The conference aims at presenting innovative research from the social and related sciences, as well as at discussing approaches that concern contemporary developments in the Middle East. We invite the submission of abstracts from any disciplinary field which covers the main theme. It is anticipated that the discussion will include a variety of perspectives from which this topic can be understood, dealing with all the regions: North Africa, the Fertile Crescent and the Persian Gulf. We also welcome a state-of-knowledge review of the literature on the themes, as well as papers on the relevance of on-going-research to current and perspective assistance programs for the Middle East. Themes of papers can include but are not limited to the following subjects: human needs in the demographic context; developmental models; patterns of governance; dynamics of social change; determinants of political transformation; formal and informal institutions; pressure of Islamism; public sector and rentier state; external political and economic forces; new generation; media; cultural change. For more details please visit: http://www.arabspring.eu/

Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures, Polish Academy of Sciences (Nowy Swiat 72, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland)