This workshop is sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Program, and co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, the Europe Center, and the Stanford Humanities Center
Stanford faculty, students, scholars and staff are welcome to attend. To RSVP, please contact medstudies@stanford.edu.
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE:
November 15th
10:30 am – Noon: Conceptual Explorations
Haldun Gulalp (Department Political Science, Yildiz Technical University) “Rethinking Islam and Secularization in Turkey: A Durkheimian Perspective”
Ahmet Kuru (Department of Political Science, San Diego State University) “Islamism, Secularism, and Democracy in Turkey”
2:00 pm- 3:30 pm: Managing the Difference
Aykan Erdemir (Department of Sociology, Middle East Technical University) “Faith-based Activism for Secularism: The Transformation of Alevi Collective Action Repertoire in Turkey”
Murat Somer (Department of International Relations, Koc University; Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Princeton University) “Islamic-Conservative and Pro-Secular Values and the Management of Ethnic Diversity and Conflict”
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm: Claiming Secularism
Umit Kurt (Department of History, Clark University) “Military’s Perceptions of Islam and Secularism in Contemporary Turkey”
Kabir Tambar (Department of Religion, University of Vermont) “Staging Alevi Pasts in Secular Time”
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November 16th
10: 30 am- Noon: Turkey’s “Islamists” and “Secularists” Abroad
Betul Balkan (Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Northeastern University) “Opinions of Turkish Immigrants in Houston About Secularism and Islam in Turkey”
Zeynep Atalay (Department of Sociology, University of Maryland-College Park; The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Stanford University) “From the Neighborhood to Umma: Global Networks of Muslim Civil Society in Turkey”
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm: Contextualizing the Turkish Case
Hootan Shambayati (Division of Public Affairs, Florida Gulf Coast University) “Controlled Democratization, Moderate Islam, and Radical Secularism: Lessons from Turkey and their Implications for the Middle East”
Nora Fisher-Onar (Department of Politics and International Relations, Bahcesehir University; Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford) “Vision or Cacophony?: Mixing Liberal-Democratic, Religious-Conservative, Power Political, and Ottomanist Metaphors in Contemporary Turkey”
4:00 pm- 5:30 pm: Concluding Session
Riva Kastoryano (Center for International Studies and Research, Sciences Politique)
Larry Diamond (Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University)
In medicine, transportation, commerce and entertainment, and countless other fields, technology has transformed our lives and provided immense value for millions.
Yet despite all of these revolutionary advances, it has yet to have a similar impact to radically improve the workings of public policy. This situation is especially unfortunate given the fiscal, economic, and social challenges facing our democracy and those around the world. If there's ever a time where politics could use some creative solutions, it's now.
This seminar will highlight some of the legal, political, and social barriers preventing disruptive innovation from taking hold in the public policy sphere, as well as ways to remove these barriers. Drawing on sources ranging from theoretical physics and constitutional law to popular culture, the seminar will provide unique and practical perspectives on how technology can help democracies around the world evolve.
The seminar will offer provocative insights, thought-provoking discussions, and practical tools to help our society can facilitate the evolution of better political, economic, and social institutions.
Matt Harrison graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Political Science and from the University of Southern California with a joint law degree and Master of Public Policy. Matt founded Prometheus in 2003 and serves as the Institute's President. As the driving force behind the creative and strategic vision of Prometheus, Matt identified and recruited a talented team of engineers, designers and contributors. He was the brainchild behind the DIY Democracy iPhone app, has authored over 200 articles, publications and other features for Prometheus, has been a guest on several talk radio shows and has been quoted in the Orange County Register and Chicago Tribune.
Join us for a discussion on human rights and environmental justice implications surrounding the BP oil spill from regulatory, litigation and conceptual perspectives.
Introduced and moderated by Dr. Helen Stacy, Co-ordinator, Program on Human Rights in the Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law and Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute.
Panelists:
Meg Caldwell, Director, Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program; Executive Director, Center for Ocean Solutions, Woods Institute for the Environment. Professor Caldwell's scholarship focuses on the environmental effects of local land use decisions, the use of science in environmental and marine resource policy development and implementation, and developing private and public incentives for natural resource conservation.
Deborah Sivas, Luke W. Cole Professor of Environmental Law and Director, Environmental Law Clinic. Professor Sivas's current research is focused on the interaction of law and science in the arena of climate change and coastal/marine policy and the ability of the public to hold policymakers accountable.
Ursula Heise, Director, Program in Modern Thought & Literature and Professor of English; member of the Executive Committee of the Program in Science, Technology & Society; Affiliated Faculty of the Woods Institute for the Environment. Author of Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global (Oxford University Press, 2008), After Nature: Species Extinction and Modern Culture, (forthcoming) and The Avantgarde and the Forms of Nature (in progress).
This two day conference will examine the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to expand freedom and generate more pluralistic flows of ideas and information in authoritarian contexts. Through presentation of papers and panel sessions, three key themes will be explored:
How individuals in authoritarian countries are using liberation technologies (particularly the internet and mobile phones) to expand pluralism and freedom.
How authoritarian states are censoring, constraining, monitoring, and punishing the use of ICT for that purpose.
How citizens and groups can circumvent authoritarian censorship and control of these technologies.
Discussion will focus on these challenges generally and also specific developments in countries such as China, Iran, Cuba, Burma, and North Korea, as well as Russia and selected Arab authoritarian regimes.
The conference is sponsored by the Program on Liberation Technology at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford, in cooperation with the Hoover Institution.
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
sagolkar@stanford.edu
Saeid Golkar is an Iranian political scientist who finished his
Ph.D. at the Department of Political Science
at Tehran University in June 2008, with a dissertation entitled
"Power and Resistance, State and University in Post Revolutionary Iran". He iscurrently
in residence at Stanford University's Center on Democracy,
Development, and the Rule of Law. From 2004 to 2009, he was a lecturer in the
Department of Social Sciences at Azad University, in Iran, where
he taught undergraduate courses on the political sociology
of Iran and sociology of war and military forces. His research interests
encompass politics of authoritarian regime, political sociology
of Iran, political violence and democracy promotion in
the Middle East. Recent publications include articles in the Journal of
Middle East quarterly, Middle East brief.
Simeon Nichter is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. He also serves as a non-resident Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Global Development. Nichter holds a PhD in Political Science from UC Berkeley, an MPA in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a BA in Economics from Carleton College.
Simeon's ongoing research explores the political voice of poor and marginalized populations in emerging democracies, with central reference to Latin America. He examines how politicians offer material benefits to the poor in exchange for political support, and investigates how individuals' vote choices affect subsequent access to services. His research has been funded by fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Jacob K. Javits Program, and other sources. He has recently published articles in the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Review of Economics and Statistics, and World Development.
