Brown Bag Lecture at AUB
PSPA invites you to a Brown Bag lecture entitled “Politics of Identity in Muslim-Majority Democracies: Lessons from Indonesia for the Arab Spring,” by Dr. Jeremy Menchi in West Hall, Room 310 of AUB.
Abstract: Despite the benefits of democracy, many scholars believe that introducing elections in highly diverse societies like Egypt and Lebanon can lead to ethnic conflict. In order to better understand how identities may be politicized in elections, Jeremy Menchik and Colm Fox compiled campaign advertisements from the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy, Indonesia. They coded these advertisements for the use of religious, ethnic, nationalist, party and regional symbols in order to explain their variation.
Their findings suggest that parties, including Islamists, are strategic about their use of identity appeals. Parties’ behavior is shaped as much by institutional and historical factors as the demographics of their constituency. Dr. Menchik will illustrate his findings with ample recourse to visual images and draw lessons from Indonesia for democratic transitions in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.
