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AnalysesMiddle East and North Africa

Donald Trump’s clear-cut victory in the US presidential election has shaken the entire world, and has been greeted with sharply contrasting reactions, especially in Middle East. For Palestinians, it felt like the final nail in the coffin. Hopes for American mediation toward a fair resolution of the conflict are virtually non-existent, and Palestinians view the next four years through a lens of mere survival, trying to withstand the blows from Israel’s most right-wing government in history, which will now feel even freer from burdensome external constraints, such as the call to respect international law.

Videos Middle East and North Africa

Ruth Hanau Santini, associate professor of Politics and International relations at the University of Naples L’Orientale, discusses how Tunisia’s democratic backslide stemmed from unimplemented reforms and an elite-driven process that sidelined public trust. These issues ultimately paved the way for populist influence, culminating in Tunisia’s current political crisis.

ConveningMiddle East and North Africa

December

2023

Palermo, Italy

The conference will examine why democracy has struggled to take root in the Arab world: historical factors such as the consequences of oil resources, autocratic regimes, the inability to effectively implement economic reforms, the historical legacy of the alliance with the Soviet Union and the effects of colonialism, and in more recent times the negative parabola of the “Arab Springs” and in particular the failure of the compromise between Islamic and secular political forces that had made possible the beginning of a democratic path for Tunisia, now dominated by an autocratic power that arrests opponents.