THE ISSAM FARES INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
On May 5, IFI held a discussion on "The Duty to Be Generous: Challenging Contemporary Ideas on Asylum and Refuge in Forced Migration," organized in collaboration with the IDRC Research Chair on Forced Displacement. The talk featured Dawn Chatty, Emeritus Professor in Anthropology and Forced Migration and former Director of the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford, with discussant Maja Janmyr, IFI Associate Fellow, and moderated by Fouad Fouad, Chair of the IDRC Forced Displacement Program in the Middle East and IFI Associate Fellow.
IFI hosted a lecture titled "Understanding Power and Hegemony in Water Conflicts throughout Western Asia" on May 3 given by Dr. Mark Zeitoun, Director General of the Geneva Water Hub and a professor specializing in water security at the University of East Anglia.
Professor Zeitoun began his talk by exploring the various forms of power, such as authority, control, influence, weaponry, and kinetic energy. He also delved into three dimensions of power: structural power, bargaining power, and ideational power. Structural power relates to power dynamics within social structures, bargaining power arises from negotiations or contractual relationships, while ideational power conveys the acceptance and internalization of power through beliefs and ideas. A key point emphasized by Professor Zeitoun was the significance of awareness of rights and protective public policies to restrain the influence of power. Drawing on the South African liberation struggle, he highlighted the manipulative power of oppressors over the minds of the oppressed. Even in the absence of explicit segregation laws, internalized beliefs can perpetuate and reinforce power dynamics. IFI and the BOBST-AUB collaborative initiative held a panel discussion titled “Economic and Political Crises and Nation Building” on May 2. The event featured co-author of “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty” James Robinson, as part of a panel including IFI Director Joseph Bahout, Professor of Politics and Urban Studies at the American University of Beirut Mona Harb and co-founder of Beirut-based Research Center Synaps Rosalie Berthier, moderated by Associate Professor of Economics at AUB Ali Abboud.
IFI in collaboration with the Global Engagement Initiative and as part of the BOBST-AUB Collaborative Initiative’s “Conversations with Beirut” series, a webinar was held on April 18 titled “The Domestic Implications for Lebanon of the Regional Rehabilitation of Assad’s Syria and the Saudi-Iranian Rapprochement.”
IFI, in collaboration with the International Human Rights Clinic at the Boston University School of Law, and the IFI-based Research and Advocacy Network on Statelessness (RANS) in the MENA, held a webinar on “Citizenship, Nationality and Stateless Issues in Morocco” on April 12. The webinar shared findings from Boston University’s International Human Rights Clinic’s Morocco team, based on their current research including access to nationality for children; gender discrimination in conferring nationality; and specific challenges faced by refugee and migrant populations in obtaining or retaining nationality or citizenship in Morocco.
IFI and The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS) hosted a webinar on “Fossil Fuel Subsidies: The Harm They Do and the Challenges of Removing Them” on March 23. The webinar tackled the persistence of fossil fuels in the world, their negative impact on the environment, and the societal and political challenges that arise from removing them. The webinar featured Neil McCulloch, Economist and Director of The Policy Practice, with IFI Associate Fellows Carole Nakhle and Marc Ayoub as discussants, and moderated by Ali Taha, Researcher at LCPS.
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May 2024
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