Democracy and Governance Studies

Welcome to the Democracy and Governance Studies program at Georgetown University, housing the Master of Arts in Democracy and Governance and the Center for Democracy and Civil Society (CDACS).

CDACS publishes the bi-annual Democracy and Society and recently launched the Democracy and Society blog.

Democracy & Governance Program Open House

The Master of Arts Program in Democracy & Governance will be hosting an Open House for prospective students Wednesday, November 4th, at 5:30 pm.  The open house will be held at the Mortara Center for International Studies, 36th and N Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20007.  Please R.S.V.P. to Sarah Jackson at sij3@georgetown.edu.

DG Student's Op-Ed Featured in The Wall Street Journal

DG student Samuel Tadros co-authored an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal.  The article was written with Amr Bargisi and is entitled, "Why Are Egypt's Liberals Anti-Semitic?  Western delegates to the Cairo congress should know about the country's Judeophobia."  Tadros and Bargisi are both senior partners with the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth (EULY). 

DG Student, Union of the Egyptian Liberal Youth receive Templeton Award

Congratulations to the Union of the Egyptian Liberal Youth (EULY) and DG student and EULY senior partner Samuel Tadros!  EULY recently won an "Award for Special Achievement by a Young Institute" in the Atlas Economic Research Foundation's 2009 Templeton Freedom Awards for Excellence in Promoting Liberty.  The Templeton Freedom Awards are the largest international awards program for think tanks. Samuel will join EULY at Atlas's Freedom Dinner on November 9th, 2009 in Washington, D.C., when the organization will be recognized for its “Why Am I a Liberal?” essay competition, the first of its kind in the Arab world.

The Minaret and the Satellite Dish
Intense turmoil is destabilizing many parts of the Muslim world. What are the challenges and opportunities Israel faces in this changing political environment?  On October 21st, 2009, the Center for Democracy & Civil Society and the Embassy of the State of Israel present Avi Melamed on "The Minaret and the Satellite Dish: Opportunities and Challenges for Israel in a Changing Muslim World." 

Mr. Melamed is an independent security analyst in Israel on Middle East affairs. He has held a range of governmental posts on intelligence and counter-terrorism, and served as the Senior Advisor on Arab Affairs to Jerusalem Mayors Teddy Kollek and Ehud Olmert. He is also the co-author of Separate and Unequal-The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem (Harvard University Press, 1999).

12:00 to 1:30 PM
MSFS Conference Room, Seventh Floor, Intercultural Center (ICC)
Georgetown University
37th and O Streets, N.W.
Washington, DC 20057
RSVP to gucdacs@gmail.com or 202-687-0596.

Call for Papers

The Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University, in cooperation with Freedom House and the Forum for the Study of Democracy, invites paper submissions for The Graduate Student and Junior Practitioners Symposium, "Democrats, Dictators, and Demonstrators: Sharing Strategies on Repression and Reform." The symposium will be held on December 10, 2009 in Washington, DC. The final deadline for submitting a 250 word abstract is October 30, 2009. If selected, your papers must be sent to both your session chair and respondent by November 27, 2009.  For more information, read the Call for Papers.

Engaging the Muslim World

Please join Democracy & Governance Program Co-Director Professor Daniel Brumberg, director of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) Muslim World Initiative, for a lively discussion on "Conflict, Identity, and Reform in the Muslim World," also the title of USIP's new volume edited by Professor Brumberg and Dina Shehata.

The event, on October 15th from 9:30 to noon at USIP's offices at 1200 17th Street, NW, Washington, D.C., will feature speakers including:

Keynote Address

• The Honorable Keith Ellison (D-MN)
  U.S. House of Representatives
• David R. Smock, Commentator
  Vice President, Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution, Religion and Peacemaking Center of Innovations

Speakers

• Abiodun Williams, Moderator
  Director, Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention, U.S. Institute of Peace
• Daniel Brumberg
  Director, Muslim World Initiative, U.S. Institute of Peace
  Co-Director, Democracy Studies, Georgetown University
• Dina Shehata
  Senior Researcher, Al-Ahram Center, Cairo
• Ömer Taşpınar
  Non-resident Scholar, Saban Center, Brookings Institution
• Palwasha Hassan
  Jennings Randolph Afghanistan Fellow, U.S. Institute of Peace

Call for Papers

The Fall issue of Democracy and Society will examine the Obama Administration’s emerging foreign policy. We are interested in articles that analyze the outlines of the policy objectives, the administration’s reaction to crises, and those that articulate exigent US foreign policy interests. We are seeking submissions of 800-2000 words on the themes below, including summaries and/or excerpts of recently completed research, new publications, and work in progress. Submissions for the issue are due Friday, October 9, 2009. For additional information, please visit www.democracyandsociety.com or contact editor@democracyandsociety.com.

Elections in Afghanistan

CDACS Executive Director Barak Hoffman and M.A. in Democracy and Governance alumni Austan Mogharabi, Danielle Pearl, Evan Smith, and Miki Wilkins traveled to Afghanistan to serve as election observers as part of a delegation from Democracy International. The purpose of the mission was to evaluate the degree to which the conduct of the election conformed to accepted international norms of election administration, human rights, and democratic representation. The credibility of the elections is vital to the consolidation of democracy in Afghanistan. The Government of Afghanistan's Independent Electoral Commission has not yet announced the results.

Tanzania's Missing Opposition

"Tanzania's Missing Opposition," by CDACS Executive Director Barak Hoffman and M.A. in Democracy and Governance Candidate Lindsay Robinson, will be published in the Journal of Democracy.  The paper examines why opposition parties in Tanzania remain chronically weak a decade and a half after the country's democratic transition.  Hoffman and Robinson argue that while part of the absence of a vigorous political opposition results from a combination of little demand for it and its uninspiring leadership, the main reason opposition parties remain weak is because the ruling party suppresses those who contest its near-monopoly of power, including resorting to coercion when other methods of containing the opposition fail.

Cuba and Castroism

Democracy and Governance Program Co-Director Professor Eusebio Mujal-León recently published a number of  articles on Cuba and Castroism, marking the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution in early 2009.  "The Myths and Costs of the Cuban Revolution", a review of The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States, and the Next Revolution (Erikson, 2008); The Portable Island: Cubans at Home in the World (Behar and Suarez, 2008); and Che’s Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image (Casey, 2009), is featured in the Summer 2009 issue of Americas Quarterly. 

In January 2009, the Journal of Democracy published "Can Cuba Change? Tensions in the Regime".  The article examines the evolution of underlying change and reform during the Castro regime, both before and after Fidel Castro turned power over to his brother Raúl Castro.

In December 2008, Professor Mujal-León co-wrote a chapter published in The Sacred in Twentieth Century Politics: Essays in Honour of Professor Stanley G. Payne (Eds. Mallett, Tortorice, and Griffin) with Georgetown Professor Eric Langenbacher, entitled "Is Castroism a Political Religion?"   The chapter looks closely at the ideas behind Castroism, how this conforms with the concept of political religion, and what this means for the future of Cuba.

New Book Looks at Globalization and Civil Societies Worldwide

CDACS faculty associate Steven Heydemann recently published a co-edited volume, Globalization, Philanthropy, and Civil Society: Projecting Institutional Logics Abroad. The book explores the global diffusion of models for the organization of civil societies and nonprofit organizations.

Prof. Heydemann is a co-founder of CDACS and the Georgetown Democracy and Governance program. He teaches graduate-level classes on regime transitions, authoritarian politics, and social science research methods. His co-editor is David Hammack, Haydn Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University.

Democracy & Society on the Prospects for Democracy Abroad

The Spring 2009 issue of CDACS' journal, Democracy & Society, looks at global democratic recession, the consolidation of authoritarian regimes, our understandings of these phenomena, and how democracy assistance programs might respond. Also included are reviews of recent titles by Robert Kagan, Michael Klare, Edward Lucas, Susan Shirk, and Barbara Slavin. Please stay tuned for the Fall 2009 call for papers.

Addressing the Democratic Recession

According to Freedom House, the proportion of electoral democracies has declined for two years in a row. This is the first democratic recession since the end of the Cold War. The decline, in part, stems from the policies of the Bush Administration as well as from incomplete democratic transitions. It is also the result of deliberate reforms to strengthen authoritarian regimes. CDACS Executive Director Barak Hoffman and MA student Jack Santucci argue that unless the Obama administration addresses the causes of the democratic recession by focusing more attention on the difficulties of democratic consolidation, it is likely to deepen.