Alaa Al Aswany, author of The Dictatorship Syndrome (2019), gives a talk for the Middle East Centre seminar series. Chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony's College, Oxford) Alaa Al Aswany is Egypt’s most celebrated novelist and essayist whose books are runaway bestsellers in Arabic and have been translated into more than 30 languages. His second nove ... Show More
Mar 2025
The chaos (fawḍà) Bashshar al-Asad warned against – Damascus University 10th November 2005 – and present-day Syria
On Friday 21 February 2025, Professor Johannes Waardenburg gave the Middle East Centre’s Friday seminar Biography: Professor JST Waardenburg teaches the general history of the Arab world at the IULM in Milan. As a
historian, he specialises in the period of the Ba‘th party in powe ... Show More
51m 18s
Feb 2025
Israeli Public Opinion, War and Prospects for Peace
Political strategist and public opinion researcher, Dr Dahlia Scheindlin, shares her analysis of public opinion surveys before and during the war in Gaza. Israelis have shown increasingly hardline, right-wing, nationalist trends in public opinion surveys in recent years, leading ... Show More
1h 10m
Apr 2023
Tunisia’s democracy on the brink
Tunisia in North Africa was the birthplace of the Arab Spring, a wave of popular uprisings that shook or toppled authoritarian regimes in the region. But, after a decade of fragile democracy, in 2019 a new strongman, President Kais Saied, swept to power. He directed his campaign ... Show More
49m 5s
Jan 2024
Is the world losing faith in democracy?
2024 will be the world’s biggest election year ever. From the United States to the UK, Taiwan to India, South Africa to Mexico, it’s estimated countries representing nearly half the world’s population will head to the polls in some form of election this year. But how much faith d ... Show More
48m 57s
Jun 2019
Ece Temelkuran on How to Save Democracy
Just a decade ago, Ece Temelkuran was recognized as the most-read political columnist in Turkey, then a thriving secular democracy. Today, she no longer lives in Turkey and her homeland is on the knife’s edge of dictatorship under the rule of President Erdogan. Temelkuran, author ... Show More
33m 14s