Tuesday 11 October 2011, 6.00pm-7.30pm
Venue: The British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH

Panel Discussion organised in partnership with the Oxford University Research Project on Civil Resistance and Power Politics.

On 17 December 2010 a vegetable-seller set fire to himself in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid after police had harassed him. This incident triggered a series of demonstrations, first locally, then across Tunisia and then in other Arab countries. Within two months, the movements had resulted in the departure from office of President Zine al-Abidine Ben-Ali of Tunisia and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Elsewhere, they led to different outcomes, including armed conflicts and external interventions. In all, power politics as well as popular demonstrations played a key role.

This meeting will focus on the Egyptian revolution, exploring the range of factors contributing to change. It marks the publication by Oxford University Press of the paperback edition of Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present, edited by Sir Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash, with a new foreword on the Arab Spring.

About the speakers
Professor Charles Tripp – Professor of Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and a specialist in Middle East affairs. He is the author of Islam and the Moral Economy: the Challenge of Capitalism (2006) and is presently working on a study of the politics of resistance in the Middle East.

Dr Omar Ashour is a Lecturer in Middle East Politics and Director of the MA in Middle East Studies Programme at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.  He is author of  The De-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements. Dr Ashour is also a democracy activist who is involved in the revolution. He has just returned from Egypt and Libya.

Chair: Sir Adam Roberts - President of the British Academy and Emeritus Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford, and co-editor of Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-Violent Action from Gandhi to the Present (2009).


The Egyptian Revolution of 2011: Civil Resistance and Power Politics

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