politik

info on mideast reform:

The Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies (ICDS, Egypt, www.eicds.org) published Reform Initiatives in the Arab World (2004), a compilation of reports, proposals, and declarations from the Arab world, such as the “Sana’a Declaration on Democracy, Human Rights, and the Role of the International Criminal Court,” the March 2004 final declaration of the Alexandria Library conference, the “Doha Declaration for Democracy and Reform,” and the final recommendations of the First Civil Forum that met in Beirut in March 2004. The collection also includes speeches and documents from Western political leaders and selected intergovernmental agreements on democracy and human rights. Visit www.eicds.org/en/publications/books/book02.asp for the complete book.
The December 2004 issue of Civil Society, the Center’s monthly journal, included articles on the rise of pseudomonarchies in the Middle East, an assessment of democratic reforms (proposed or undertaken) in 2004 in Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Libya, and other countries, and an essay by Hassan Elsawaf on the situation of the Coptic minority in Egypt. Visit www.eicds.org/en/publications/civilsociety/civilsociety.asp for complete texts.

The Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV, www.tesev.org.tr) has launched the TESEV Monitoring Project, which will chart Turkey’s progress in adopting the political and economic reforms necessary for admission to the European Union. The project will not only monitor Turkey’s reforms but will also seek to ensure that the EU applies the same criteria to Turkey that were applied to other accession countries. Mensur Akgün, director of foreign policy studies at TESEV, is coordinating the research. For more information, write to him at makgun@tesev.org.tr.
TESEV and the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces published Democratic Oversight of the Security Sector: Turkey and the World (2005), edited by Volkan Aytar, the first in a series of security studies conducted by the two institutes. The 200-page Turkish-language book is available at www.tesev.org.tr/projeler/guvenlik_Sektoru_metin.pdf.