Ankara as model for Cairo?

A Harvard Kennedy School fellow argues that Turkey offers a promising model for Egypt as the dust begins to settle from the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, and the political players confront the challenges of shaping an Egyptian democracy.

Joshua W. Walker, an International Security Program fellow in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs who has closely studied Turkey’s modern evolution, assesses this prospect in a post on the new blog, Power & Policy. The blog, launched on Feb. 1 by the Belfer Center, seeks to become a dynamic forum for debate on the exercise of power in the world.

Power & Policy’s initial entries include several on the Egyptian people’s revolt, including “Five (Early) Lessons from the Egyptian Revolution,” a view by Nicholas Burns, the former U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs who is now professor of the practice of diplomacy and international politics in the Kennedy School. Burns served in Egypt as a young diplomat before becoming the third-highest official in the State Department from 2005 to 2008.

Other early blog contributors include the director of the Belfer Center, Graham Allison, and Joseph Nye, the Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor whose latest book, “The Future of Power,” was published on Feb. 1.  Monica Toft, associate professor of public policy whose own new book, “God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics,” will be published March 14, assessed prospects for the Muslim Brotherhood to play a leading role in the future Egyptian leadership. Richard Clarke, the former White House national security and counter-terrorism adviser and a faculty affiliate in the Belfer Center, writes about the looming challenges of cyber-security.