Event Date: November 15, 2022 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm EST
Location: FSS 4004 and Zoom

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Presented by CIPS

In this event, Bessma Momani and Thomas Juneau will discuss their recent book, Middle Power in the Middle East: Canada’s Foreign and Defence Policies in a Changing Region. They will highlight the book’s key themes and analyse the implications for Canada’s role in the Middle East. They will be joined by three discussants, two retired ambassadors with significant experience in the region, Kerry Buck and Dennis Horak, as well as Prof. Marie-Joëlle Zahar.

Speakers: 

Bessma Momani is Full Professor in the Department of Political Science and Assistant Vice-President of Research and International at the University of Waterloo. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States’ Institute in Washington, DC, and a Fulbright Scholar. She is a Governor on the board of the International Development Research Centre and an Executive member of the board of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. 

Thomas Juneau is associate professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He was an analyst with Canada’s Department of National Defence from 2003 to 2014. He tweets @thomasjuneau.  

Discussants:

Kerry Buck is a senior fellow with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. She was, until her retirement, Assistant Secretary, Economic Sector at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Prior to that appointment, she was Canada’s Ambassador to the North Atlantic Council (NATO). She held senior executive positions at Global Affairs Canada: Political Director and Assistant Deputy Minister for International Security and Political Affairs; Assistant Deputy Minister portfolios for Africa and for Latin America and the Caribbean; head of the Afghanistan Task Force; Director General for the Middle East and Maghreb, for Afghanistan and for Public Diplomacy and Federal-Provincial Affairs; Director for Human Rights. Outside of GAC, Kerry served, among other positions, in the Privy Council Office as Director of Operations for Machinery of Government Secretariat responsible for Cabinet and Ministerial mandates. Kerry holds degrees from the University of Western Ontario (BA Hons, Political Science) and McGill University (LLB, BCL).

Dennis Horak joined the Department of External Affairs in 1987. He had overseas assignments in Stockholm (1989-90), Warsaw (1990-93) and Riyadh (1996-99). From 2002-06, he was posted to London, where he was Canada’s Representative on the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee. In 2009, he was named Canada’s Chargé d’affaires (Head of Mission) to Iran, where he served for the 3 years prior to the closure of the Embassy in 2012. In 2015 he was appointed as Canada’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain and Yemen and served there until 2018. He retired in 2018. 

Marie-Joëlle Zahar is Professor of Political Science, Director of the Research Network on Peace Operations and Fellow at the Centre for International Research and Studies at the Université de Montréal. From 2013 until 2015, she served as Senior Expert on Power Sharing on the Standby Team of Mediation Experts at the UN Department of Political Affairs. In 2017, she was a senior expert in the Office of the Special Envoy of the United Nations for Syria. A graduate of McGill University, her research interests span the politics of conflict-resolution and peacebuilding. A non-resident Senior Fellow with the International Peace Institute, Professor Zahar is author, co-author or editor of more than seventy academic books, articles, and chapters including notably Beyond the Arab Spring: Authoritarianism and Democratization in the Arab World (Lynne Rienner 2012). Professor Zahar has served on the board of directors of Women in International Security-Canada, the Canadian-Arab Institute and the Canadian Political Science Association.