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Summaries

Prof. Armando Salvatore
The Grass Roots of Secular Politics

This presentation attempts to thematize the ongoing tension between a grassroots level of ‘secular poetics' inherent in the long term construction of the social bond (where transcendence is either minimized or instrumentalized) and the ‘secular politics' that originated from a specific momentum within early modern transformations in Western Europe. Focusing on this tension between the different ways in which secularisation proceeds in different domains can be an alternative way to analyze what is conventionally regarded as the dialectic between more reified entities or forces like ‘religion' and ‘politics' or between ‘nationalism' and ‘transnationalism' (or globalism). The talk will first provide the sketch of a genealogy of this fundamental tension particularly with regard to Europe and then some examples concerning the way key Muslim actors contribute to evidence, reenact and accommodate such a tension in Europe, in the Middle East and on a global level.

Dr. Frederic Volpi
Civility and the political:
online considerations from Morocco and France

In analyses of political change in the Middle East, the notion of civility is commonly connected to a larger debate about the formation of civil society, which is itself viewed from the perspective of the formation of a modern democratic political system. Like many developing societies, Middle Eastern polities are deemed to have a civility deficit - or the wrong kind of civility - and because of this, their entire sequence of political development is deemed to be set back or off-balance. The premises of this argument is that an understanding of the effectiveness and dynamics of formal/institutionalised processes of democratization - or Islamicization for that matter - in polities around the Mediterranean requires an awareness of how issues of high politics are articulated in the politics of everyday life. To this end, I investigate the formation of everyday forms of civility across perceived ethno-national and religious divides - i.e. how the ‘non-citizen' and the religious ‘other' are included or excluded from common norms and practices of ‘civilized' discourses and behaviours in the local community. This paper presents the result of an empirical investigation of recent trends in the articulation of civility online in French and Moroccan forums.

Dr. Andrea Teti
Egypt: Democratisation beyond Elections?

Much has been made about -and invested into- Western attempts to promote democracy in the Arab Middle East since the end of the Cold War, and after 2001 in particular, and there is perhaps even more soul-searching about what is perceived to be either the failure of local political actors to generate democratic reforms, or the failure of Western actors -primarily the USA and the EU- to push for democracy consistently and hard enough. In this context, particular emphasis has been placed on the potential -and, later, the failures- of Civil Society Actors (CSAs). Using Egypt as a test-bed, this paper explores an alternative explanation for the failure of both domestic and international democracy-promotion efforts in the region. Firstly, it examines the ideas of democracy held by both donors of democracy-promotion aid and local civil society actors, showing how there is a considerable mismatch between state and state-related donors and aid recipients on the one hand, and independent NGO donors and their recipients on the other. While ‘official' Western donors and the recipients of the aid they award (often non-independent CSAs) emphasise market-oriented conceptions of democracy and democratisation in which political dimensions (e.g. electoral freedom) are prioritised, most independent NGOs hold a broader understanding of democracy, emphasising the importance of economic and social rights. Most independent CSAs -often classified as ‘opposition' to the regime- fall within the latter category, and receive little if any aid from Western government-related sources. Secondly, the paper explores the reasons for this mis-match, and in particular it analyses the political implications of Western state(-related) donors privileging a broadly Schumpeterian understanding of democracy. Here, preliminary evidence gathered in fieldwork suggests that the boundaries of what counts as ‘market democracy' overlap with the criteria which the US and the EU use to define what does or does not count as a legitimate democratic interlocutor within Middle Eastern opposition groups: both Islamist parties and left-leaning groups (Marxist, socialist, social-democratic, etc.) normally identified as ‘illegitimate' interlocutors in democratic dialogue, are precisely those groups which fall foul of the criteria of ‘market democracy'. This evidence suggests that, far from promoting democratic change, the particular way in which democracy is defined by Western donors and policy-makers actually undermines the democratising process.

Dr. Omar Ashour
Hesitant Moderates, Half-Hearted Radicals?
The Muslim Brothers between Violence and Democracy

This paper examines the factors that cause armed Islamist movements to behaviourally renounce violence and ideologically de-legitimize it (de-radicalization). It analyzes the first de-radicalization process of a modern armed Islamist movement in the twentieth century: the dismantlement of the armed wings of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers (MB). The article highlights the historical fact that the leadership of the MB attempted to de-radicalize the group three times: between 1951 and 1953, between 1964 and 1965, and between 1969 and 1973. The first two attempts were complete failures, with both national and international consequences. The third attempt was successful and, at a later stage, it led to the promotion of the relative moderation process that the MB is still undergoing. Thus, the question that this article attempts to answer is: why did the third de-radicalization attempt succeed, whereas the other two had failed?

Dr. Adham Saouli
Hizbullah in the ‘Civilising Process'

The primary aim of this presentation would be to utilise precepts from Historical Sociology to examine Hizbullah as a social actor. As opposed to studies that provide a political and ideological history of the movement, the aim here is to examine Hizbullah's survival situating the movement at the intersection of three ‘anarchical' structures: Lebanon, the Middle East and the international systems. I propose that the party's habituation in these structures has: (1) tempered its ideological motives; (2) rationalised its political behaviour; and (3) moulded its nature, making it state-like.

Dr. Francesco Cavatorta
The civility & un-civility of the relations between secular and religious NGOs in North Africa

One of the most solid assumptions within democratic theory postulates that a strong civil society is a necessary condition for the survival of democracy and an indispensable ingredient for democratization. The literature on the Arab world often points to the absence of a strong civil society as one of the main explanations for the persistence of authoritarian rule. It follows that, despite the presence of a number of schools of thought regarding the role and nature of civil society in the Arab world, the debate on civil society is heavily influenced by democratization studies and assumptions drawn from democratic theory. Rather than concentrating the attention one again on the presence or absence of civil society in the region and its controversial nature and how all this relates to processes of democratization or regime change, this paper examines the dynamics of civil society as they occur by taking into account the institutional constraints that exist. In this context, the picture of civil society that emerges is quite different from what one would expect. It is often assumed that liberal civil society plays a pro-democratization role, while the religious one, linked to Islamist opposition, plays the opposite role. At closer inspection, this is not the case and the labels of liberal civility versus religious incivility are not as clear-cut. The paper highlights how the two sectors both compete and cooperate with each other and how divisions within the two camps further blur the civility/incivility lines. In addition, the paper demonstrates that relations with the ruling regime are far more complex than the simple dichotomy of support/opposition to the said regime. This study concludes that civil society dynamics in North Africa resemble the ones in so-called advanced democracies, as civil society actors take the institutional constraints as a given they have to deal with no matter what its nature is. This de-links civil society from democratisation and permits abetter understanding of what civil society represents and does in the region.

Dr. Tim Jacoby
Political Violence, the ‘War on Terror' and the Turkish State

This paper looks at the impact of the "war on terror" on political violence in Turkey. It begins by tracing the role of NATO in the management and support of Turkey's militarised government since Ankara joined the Alliance in 1952. Here, it suggests that a triangular concert of agents from the Turkish state's intelligence and special-forces organisations, operatives from Washington and right-wing activists and paramilitaries has been an important feature of regime formation and maintenance. By the mid-1990s, though, these covert structures came under increasing social pressure, leading to a period of considerable reform. However, the ‘war on terror' and the West's subsequent turn towards a greater emphasis on security - particularly with regard to Muslim-majority countries - has, this paper argues, begun to undo, enervate or obstruct the implementation of many of these reforms. The result, it is concluded, is that elements of the Turkish state unhappy with recent policies towards Turkey's traditional triumvirate of enemies - leftists, ‘Islamists' and separatists - have been emboldened and, since the collapse of the PKK's unilateral ceasefire in 2004, are beginning to return Turkey to the "dark days" of the early 1990s.

Dr. Pascal Venier
Towards a Geopolitics of Complexity?
The Cynefin framework and the politics "from below"

The Cynefin Framework, developed by David Snowden, is based on research in complexity theory and cognitive science. This methodology would be ideally suited for studying politics "from below" and public opinion, not only in individual Muslim countries, but also for both Muslim communities in Europe. A great advantage is that it offers a scalable model, which from one individual country, could be expended to the whole of the Middle East and would allow for continuous monitoring.

Dr. Michelle Burgis
The civility of targeted assassinations in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The practice of targeted assassinations is an important tool used by both Israeli and Palestinian security personnel in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At home and in the street, trials and evidence give way to killings without redress. Oftentimes, unintended targets also suffer at the hands of masked gunmen who then flee as quickly as they came. Justifications of emergency and exceptionality allow for a space that is seemingly lawless and without limits. Through a discursive reading of Israeli jurisprudence, witness statements and official statements on the policy, however, this paper seeks to explore the intimate and integral relationship between law and these operations. Far from being simply alegal or even illegal, Palestinian and Israeli actors can draw on a myriad of legal narratives to constitute and construct killings with legal largesse. What is the normative framework currently applicable to targeted killings? How can we apply this to its practice in Palestine/Israel and how do different actors narrate their relationship with the law? Are there shared tactics used by Palestinian and Israeli personnel and what does this suggest about the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more broadly? Thus, through a critical appraisal of discursive and legal material, the paper seeks to shed light on how we should make sense of targeted assassinations as scholars of law and as scholars of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr. Farid Boussaid
The place of the business sector in the Moroccan
democratic opening

In contemporary Morocco, changes in the state-business relations are illustrated by the following five key elements. First, there is a better grassroots representation through changes in composition of business associations. Second, there is a growing utilisation of a relatively free economic press for interest promotion. Third, there is a redefinition of state-business relations through the 1995-1996 anti-corruption campaign. Fourth there is the venture into politics by businessmen - with varying degree of success. Finally, there is the activity of business elites in increasing voter participation during the 2007 elections.