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DTSTART:20141025T220000
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20140212T110000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20140212T210000
DTSTAMP:20260416T011224
CREATED:20140915T053104Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240314T104021Z
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SUMMARY:The Paradox of Renewable Energy in Qatar
DESCRIPTION:Omran Al-Kuwari\, co-founder and CEO of GreenGulf\, delivered a CIRS Focused Discussion lecture on “The Paradox of Renewable Energy in Qatar” on February 12\, 2014. The talk was centered on the drivers of investing in renewable energy in the context of Qatar\, and how these have been radically transformed over recent years. The Gulf is seen as a single market\, Al-Kuwari said\, but it is important to point out the differences between the various regional states. “Qatar is a very unique country in the Gulf\,” as “it is the only country in the world that you can safely say has enough gas and enough power to supply itself and to export for the foreseeable future.” Qatar is in a favorable position because of its large natural gas reserves\, which has provided an increasingly advantageous energy option for a new generation of people. \n\nAl-Kuwari gave a brief historical overview of the Gulf region’s hydrocarbon exploitation efforts. The largest gas reserves in the world were discovered in the North Field between Qatar and Iran about thirty years ago. At the time\, this discovery was greeted with disappointment as natural gas commanded little value\, and was seen as inferior to oil and other hydrocarbons\, which were driving the global economy. However\, over the years\, as technology advanced\, and as environmental issues became more pertinent\, “gas became the fuel of choice for power production\,” he said. \n\nCurrently\, “Qatar is the only country in the GCC that could supply all its power—100%—from gas\,” meaning that it can exploit its oil reserves purely for export and revenue generation. Other countries in the region like Saudi Arabia\, Kuwait\, and Oman rely on oil to generate power supplies to drive their own national economies as well as international ones\, and so must divide oil reserves between national needs and international requirements. Such a model\, Al-Kuwari argued\, is ultimately unsustainable as these countries are burning their own oil\, which leads to loss of export revenue\, the rapid depletion of the resource\, as well as increased pollution. Thus\, “renewable energy has become a necessity\,” he said. In the Gulf\, this is a necessity that stems purely from an economic perspective\, regardless of the positive ideological and environmental advantages renewable energy offers. Oil and gas reserves will gradually become depleted\, and nuclear energy will take a long time to establish\, if at all. Renewable energy is actually the only viable alternative for many of the regional states\, as well as international ones. \n\n“Solar energy\,” Al-Kuwari said “is low-hanging fruit in the region” because of the large amount of predictable sunlight – on average\, the region receives ten hours a day in comparison to only five hours in other parts of the world. Al-Kuwari explained that “solar energy actually fits with our needs…it’s a good match for our region\, and it’s a good match for Qatar\, and it is easy to implement” because it is a resource that can be used to generate immediate power and does not even necessarily need to be stored. The paradox\, Al-Kuwari argued\, is why countries in the region have not taken full advantage of this abundant\, natural resource and why there is so much sunlight\, and yet so little infrastructure geared towards harnessing solar power. This paradox exists for two reasons\, he explained. The first is related to the question of cost and the second is related to lack of demand. While these prohibitive reasons were valid in the past\, the circumstances have now changed. Due to technological advancements in the area of renewable energies\, the costs have now been considerably reduced. Demand has simultaneously been increased because of an increase in population in all the countries of the region as well as an increase in industry and output. \n\nBecause Qatar is in a unique position in terms of having excess energy\, the decision-makers have the luxury of creating these projects from their foundation in a deliberate and efficient way that makes sense for the future. Importantly\, Al-Kuwari noted\, “because of Qatar’s long-term interest in becoming more of a diversified economy\,” these initiatives are being built from the ground up\, and are being established all across the country in a simultaneous and synergistic manner that makes cohesive and efficient sense. Currently\, GreenGulf is involved in multiple projects and encouraging the use of solar energy as a highly efficient and clean energy source that will ultimately lead to more awareness and education regarding the benefits of clean technologies. \n\nOmran Al-Kuwari is the co-founder and CEO of GreenGulf\, a clean technology and renewable energy advisory business focused on the development and management of renewable energy in the Middle East\, North Africa and Asia. He is an energy professional with over 10 year experience in the Energy Industry. After joining Qatargas in 1999\, Al-Kuwari worked for several joint ventures\, Qatar Petroleum affiliates and ExxonMobil in Doha and the United Kingdom. He was General Manager and Director of South hook Gas Company in London until August 2009\, Qatar Petroleum’s first major LNG trading venture abroad and the UK’s largest LNG importer. Al-Kuwari holds a BA in Business Administration from the George Washington University\, and an MBA from City University London. His research has focused on “Renewable Energy in Qatar” in 2010. \n\nArticle by Suzi Mirgani\, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications 
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/paradox-renewable-energy-qatar/
CATEGORIES:Dialogue Series,Environmental Studies,Regional Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20140215T080000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20140216T180000
DTSTAMP:20260416T011224
CREATED:20140914T224334Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240314T104016Z
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SUMMARY:Transitional Justice in the Middle East - Working Group I
DESCRIPTION:On February 15-16\, 2014\, Regional and international experts gathered for the inaugural meeting of the CIRS “Transitional Justice in the Middle East” research initiative. While much of the scholarship on transitional justice has been conducted in other regions of the globe\, recent political transitions in the region have invigorated studies on the manifestation and application of transitional justice mechanisms in the Middle East. Various topics ranging from the theoretical underpinnings and scope of transitional justice to specific case-studies of Middle Eastern experiences related to reconciliation\, and restorative and retributive justice were discussed by the multi-disciplinary working group participants. \n \n \nIn beginning the discussion on transitional justice in the Middle East\, participants drew on past and current experiences of countries from around the globe in order to identify the most salient markers studied in the field. Studying transitional justice in a comparative perspective however\, has revealed that assessing its impact is not a seamless activity as the process itself continues to have shifting goals. Within transitional justice\, there is a myriad of objectives related to retributive justice\, deterrence\, vindication of victims\, and reconciliation that both practitioners and academics discuss and refer to. However\, each of these benchmarks remains elusive with regards to whom they address\, what form or shape they take\, and the mechanisms and institutions that are used to address them. For instance with regards to the vindication of victims\, the diversity in types of victims and the fact that the requirements of victims change over time\, further complicate the objectives. \n \n \nMoreover\, it is not clear how practitioners and scholars define victim-centered justice. At times\, and particularly in Islamic law and teachings\, there exists a structural tension between forgiveness and societal reconciliation and the private rights of retribution for the individual victim. A victim-centric approach would more actively advocate for the individual’s right to justice. In addition\, the scope of transitional justice is also a contested issue. While in the past it has primarily been about accountability for gross violations to human rights—particularly in relation to bodily harm—it has expanded its remit and is increasingly connected to development policy\, and economic\, social and cultural rights. This is particularly salient in the context of the recent uprisings in the Middle East\, where criminal liability for monetary and political corruption has been put on the transitional justice agenda. \n \n \nPart of the difficulty in defining goals and assessing impact lies in the issue of local versus international ownership over transitional justice processes. Since the 1990s\, mechanisms and processes of transitional justice have been heavily internationally driven and funded. Thus\, assessing where the demand for various goals stems from and the level of local ownership are vital when discussing case-studies of transitional justice and their respective impact. Concomitantly\, the local power dynamics that are at play in articulating demands also provide insight into why particular actors advocate for certain temporal boundaries of transitional justice as well as various mechanisms and institutional designs to deal with past injustices. Political parties and actors in Tunisia that have borne the brunt of state repression since the state’s independence\, particularly Ennahda\, have advocated for longer temporal boundaries of transitional justice that predate Ben Ali’s regime and extend back to the founding of the Tunisian state in 1956. In opting for a longer temporal boundary of transitional justice\, it is evident that Ennahda seeks to “deconstruct modernist narratives” of both Ben Ali and Bourguiba and to delegitimize the older political order. Other groups\, such as women that have been victims of state repression\, have sought to correct historical narratives of Tunisia’s state feminism and perceptions of women’s rights in Tunisia as being the most advanced in the Arab world. Ennahda women and women affiliated with Ennahda supporters are actively seeking in this transitory phase to provide accurate narratives about what the status was for all women in Ben Ali’s Tunisia by speaking out about gender injustices. \n \n \nMemories and narratives about the past are an integral part of a society’s transition post-conflict. There are more formal processes of truth telling and dealing with the past such as truth and reconciliation commissions and trials and tribunals; many of these visible processes however\, have been adopted by the state. Other informal processes involve civil society\, cultural production\, and non-recorded narratives. In dealing with the past\, participants specifically discussed martyrdom in North Africa and its role in transitional periods. Martyrs are employed into state-building efforts and the political agendas of political actors\, exemplifying how the past serves an agenda for the future; the FLN in Algeria\, for instance\, based a lot of its political strategies on mujahedeen or martyrs. Martyrs have also been deployed by citizens of the state\, as is the case in Tunisia\, who have advocated for communal reparations for those that have died during the protests and have simultaneously promoted a distributary vision of the state as seen in the slogan Haq Al-Thawra or “right of the revolution.” \n \n \nIn various post-atrocity transitions around the world\, constitutional development has been intertwined with the process of transitional justice. In dealing with past grievances and planning for the future\, constitutions provide a method of creating\, shaping and allocating power. Working group participants discussed the successful example of constitutional development in post-apartheid South Africa and the particular sequencing of the process. Dealing with injustices of the past presumes that the transitional justice process is a selective process that emphasizes certain problems and actors to the exclusion of others. While advantaging groups who were previously repressed\, transitional justice can also create obstacles to visiting certain issues by marginalizing them during the initial process. They can also be damaging by reifying particular solutions which become problematic for society in the long-run. Participants further questioned whether there is a trade-off between the timing and depth of transitional justice. In the South African example\, a consociational government drafted the interim constitution. Contrasted to the current situation in Libya\, where the presence of militias has created a “shallow” form of justice and where political isolation of previous regime members has taken worse form than de-Baathification in Iraq. Participants further discussed how structural constraints related to the ancien regime can also pose challenges to institutional development and the promotion of human rights—two areas that are closely linked with transitional justice processes. Where the security sector has been implicated in human rights violations and lacks accountability\, security sector reform is a focal point of institutional development. In Egypt\, the continued dominant role of the army has hindered efforts of security sector reform—reform that is particularly concerned with citizen and human security rather than that of the ruling powers. Although transitional justice promotes the development of constitutions and institutional reform\, whether it creates systems that align with values that are beneficial to societies in the long-run\, depends on a multitude of vital factors. \n \n \nWhile discussing constitutional development and transition\, participants noted the faulty assumption that transitional justice is linked to democratization and that the endpoint to the transition is in the form of a liberal democratic system. In fact\, in some cases such as the monarchies of Bahrain and Morocco\, transitional justice mechanisms have been implemented without the preface of political transition. Evidently\, in these cases\, democratization is not the end goal\, but rather\, the implementation of these mechanisms may enable monarchs to gain political capital both locally and internationally. In the absence of political transition the efficacy of truth commissions and the commissions of inquiry in Morocco and Bahrain\, respectively\, were discussed. In addition to the implementation of transitional justice mechanisms in countries without political change\, participants also discussed plans for transitional justice in cases of ongoing conflict—specifically\, in Syria where members of the opposition have already drafted detailed plans for transitional justice. \n \n \n\nRead the participant bios\nSee the working group schedule \nRead more about this research initiative \n\n \nParticipants and Discussants: \n \n \n\nRogaia Abusharaf\, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar\nMohamed Arafa\, Alexandria University\nOmar Ashour\, University of Exeter\nZahra Babar\, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar\nMietek Boduszynski\, Pomona College\nMatt Buehler\, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar\nThomas DeGeorges\, American University of Sharjah\nMohammad Fadel\, University of Toronto\nElham Fakhro\, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar\nDoris H. Gray\, Al Akhawayn University\nSune Haugbølle\, Roskilde University\nMehran Kamrava\, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar\nChristopher Lamont\, University of Groningen\nClark Lombardi\, University of Washington\nSuzi Mirgani\, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar\nDwaa Osman\, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar\nChandra Lekha Sriram\, University of East London\nIbrahim Sharqieh\, Brookings Doha Center\nSusan E. Waltz\, University of Michigan\nElizabeth Wanucha\, CIRS – Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar\n\n \n  \n \n \n​Article by Dwaa Osman\, Research Analyst at CIRS
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/transitional-justice-middle-east-working-group-i/
CATEGORIES:Focused Discussions,Race & Society,Regional Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20140217T110000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20140217T210000
DTSTAMP:20260416T011224
CREATED:20140915T141259Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210901T124339Z
UID:10000795-1392634800-1392670800@cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu
SUMMARY:Why did the Arab Spring miss the Maghreb?
DESCRIPTION:Matt Buehler\, the 2013-2014 Postdoctoral Fellow at CIRS\, delivered aMonthly Dialogue lecture on“Why did the Arab Spring miss the Maghreb? Continuity through Co-optation in Morocco and Mauritania\,” on February 17\, 2014. The talk summarized the results of in-depth fieldwork undertaken in Morocco and Mauritania\, where Buehler conducted over 100 interviews with politicians and policymakers. The central question guiding Buehler’s research was\, “Under what conditions did an Arab regime survive the Arab Spring?” Some popular theories currently on offer by scholars propose that monarchical states that have a wealth of natural resources\, a long history of military loyalty\, and a strategy of appeasing indigenous ethnic groups are more resilient and better equipped to overcome civil unrest than nations that do not enjoy similar privileges. In order to put these theories to the test\, Buehler argued that it was first necessary to outline the key infrastructural and political differences exhibited by his case study countries of Morocco and Mauritania. \n \n \nGiving some background to Morocco and Mauritania’s political structures\, Buehler challenged the prevalent thesis of the “monarchical exception\,” which states “that monarchies seemed to persist longer than non-monarchies.” He explained that\, for these two countries\, the regime’s mode of governance mattered little for authoritarian persistence\, as both states were able to weather the storm of protests that shook their governments in 2011 and 2012\, despite the fact that Morocco is a monarchy and Mauritania is not.” \n \n \nAnother theory Buehler examined suggests that countries with a wealth of natural resources\, such as the Arab countries of the Gulf\, will necessarily overcome civic discord by dint of their ability to placate any opposition by offering a series of concessions. However\, although Morocco has substantial natural resources\, Mauritania is poor in terms of natural endowments. Yet\, they both were able to stave off any serious opposition. This theory too\, Buehler argued\, was unsustainable. \n \n \nObservers argue that military loyalty is another crucial characteristic of regime survival\, and that the perseverance of Arab regimes depended on the degree of support given by the powerful underlying military state apparatus. The collapse of governments in Egypt and Tunisia are given as key examples. Yet\, Buehler argued\, whereas Morocco has a history of military loyalty\, “in Mauritania\, by contrast\, there is a very long history of military coups—every single Mauritanian president has been ousted by a coup.” \n \n \nFurther theories logically state that successful integration and assimilation of diverse ethnic minorities is necessarily a means of avoiding internal friction. “In some Arab countries\, maybe in Bahrain\, maybe in Syria\, you might think marginalized ethnic minorities seized the opportunity of the Arab Spring to assert their demands\,” Buehler said. However\, he pointed out that Morocco has done much to integrate its once marginalized ethnic groups\, but Mauritania made no such progress. Thus\, once again\, “we can’t say that ethnic integration was a very important factor in driving this process\,” he said. \n \n \nAfter having outlined the key dissimilarities between the two states\, the key question remains “what is the commonality in Moroccan and Mauritanian strategies of survival?” He answered this by saying that “these two regimes employed a very crafty\, robust strategy of co-optation\, which they used to build certain political parties—pro-regime political parties.” In order to study the much abused and complex phenomenon of “co-optation” more closely\, Buehler conducted a series of statistical tests throughout Morocco and Mauritania to gauge the extent of regime infiltration into rural politics. Buehler’s research findings conclude that Morocco and Mauritania’s strength “was their ability to monopolize the rural structures of power in order to buttress their rule during the Arab Spring.” \n \n \nIn sum\, Buehler warned against the simplistic categorization of Arab states\, and argued that there was no definitive answer as to why some regimes fell\, whilst others overcame popular unrest in the long run. As his research in Morocco and Mauritania attests\, both governments exhibited resilience in the face of the uprisings\, despite their fundamental differences in terms of political structure\, resource wealth\, military loyalty\, and ethnic integration. \n \n \nDr. Matt Buehler holds a PhD degree in government from the University of Texas at ‎Austin and he will begin ‎a tenure-track position at the University of Tennessee’s Department of Political ‎Science in fall 2014. Dr. Buehler has done extensive fieldwork in Tunisia\, ‎Morocco\, and Mauritania\, and is currently working on a book tentatively entitled The Social Base of Divide-and-Rule: Left-‎Islamist Opposition Alliances in North Africa’s Arab Spring. \n \n \nArticle by Suzi Mirgani\, Manager and Editor for CIRS Publications
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/why-did-arab-spring-miss-maghreb/
CATEGORIES:Dialogue Series,Regional Studies
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