[LCM Events] Bustani Middle East Seminar at MIT - Augustus Richard Norton - October 26, 2010

[Pardis Parsa]

TUESDAY October 26, 2010

Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar at MIT


Dr. Augustus Richard Norton
Professor of International Relations and Anthropology
Boston University

October 26, 2010
4:30-6:30pm
"Lebanon: Consensus in Times of Enmity"
http://events.mit.edu/event.html?id=12784410&date=2010/10/26


Abstract
Dr. Norton will discuss the role of political consensus and compromise  
in a political setting that no one group or sect may dominate. Outside  
powers, such as the US, have approached Lebanon at times as though a  
system of majority rule could prevail, whereas the usual pattern is  
consensual decision-making. He will analyze the rather unusual  
coalescence of several communities, but particularly the Shi'a and the  
role of several key regional players, including Israel, Iran, Syria  
and Saudi Arabia; and compare the role of these regional players to  
the role played by predecessors in the pre-civil war period. Professor  
Norton will speculate on the likelihood of a new war with Israel, and  
argue that, should a war occur, the result would likely be almost  
certainly the opposite of what Israel might seek to accomplish.

Augustus Richard Norton (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is a Professor  
in the Departments of International Relations and Anthropology at  
Boston University, and Visiting Professor in the Politics of the  
Middle East at the University of Oxford.  He is a member of the  
Council on Foreign Relations, and in 2006 was an advisor to the Iraq  
Study Group (“Baker-Hamilton Commission”).  His most recent book is  
Hezbollah: A Short History (Princeton University Press, 2009).  He  
directed the “Civil Society in the Middle East program”, and he has  
published a variety of books and articles on political reform,  
including Civil Society in the Middle East (E. J. Brill, 2 vols.,  
1995, 1996, 2005).

Seminars will be held at building E51-145, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge.
http://whereis.mit.edu/?q=E51-145&zoom=16&lat=42.36226996640223&lng=-71.08632802963257&open=object-E51&maptype=mit


For More information about the Bustani Seminar:
http://web.mit.edu/cis/bustani


Contact: pardisp@ mit.edu







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