event
CCDP Research Seminar
Wednesday
21
April
Souhaïl Belhadj

When the Margins Contest the State: Dynamics of Conflict and Political Transformations in the MENA Region and Elsewhere in the World

Souhaïl Belhadj
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Online

This event is part of the CCDP's Research Seminar Series hosted and organized by Janine Bressmer (Doc.CH Fellow at the CCDP), with the support of Maëlys Glück (Research Assistant at the CCDP). 

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Seminar description

What happens when the peripheries (margins) of a state expand beyond the space in which that state tolerates them? What happens when the state and its peripheries give up their common strategy of "avoidance", which usually consists in managing their conflicts without directly confronting each other? Do revolutions and radical changes in social and political structures most often arise from confrontation between the margins and the central State?

The MENA region will be the focus of our analysis since the margins have emerged as the driving force of the political upheavals and transformations that the region is undergoing. Nevertheless, other examples elsewhere in the world (“Gilets jaunes” in France; Kurdish area in Turkey; 1992 Los Angeles riots) could serve as case studies and comparatively feed into our reflections.

 

about the speaker

Souhaïl Belhadj, research associate at the CCDP, holds a PhD in Political Science at Sciences Po Paris. He is the author of the book La Syrie de Bashar al-Asad. Anatomie d'un régime autoritaire (Belin 2013). His current research concentrates on the transition process in Syria and Tunisia, with a focus on the local government and politics. He worked on a three-year project named “Tunisia: Security Provision and Local State Authority in a Time of Transition”, with the support of the Gerda Henkel Foundation and now conducting a research on Economy of Violence and Armed Conflict in Syria. 

 

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