Al Jazeera Centre for Studies (AJCS) is co-hosting the third international conference on the Islamic nation’s current dynamics in a three-day conference “The Quest for Democracy: Examining the Civilian-Military Relations in Muslim Societies,” to be held from the 13th to the 15th of October 2019 in Istanbul, Turkey with the participation of scholars and experts from different continents.
Other sponsors of the conference include several international think tanks and universities: School for Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar; the Center for Islam and Global Affairs and Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University and the Egyptian Institute for Studies in Istanbul, Turkey; and the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver in Colorado, United States.
Participants at the conference will discuss the undercurrents and trajectory of the civilian-military relations in a number of Muslim countries, including Egypt, Pakistan, Algeria, Turkey and Sudan as case studies. They will also probe into the underpinnings of the civilian-military relations and the subsequent armies’ incursion onto the political and economic life, as well as the spread of corruption and tyranny in most Muslim societies.
Panelists will discuss the challenges of the current political transition and the obstacles, which undermine the shift from totalitarian military regimes to civilian democracies, while adopting a comparative approach vis-à-vis previous experiences in Eastern European and Latin America countries.