North African Politics

Catalog description

This seminar-style course constitutes a comparative study of the post-colonial politics of the North African region - specifically the states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Through a combination of intensive reading, in-class discussion, and writing, students will develop an in-depth understanding of the politics in these four individual states and comparisons between them. The first part of the course focuses on essential aspects of North African politics across the four countries, including post-independence nation-building, the role of the military, Islamist movements, and Berber movements. The second dives into the political dynamics that have shaped, and in some cases transformed, politics in North Africa during and since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.