The Conflict Management Program of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Middle East Institute (MEI) hosted I. William Zartman (SAIS), Allen Keiswetter (MEI), and Ellen Laipson (Stimson Center) for a discussion of Dr. Zartman's new book: Arab Spring: Negotiating in the Shadow of the Intifadat.
Contributors to the book argue that in uprisings like the Arab Spring, negotiation is "not just a 'nice' practice or a diplomatic exercise." Rather, it is a "dynamically multilevel" process involving individuals, groups, and states with continually shifting priorities, and with the prospect of violence always near. The essayists analyze a range of issues and events - including civil disobedience and strikes, mass demonstrations and nonviolent protest, and peaceful negotiation and armed rebellion - and contextualize their findings within previous struggles, both in and outside the Middle East.
Collectively, the essays analyze the challenges of uprisers and emerging governments in building a new state on the ruins of a liberated state; the negotiations that lead either to sustainable democracy or sectarian violence; and coalition building between former political and military adversaries.
Daniel Serwer (SAIS and MEI) moderated the event.
Speakers:
Allen Keiswetter
Scholar, MEI
Allen Keiswetter, a retired senior foreign service officer, is a scholar at the Middle East Institute, senior consultant at C&O Resources and an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. In his 36 years at the Department of State, he was deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, director of Arabian Peninsula affairs in the Near East Bureau, and director of the Office of Intelligence Liaison in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He also served as NATO deputy assistant secretary general for political affairs in Brussels and as the senior advisor on the Middle East to the U.S. delegation to the General Assembly. He has taught courses on Islam and on the Middle East at the National War College and the National Defense Intelligence College.
Ellen Laipson
Distinguished Fellow and President Emeritus of Stimson, Stimson Center
Ellen Laipson is a distinguished fellow and president emeritus of Stimson. She also directs the Middle East/Southwest Asia program, which covers issues including Gulf security and the strategic repercussions of the Arab transitions. Laipson joined Stimson in 2002, after 25 years of government service. Her last post was vice chair of the National Intelligence Council (1997-2002). She also served on the State Department's policy planning staff and was a specialist in Middle East affairs for the Congressional Research Service. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the International Advisory Council of the International Institute of Strategic Studies. She served on the board of the Asia Foundation (2003-2015). She was a member of President Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board from 2009-2013, and on the Secretary of State's Foreign Affairs Policy Board 2011-2014.
I. William Zartman
Jacob Blaustein Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University
I. William Zartman is the Jacob Blaustein Distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Organization and Conflict Resolution at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of many works on North Africa as well as on sub-Saharan African politics and regional relations. Prior to his long tenure at SAIS, he was on the faculty of international studies at the University of South Carolina (1960-65) and then professor of politics at New York University (1965-80). During his career he has been a distinguished fellow of the United States Institute of Peace, Olin professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, Elie Halévy professor at the Institute for Political Studies (Sciences Pô) in Paris, and has taught or lectured in universities across the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, in China, and at The University of the Andes. Zartman has written, edited, or coedited some twenty books, including Understanding Life in the Borderlands: Boundaries in Depth and in Motion (Georgia).
Daniel Serwer
Professor of Conflict Management at Johns Hopkins SAIS and Scholar, MEI
Daniel Serwer is a senior research professor of conflict management and senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, as well as a fellow at the Middle East Institute. Formerly vice president for Centers of Peacebuilding Innovation at the United States Institute of Peace (2009-2010), he led teams there working on rule of law, religion, economics, media, technology, security sector governance, and gender. He was also vice president for Peace and Stability Operations at USIP (1998-2009), where he led its peacebuilding work in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and the Balkans and served as executive director of the Hamilton/Baker Iraq Study Group. Serwer has worked on preventing inter-ethnic and sectarian conflict in Iraq and has facilitated dialogue between Serbs and Albanians in the Balkans.
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