Join CDDRL's Program on Arab Reform and Development (ARD) for a discussion on the future of Syria following the downfall of Bashar Al-Assad in December 2024. The webinar will feature Bassam Haddad, Associate Professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, who will speak in conversation with ARD Associate Director Hesham Sallam. The webinar will address the conditions that contributed to the downfall of the Assad regime, relevant regional and international dimensions, as well as the prospects for the presumably transitional ruling formula under Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham. The session will also address the major historical trends that shaped the trajectory of the Syrian uprising in 2011, the eventual collapse of the Assad regime in 2024, and the post-Assad era.

Co-sponsored by CDDRL's Program on Turkey and the Middle Eastern Studies Forum.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Bassam Haddad is Founding Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and co-editor of A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2021). Haddad is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and the Knowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film About Baghdad and director of the acclaimed three-part documentary series Arabs and Terrorism. Haddad served on the Board of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and is Executive Producer of Status Audio-Visual Podcast. He is also the Executive Editor of the Knowledge Production Project and Director of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). He received MESA's Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2017 for his service to the profession. Currently, Haddad is working on his second Syria book titled Understanding The Syrian Tragedy: Regime, Opposition, Outsiders (forthcoming, Stanford University Press)