Countdown to the opening of the first edition of the Master in Democratic Governance (DE.MA)

The countdown to the opening of the first edition of the Master in Democratic Governance (DE.MA) - Democracy and Human Rights in the MENA Region - has almost approached its end. DE.MA is a unique programme in the field of democratic governance and human rights with a focus on the Arab world. Today, 9^t February 2015, the eighteen admitted students participate in the official opening of the DE.MA with an orientation session on the organisation of the Master and their life at EIUC during the first semester of the programme from February to April 2015.

After a welcome address by EIUC Secretary General, Prof. Florence Benoit-Rohmer, and Director of the Programme, Prof. Mohsine El Ahmadi, students will also be given information on the courses starting on the following day, 10 February.

The DE.MA programme has been structured according to four main thematic sections:

- Democracy and Rights,
- Governance, Rule of Law and Constitutional process,
- Political Transitions to Democracy,
- International Relations and the Global System of HR Protection

Through intensive courses on the different aspects of the four main thematic sections, students will explore the principles underpinning democracy, good governance and civil society with special attention dedicated to the cases of political transition in the Arab world.

The first thematic section on Democracy and Rights, co-ordinated by Prof. Mudar Kassis, aims at setting the ground for critically understanding democracy and human rights both in theory and in practice. It is dedicated to the exploration of such issues as the state; democratic institutions, civil society, as well as different sets of rights (social, economic, civil and political). The approach will aim at combining both the abstract (conceptual) understanding of the proposed topics, as well as the existing practice. Democracy will be examined as a mode of political organisation and not only in the form of the state, i.e. there will be a focus on all the elements of the public sphere. Rights will be examined from the point of view of their being an “organic” component of the human community and an attribute of the individual (not only as something that law protects).

In this framework the interaction of the state and its institutions, civil society and its institutions, as well as other forms of societal organisation, and the rights that are necessary to sustain the society and its organizational structures will be examined from the perspective of their impact on the realization of the public will.

We wish all the best to the DE.MA students for the start of their academic year. DE.MA will officially become the seventh master’s programme within the Global Campus network.