18-19 November 2013 – “Towards a New Middle East Society. Expectations and Reality after the Arab Spring” (Institute for Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland)

The Middle East has been undergoing a series of serious transformations which may develop in various directions. The political and economic situation in the region has still been shaped since the events of the beginning of 2011, by social and political protests. Demands of democracy, articulated by the protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Libya or Syria prove that Arab societies do not want to be excluded from the decision-making process. On the other hand, any vision of development to satisfy human needs could only be formulated and realized by a strong center of authority. If expectations for the development vision are to be prolonged, countries might be threatened by the disintegration of the state and the economy and power will again evolve in the direction of authoritarianism. So, what is the future of the Middle East after the Arab Spring? Is the region going towards a new democratic society or a new authoritarianism? These questions have provoked debates and many concepts have been proposed to explain what has happened in the region. However, the explanatory model of these events still remains epistemologically open and an initial analysis of these proposals allows for the conclusion that such a model should be formulated from the perspective of various disciplines. The conference aims at presenting innovative research from the social and related sciences, as well as at discussing approaches that concern contemporary developments in the Middle East.

We invite the submission of abstracts from any disciplinary field which covers the main theme. It is anticipated that the discussion will include a variety of perspectives from which this topic can be understood, dealing with all the regions: North Africa, the Fertile Crescent and the Persian Gulf. We also welcome a state-of-knowledge review of the literature on the themes, as well as papers on the relevance of on-going-research to current and perspective assistance programs for the Middle East.
Themes of papers can include but are not limited to the following subjects:

-human needs in the demographic context,
-developmental models,
-patterns of governance,
-dynamics of social change,
-determinants of political transformation,
-formal and informal institutions; pressure of Islamism,
-public sector and rentier state,
-external political and economic forces,
-new generation,
-media,
-cultural change.

Proposals for abstracts should be send using this link: http://www.arabspring.eu/#!/call/abstract-submission/
Abstracts should be around 300 words and include the paper title and the name and contact details of the presenter. Panels will be comprised of three papers of 15 minutes' presentation time plus 5 minutes for discussion.

Please find additional information and announcements on the website: http://www.arabspring.eu/ Deadline for submission of abstracts: 30th September 2013. Notification of acceptance of abstracts: 10th October 2013. Accepted papers will be published in the annual "Hemispheres, Studies on Cultures and Societies".