In light of how the past year's Arab revolts have come as a surprise to most, there may be good reason, on the one hand, to ask whether and how Middle Eastern studies and social science offer tools for understanding and explaining the character, causes, and implications of the past year's Arab revolts, and on the other hand, to consider whether the turmoil in the Arab world requires us to rethink, correct, or perhaps even abandon some of our earlier assumptions about and conceptions of Arab politics.
These issues will be discussed at the 'mini-conference' on 23. March at 13-16.00: The Arab revolts - revolts in society and science, organized in cooperation with CESAU to mark the publication of a new special issue of Tidsskriftet Politik (15/1) dealing with this problematic.
Morten Valbjørn (Associate professor, IFSK, AU) Introduction: Arab Revolts in Society and the Social Sciences
Jørgen Møller (Associate professor, IFSK, AU) The (un)predictable Middle East: Social Science, Point Predictions, and Pattern Predictions
Bjørn Olav Utvik (Professor, Oslo University) Islamists in a more open political space: What role in the New Middle East?
Rasmus Alenius Boserup (Postdoc, DIIS) Repoliticization and postdemocratization: The Study of Middle East Politics in the Context of the Arab Revolts
Laura Toft Nielsen (Cand Scient. Pol.) Social media before, in and after the first Arab revolts
March 23, 13:00-16:00, Build. 1333, room 101
