Lessons from Tunisia: Navigating Syria’s Post-War Transition and the Role of Transitional Justice

With Laura Ruiz de Elvira
Date: 15 May 2025, 18:00–20:00

On 8 December 2024, Bashar al-Assad fled Syria for Russia, signaling the collapse of a regime after thirteen years of war. As Syria enters a new phase, questions loom: how to rebuild a fractured nation, disarm armed groups, restore security, and address demands for justice; especially following the March 2025 coastal massacres.

In this talk, Laura Ruiz de Elvira draws on the Syrian transition through the prism of the Tunisian transition, examining its successes and failures and looking closely at the question of transitional justice, a central element in both countries.

About the speaker:
 Laura Ruiz de Elvira is a tenured research fellow at the French Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), based at the Ceped research center. A political sociologist, her research explores collective action, social policy, authoritarianism, and revolutionary processes in Syria and Tunisia. She currently leads the ERC Starting Grant project “The Subsequent Lives of Arab Revolutionaries” (LIVE-AR).

This talk is part of the lecture series “Syria at a Crossroads”, a collaboration between the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies at Philipps-Universität Marburg, Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europea (EUME), and the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM) in Tunis.

In person: MECAM, c/o HIDE, 27 rue Florian, Borj Zouara, 1029 Tunis
Online: Join us via Zoom

Zoom Access: Lien
Meeting ID: 886 1982 7819
Passcode: 764901