The Freeman Spogli Institute’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) has announced the establishment of a new Program on Good Governance and Political Reform in the Arab World, the result of a generous gift from the Foundation for Reform and Development in the Middle East (FDRDME), based in Geneva, Switzerland.  The program, which will run for five years beginning in September 2009, will conduct research, conferences, and seminars and sponsor visiting scholars at CDDRL.  The program's scholarly research will examine the different social and political dynamics within Arab societies and the evolution of political systems, with an eye on the prospects, conditions, and possible pathways for political reform.

The new program will bring together scholars, experts, and journalists from Arab countries and their Western counterparts, as well as local actors of diverse backgrounds, to consider how democratization and more responsive and accountable governance might be achieved, as a general challenge and within specific Arab countries.  Among the program's first research projects will be to consider transitions from absolute monarchy in historical and comparative perspective. To this effect, are there any lessons that can be drawn from past experiences, and across different settings, and to what degrees can they apply to the Arab World?  A conference taking stock of democratic progress and conditions in the Arab world is planned for the coming academic year.

Center Director Larry Diamond thanked the Foundation for its visionary contribution. "This gift puts Stanford on the map in contemporary Arab studies and will make CDDRL one of the most important academic sites for studying these issues.  In the modern history of the Arab world, there has never been a more compelling and opportune moment to examine current conditions of governance and factors that might facilitate or obstruct democratic change."In the modern history of the Arab world, there has never been a more compelling and opportune moment to examine current conditions of governance and factors that might facilitate or obstruct democratic change

"The striking political continuity in the Arab world is not just of analytic interest, but is a challenge to sustained long-term economic development, stability, and peace." Diamond stated. "From the expressions and actions of vibrant and diverse civil societies in the region, and a growing wealth of public opinion-survey evidence, we know that peoples of the regino desire political emancipation and self-determinationFrom the expressions and actions of vibrant and diverse civil societies in the region, and a growing wealth of public opinion survey evidence, we know that peoples of the region desire political emancipation and self-determination no less than others around the world.  The challenge is to figure out how indigenous democratic change might be negotiated in ways that generate broad societal consensus and do not risk violence or instability."

The program will be supervised by Diamond and CDDRL Deputy Director Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, in interaction with Professor Olivier Roy, in his capacities as a leading Western scholar of political Islam and as director of FDRDME. Roy, a long-time scholar and research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) who has just been named Professor of Mediterranean Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, will be a frequent participant in program events and a recurrent visitor to CDDRL.  Other program participants will include Hicham Ben Abdallah from Morocco, a Visiting Scholar at CDDRL, and Sean Yom, a new political science PhD from Harvard University, who will be a postdoctoral fellow at CDDRL next year. The program will also hire a full-time research scholar and manager.