Webinar Series: Renewing the path to democracy amid crisis: Comparative perspectives on today's regimes

During the last decade, ARI's work has aimed at observing and accompanying transitions and 'detransitions' in the region. In this moment of great fluctuation amid a global democracy crisis, our aim is to provide a space for regional conversations on matters of political regime.

This webinar series will be the space to reflect on the question of regime forms in the region.

For this first webinar, we invite three important Arab thinkers, Elia Ayoub, Alaa Badr and Leyla Dakhli to discuss how democracy, as a concept, be reinvented in a context of global conservative wave that threatens democratic gains across the planet.

In the Arab World, after a decade of fluttering democratic transition, Tunisia has gone back to one-man rule, aided by a growing sense of disappointment with the wanderings of political personnel lacking any vision. The Tunisian example has shown that an aggiornamento of emancipatory thinking in the Arab world is necessary, as "democracy" in itself seems to have lost its value. With the fall of the half a century old Assad regime, proving once again that authoritarian resilience remains a myth, the need to draw lessons from past democratic experience seems all the more important.

For decades, democracy and liberalism have been the horizons of emancipation carried by the vast majority of the Arab oppositions. So much so that as the revolutions happened, taking both regimes and oppositions by surprise, the only answer given was that of a democratic transition. However, since then, the Tunisian experience has shown that democracy and a few freedoms alone are not enough to ensure the attachment of the masses to this form of regime amid an economic crisis met with lack of vision.

• In light of this both global and local crisis of democracy, what can Arab “democrats” bring to the table?
• Can a “democrat” political identity be the flagship for a horizon of equality, justice and dignity?
• What is the role of research, of political parties and of public intellectuals in this endeavour?

• Where do social and economic justice stand in this political identity?

You can register to attend by following this link. You will receive a Zoom confirmation email should your registration be successful. Alternatively, you can watch the event live here on our Facebook page.