions
    Lecture
    Legitimacy
    Mediterranean
    Merkel
    MESA
    Methods
    Middle East
    Morocco
    Motivation
    Network
    Norway
    Nzz
    Oslo
    Phdlife
    Positions
    Publication
    Public Sphere
    Qualitative
    Reform
    Revolution
    Robert Schumann Center
    Salamanca
    Sao Paolo
    Security
    Summer School
    Switzerland
    Syria
    Transition
    Tunisia
    Visiting
    Wiko
    Workshop
    WZB


    BLOGOSPHERE

    WZB Democracy & Democratization Blog
    IR Blog
    Demokratie Blog Göttingen
    Hertie Blog
    Monkey Cage
    Adopt a Revolution


contact