Politics in the Contemporary Middle East

Catalog description

This course is an introduction to the most prominent historical, cultural, institutional, and ideological features of Middle Eastern politics. Typical of the questions we shall address are why processes of modernization and economic change have not produced liberal democracies, why Islamic movements have gained enormous strength in some countries and not others, why conflicts in the region--between Israel and the Arabs, Iran and Iraq, or inside of Lebanon--have been so bitter and protracted; why the era of military coups was brought to an end but transitions to democracy have been difficult to achieve; why Arab unity has been so elusive and yet so insistent a theme; and why oil wealth in the Gulf, in the Arabian Peninsula, and in North Africa, has not produced industrialized or self-sustaining economic growth.