News and Notes

Philippe Schmitter Receives IPSA and Skytte Awards

The International Political Science Association (IPSA) honored Philippe Schmitter with the 2009 Mattei Dogan Award, one of IPSA's highest honors for lifetime achievement. Schmitter, a longtime member of the Journal of Democracy Editorial Board, is professorial fellow and professor emeritus in the department of political and social sciences at the European University Institute in Florence.

IPSA's Awards Committee states that Schmitter "has made an enormous contribution to the growth and development of Political Science…[His] rigorous research, his conceptual clarity and creativity and ability to transcend the boundaries of the discipline's subfields have pushed the notion of what political scientists do to capture the meaning of what takes place in the polis to new heights." The award, which is given every three years, will be presented at the 21st IPSA World Congress in Santiago, Chile, in July.

Schmitter also received the Johan Skytte Prize in political science from the University of Uppsala in April for "his path-breaking work on the role of corporatism in modern democracies, and for his stimulating and innovative analysis of democratization." A prize ceremony will be held in Uppsala, Sweden, in September.

For more information, please see: www.ipsa.org/site/content/view/360/87/lang,en and skytte-prize.statsvet.uu.se.

Libyan Dissident Dies

Fathi al-Jahmi, a prominent Libyan political dissident, died on May 21 in a Jordanian hospital at age 68. A former provincial governor and an engineer, he called for free elections and a free press and criticized the country's leader, Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi. He was arrested in 2002, released in 2004, and then rearrested two weeks later. It is believed he was denied proper care, and his health had deteriorated significantly by the time he was transferred to a hospital in January 2008, where he remained until he was moved to Jordan on May 5.

21^st Century Authoritarians

On June 4, Freedom House, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty convened a half-day conference on Capitol Hill to discuss their new report "Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians." A panel entitled "21st Century Authoritarianism and the 'Battle of Ideas'" included remarks by Peter Beinart (Council on Foreign Relations), Robert Kagan (Carnegie Endowment), and James Traub (New York Times Magazine). A second panel analyzing authoritarian rule in four countries featured Perry Link (UC, Riverside) on China, Abbas Milani (Stanford) on Iran, Daniel Kimmage (George Washington U.) on Russia, and Javier Corrales (Amherst) on Venezuela. Opening remarks were presented by Rep. Alcee Hastings and closing remarks by Sen. Benjamin Cardin. For more information, see www.rferl.org/content/pressrelease/1747110.html.

Johannesburg +10 Conference

The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project organized the Johannesburg +10 All Africa Human Rights Defenders Conference on April 20–23 in Kampala, Uganda. The conference brought together more than 100 human rights defenders from across Africa to discuss both their achievements since the 1998 conference held in Johannesburg and strategies to deal with new challenges. Participants included Margaret Sekaggya, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders; Carl Gershman of NED; and Maina Kiai, former chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

"EU Policies on Democracy Support" Conference

On March 9–10, the Czech EU Presidency hosted a conference in Prague on "Building Consensus about EU Policies on Democracy Support." The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, the European Commission, the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), and the Association for Democracy Assistance and Human Rights (DEMAS) helped to organize the conference.

Topics covered included: "EU's Democracy Assistance Viewed from Target Countries"; "Implementation and Efficiency of the EU Policy on Human Rights and Democracy"; "EU Democracy Assistance from the Perspective of EU Member States"; and "Democratic Governance: Development Cooperation and Mainstreaming of Human Rights and Democracy."

Panelists came from all over the world; they included Richard Youngs of FRIDE in Spain; Wadih Al Asmar of the Lebanese Center for Human Rights; and Arnold Tsunga of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association and the International Court of Justice. For more information, see: http://www.eupd.eu/advocacy/epd...