Conference on “Democracy and Arab Spring: Opportunities and Challenges” winds up at October 6 University
9-10 May 2012-05-17
Proceedings of the Conference on “Democracy and Arab Spring: Opportunities and Challenges” were concluded at O6U. The Conference was launched under the auspices of H.E. the Minister of Higher Education and Prof. Ahmed Attia Seida, the President of O6U.
Prof. Ahmed Magdi Hegazi, Vice President of O6U and Prof. Kheireldin Abdellatif, Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees chaired the conference.
o The main objectives of the Conference are summed up in:
o Critic presentation of the concept of democracy in the world today.
o Displaying models of Arab Spring revolutions.
o Identifying the extent of building real democracy in the Arab World.
o Identifying challenges facing the application of Democracy in the post Arab Spring revolutions.
o Finding ways and means of promoting the Arab World.
o Conference deliberations and discussions centered around three main areas:
Democratic regimes: reality and basics:
o Globalization and the winds of revolutionary change.
o Democracy and information technology revolution (cyberspace).
o Global agenda and democratic change in the Arab World.
o Theoretical perspectives in the interpretation of contemporary revolutions.
The Arab Spring: selected models.
o The Arab Spring Revolutions.
o The Arab Spring and specificity of situations and conditions
o The factors behind the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutions.
The future of the Arab Spring: Opportunities and Challenges
The Arab Spring post-revolutions opportunities.
The Greater Middle East (The various agendas).
The challenges of the Arab revolutions: Handling the consequences and challenges of the Arab Revolutions.
The Arab Spring Revolutions: Future scenarios.
A large number of participants took part in the Conference deliberations and discussions: officials, professors, researches, think-tankers, and media representatives. Participants presented more than 40 research papers touching on the different issues involved. On the sidelines three workshops were carried out with a large number of students taking part under the supervision of specialized professors. The workshops combined both theory and practice and revolved around political participation, democracy and opportunities and challenges.
O6U intends to publish the full deliberations of the conference in a documented book after examining all the research papers by a specialized scientific committee and after analyzing results of the field studies and the questionnaire distributed among students to identify their attitudes and opinions on the prospects of democracy in Egypt.
O6U wishes this Conference represents a positive contribution in shedding light on important, complex and unprecedented issues and concerns at a parting in the history of Egypt.