On September 15–16, 2012, the Center for International and Regional Studies kicked off the 2012–2013 academic year with a two-day working group meeting to discuss “The Evolving Ruling Bargain in the Middle East.” The members of the working group were invited to Doha for a second time to conclude the research initiative and to discuss their…
Frederic Wehrey, senior associate in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, gave the first CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture of the 2012-2013 academic year on September 17, 2012. The talk titled, “Analogies at War: Libya’s Aftermath and Syria’s Future,” examined the different approaches that the international community has taken towards the Libyan and…
Sir Tim Lankester, Chairman of the Council of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Advisor on South East Asia to the consulting firm Oxford Analytica, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion on “The Politics and Economics of Britain’s Foreign Aid” on October 8, 2012. The talk was based on his recent book,The Politics…
On October 20–21, 2012, The Center for International and Regional Studies launched one of its new research initiatives for the 2012–2013 academic year, “Social Change in Post-Khomeini Iran,” through a two day working group held in Doha. Over the course of the two day meeting, international and regional scholars addressed political, economic, and social aspects of…
William O. Beeman, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota and President of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue on “The Khalijis: Iranian-Arabian Biculturalism in the Gulf Region” on October 22, 2012. As an introduction, Beeman gave the audience some background to what…
H.E. Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Thani, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Qatar Telecom (Qtel), delivered a CIRS Distinguished Lecture on “Technology and the Digital Generation” on November 7, 2012. Al Thani began the lecture by giving an overview of Qtel and the changes it has undergone since being restructured in the…
In collaboration with partner organizations, Qatar’s National Food Security Program hosted the “International Conference on Food Security in Dry Lands” in Doha on November 14th and 15th, 2012. National, regional, and international institutions participated in the conference and addressed challenges facing dry lands in their pursuit of food security. The conference focused on the three…
Rabi Mohtar founded the Global Engineering Program at Purdue University where he was a Professor of Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering since 1996. His professional activities addressed the important issues of Water – Energy Food nexus and its inter-linkages; more specifically in developing and maintaining the environmental aspects of sustainable development.
Sheikha Aisha bint Faleh Al-Thani delivered a Monthly Dialogue lecture on the subject of “Women in Qatar: Quotas, Qualifications, and Qatarization” on December 4, 2012. Sheikha Al Thani is the chairperson and founder of Al Faleh Group, an organization that provides educational products and services, and she also serves on the Board of Directors for the Supreme…
On December 8–9, 2012, CIRS convened its first Working Group meeting under the research initiative “Weak States in the Greater Middle East.” Participants employed a multi-disciplinary approach to critically analyze the terminology of weak and failing states, and the political implications associated with states being characterized as such. In addition to exploring cross-cutting themes on the…
On January 5–6, 2013, CIRS held a working group meeting under the research initiative “Politics and the Media in the Post-Arab Spring Middle East.” Given the profound socio-political transitions within Arab states in the wake of the Arab Spring, participants used a multidisciplinary approach to analyze shifts in the role of the media and how it…
Former Foreign Minister of Thailand and career diplomat Kasit Piromya was the featured speaker for a CIRS Monthly Dialoguelecture on January 22, 2013. His Excellency Piromya’s talk, titled “Southeast Asia’s Role in Global Food Security,” focused on the role of Southeast Asian countries as major exporters of food and as the “food cradle” or “food kitchen”…