Middle East Politics

Catalog description

This course is a graduate level introduction to politics in the contemporary Middle East. It does not require substantial background in Middle Eastern studies, but basic familiarity with contemporary history and politics of the region is assumed. The course’s primary concern is to contextualize the study of the Middle East in a historical and comparative framework. The course starts with a brief overview of modern history of the region and a discussion of what the political construct “Middle East” entails, how it came about and why we should be studying it. From there on, we move to weekly topical readings and discussions. Among the topics examined are: Great Powers' interests and encroachments into the region, the modernizing reforms and the processes of state formation; post-independence developments including coups, revolutions and wars; the evolution of political Islam and nationalism as rival ideologies; the peculiarities of the Islamic state; the persistent Arab-Israeli conflict and other hot conflicts in the region; politics of gender, oil and the rentier state; civil society and contentious politics; dynamics of authoritarianism and democratization; the political potential and impact of new media; and more recent developments in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Readings and examples are drawn from a selected subset of Middle Eastern countries, no one country is studied individually in depth, but rather used in a comparative framework to underline historical patterns, similarities and differences. The course is designed as a seminar. Students are expected to do a number of presentations and participate substantially in the class discussions.