Jordan’s Marwan Muasher to lecture at Yale on ‘Second Arab Awakening’

Marwan Muasher, former foreign minister of Jordan, will deliver the Coca-Cola World Fund at Yale Lecture at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 9.

Titled “The Second Arab Awakening and the Battle for Pluralism,” the free and public talk will take place in Luce Hall auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Ave.

The lecture is sponsored by the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale Law School, and the Yale School of Management.

Muasher is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversees research on the Middle East in Washington, D.C. and Beirut. Muasher served as foreign minister of Jordan from 2002 to 2004, and as deputy prime minister from 2004 to 2005. His career has spanned the areas of diplomacy, development, civil society, and communications.

Muasher began his career as a journalist for the Jordan Times. He then served at the Ministry of Planning, at the prime minister’s office as press adviser, and as director of the Jordan Information Bureau in Washington.

In 1995, Muasher opened Jordan’s first embassy in Israel, and in 1996 he became minister of information and the government spokesperson. From 1997 to 2002, he served in Washington, D.C., again as ambassador, negotiating the first free-trade agreement between the United States and an Arab nation. He then returned to Jordan to serve as foreign minister, where he played a central role in developing the Arab Peace Initiative and the Middle East roadmap.

In 2004, he became deputy prime minister responsible for reform and government performance and led the effort to produce a 10-year plan for political, economic, and social reform. From 2006 to 2007, he was a member of the Jordanian Senate.

From 2007 to 2010, he was senior vice president of external affairs at the World Bank.

He is the author of “The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation” (Yale University Press, 2008).

The Coca-Cola World Fund at Yale was established in 1992 to support intersecting endeavors among specialists in international relations, international law, and the management of international enterprises and organizations. Previous lecturers in the series have included Michael Doyle, Gary Hart, Tom Friedman, Nicholas Kristof, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Sam Nunn, Sadako Ogata, Samantha Power, Mary Robinson, Raghuram Rajan, Eboo Patel, and Mo Ibrahim.