American University in Cairo
Middle East Politics (POLS 5235)
Fall 2014
Monday, 5:00-7:25 pm
Dr. Kevin Koehler
kevin.koehler@aucegypt.edu
Office hours: Monday and Thursday, 3-4 pm
Room: 2033
Course Description
This course deals with fundamental issues in Middle East Politics. Following
a brief introductory part that looks at approaches in comparative politics and
their application in the MENA (Part I), we first examine the history of state
formation in the region (Part II) and then turn to a number of current topics
(Part III), including the political economy of the Middle East, the role of political institutions, political ideologies, specific (groups of) political actors, and
revolution. The course concludes by discussing the extent to which the uprisings
of the Arab Spring represent a fundamental break in the history of the region
and in the way in which we study it.
Assignments and Grading
You will prepare short presentations on the topic of a specific session that you
will deliver in class (not longer the 20 minutes). Presentations should go significantly beyond the required reading by drawing on evidence from (at least)
two different countries of the MENA, or alternatively the same country at
two different periods in time (e.g. the political economies of Libya and Jordan,
or political institutions before and after the Arab Spring). Good presentations
advance an argument on the topic in question for which they draw on comparative evidence. Avoid using cases as mere illustrations, but exploit relevant
similarities and differences.
Throughout the course you will develop a seminar paper. Please take note
of the following deadlines:
• By October 1st, submit a summary of a proposed research paper, including
a research question and case selection (not more than one page).
• By November 1st, submit a bibliography of at least 15 titles that are
relevant to your paper. Include a sentence or two explaining why each
title is important.
1
• By December 1st, submit your final paper first to turnitin and then by
email to me. All papers must reach my inbox before 12:00 pm, midnight,
on December 9th, along with the turnitin report sheets.
I will use the following grading system:
Table 1: Grading System
Grade Points
Cut-off Scores
Participation
Outline
Bibliography
Presentation in class
Term paper
Total
10 points
15 points
15 points
30 points
30 points
100 points
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CF
94
90
86
82
78
74
70
66
below 65
Readings
Specific readings will be assigned for each session, most of which will be made
available on Blackboard. Students can purchase the following books through
the AUC bookstore:
• Owen, Roger, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern
Middle East, 3rd edition, (2006)
• Schwedler, Jillian and Deborah J. Garner (eds.), Understanding the Contemporary Middle East, 3rd edition, (2008).
Course policy
• Cheating and plagiarism: Any information, arguments, or data used by
students in their work should be properly cited and credited. Should
you fail to give proper credits wherever appropriate or turn in the same
paper for two different courses, I reserve the right to fail you for the
course and to turn your name over to the University Administration for
disciplinary measures. Your seminar papers must be processed through
www.turnitin.com. Please be aware that I will submit papers to additional originality checks even though I ask you to submit a turnitin report
sheet along with your paper.
• Attendance policy: I will adhere to the following policy on class attendance
and absences:
A student who misses more than the equivalent of three weeks
of class meetings during a semester for any reason may be assigned a reduced grade for the course–including the grade of
2
“F”–solely on the basis of inadequate attendance, regardless of
excuse. Students who miss fewer than three weeks of class sessions may not be penalized on the grounds of attendance alone.
Students are personally responsible for making up any academic
tasks and assignments missed due to their absence.
Classes start at 5pm sharp. If you are not present when I take attendance
at the beginning of each class, you will not be registered as attending.
• Cellular phones: Please turn off all cellular phones and any other potentially disruptive equipment. Should you need to make or to receive a
phone call, please wait until the short break to do so.
• Academic freedom and intellectual interaction: You are free to offer the
class any disagreement you may have with the readings or lecture. You
will not be penalized for disagreeing with other students or the instructor, but your perspective must be based on evidence from the course,
other readings and/or development reality. Freedom of speech and ideas
is a basic principle of academic life. Please listen carefully to your classmates and respect other viewpoints. Every student will have a chance
to express her/his opinion as long as it is voiced in a respectful manner.
Intellectual interaction and a healthy academic environment necessitate
that we address and refer to each other with utmost politeness, cordiality, and an appropriate tone of speech. In addition, varied points of view
must be expressed in a manner that is sensitive to differences in ability,
class, ethnicity, lifestyle, race, religion, or sex, and should not be expressed
so as to be perceived as a personal attack. Thus, engaging in derogatory
statements, hate speech, interruptions, heckling, or in belittling ideas with
which one disagrees will not be tolerated.
3
Session
Date
Table 2: Overview
Topic
Introduction: Comparative Politics Meets the Middle East
1
September 8
General Introduction
2
September 15
Area Studies and Comparative Politics:
Competing or Complementary?
Part I: The Emergence of the Modern Middle East
3
September 22
4
September 29
5
6
October 6
October 13
Independent Arab States:
The End of Ottoman and Colonial Rule
Making a State:
Forms of Political and Economic Development
Eid al-Adha
War and Peace:
The Role of Regional and International Politics
Part II: Topics
7
October 20
8
October 27
9
November 3
10
November 10
11
November 17
12
November 24
13
December 1
14
December 8
Social Actors:
Networks, Classes and Movements
Political Economy:
Oil, Statism, and Liberalization
Institutions:
Parties, Elections and Parliaments
Participation:
Civil Society, Public Opinion and Political Activism
Ideologies:
Nationalism, Support for Democracy and Political Islam
The Military:
The Lasting Role of Arab Officers
Revolution:
Change and Upheaval in Arab Politics
Conclusion
Detailed Course Outline
Area Studies and Comparative Politics: Competing or Complementary? (15 September 2014)
Required Readings:
• Bates, Robert H, 1997. “Area Studies and the Discipline: A Useful Controversy?” PS: Political Science and Politics 30(2), 166-169, (on Blackboard).
• Lijphart, Arend, 1971. “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,”
American Political Science Review 65(3), 682-693, (on Blackboard).
4
• Schmitter, Philippe C., 2008. “The Design of Social and Political Research,” in: Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating, Approaches and
Methodologies in the Social Sciences, (Cambridge UP), Chapter 14, (on
Blackboard).
Part I: The Emergence of the Modern Middle East
Independent Arab States: The End of Ottoman and Colonial Rule
(22 September 2014)
Questions: What are the legacies of Ottoman rule in the Middle East? What
different forms of colonial domination can be distinguished? How did different
Middle Eastern states gain independence and why does it matter?
Required Readings:
• Angrist, Michele Penner, 2004. “Party Systems and Regime Formation in
the Modern Middle East: Explaining Turkish Exceptionalism,” Comparative Politics 36(2), 229-249, (on Blackboard).
• Owen, Chapter 1.
• Schwedler, Chapter 3.
Making a State: Forms of Political and Economic Development (29
September 2014)
Questions: What are the main features of state building in the MENA? Which
different strategies can be distinguished? What long-term effects did such different strategies have and how?
Required Readings:
• Hinnebusch, Raymond 2010. “Toward a Historical Sociology of State Formation in the Middle East,” Middle East Critique 19(3), 201-216, (on
Blackboard).
• Owen, Chapters 2 and 3.
• Waldner, David 1999. State Building and Late Development, Chapters 1
and 2, (on Blackboard).
War and Peace: The Role of Regional and International Politics (13
October 2014)
Questions: What different phases can be distinguished with respect to the Middle East as an international subsystem? Which are the major turning-points in
the region’s international relations?
Required Readings:
• Gause, Gregory F., 1999. “Systemic Approaches to Middle East International Relations,” International Studies Review 1(1), 11-31, (on Blackboard).
• Schwedler, Chapters 5 and 6.
5
Part II: Topics
Social Actors: Networks, Classes and Movements (20 October 2014)
Questions: What is the role of tribes, clans, extended families, shillas, ethnic
groups, sects, and social classes? How do these social groups relate to each
other? Is there anything specifically ‘Middle Eastern’ or ‘Arab’ about social
stratification in the region?
Required Readings:
• Bellin, Eva 2000, “Contingent Democrats: Industrialists, Labor and Democratization in Late-Developing Countries,” World Politics 52, 175-205
(on Blackboard).
• Lindholm, Charles, 1986. “Kinship Structure and Political Authority:
The Middle East and Central Asia,” Comparative Studies in Society and
History 28(2), 334-355, (on Blackboard).
• Schwedler, Chapter 10.
Political Economy: Oil, Statism, and Liberalization (27 October 2014)
Questions: Are there distinctive features of Middle Eastern political economies?
Characterize the main aims and outcomes of economic liberalization.
Required Readings:
• Owen, Chapter 7.
• Ross, Michael L., 2011. “Will Oil Drown the Arab Spring?” Foreign Affairs, Sept-Oct 2011, 2-7, (on Blackboard).
• Schwedler, Chapter 7-9.
Institutions: Parties, Elections, and Parliaments (3 November 2014)
Questions: What was the role of parties, elections, and parliaments under authoritarianism before the Arab Spring? Did these roles change? What is the
potential of such institutions to influence transition projects? How do different
Arab states differ from each other on this dimension?
Required Readings:
• Gandhi, Jennifer and Ellen Lust-Okar, 2009. “Elections Under Authoritarianism,” Annual Review of Political Science 12, 403-422, (on Blackboard).
• Masoud, Tarek, 2013. Arabs Want Redistribution, So Why Don’t They
Vote Left? Theory and Evidence from Egypt, Harvard University, Faculty
Research Working Papers, (on Blackboard).
• Owen, Chapter 8.
6
Participation: Civil Society, Public Opinion, and Political Activism
(10 November 2014)
Questions: What is the problem of civil society in the Middle East according
to authors such as Bellin, Abdelrahman, and Langohr?
Required Readings:
• Abdelrahman, Maha 2002.The Politics of ‘un-civil’ Society in Egypt, Review of African Political Economy 29(91), 21-36, (on Blackboard).
• Bayat, Asef, 1997. “Un-Civil Society: The Politics of the ‘Informal People’,” Third World Quarterly 18(1), 53-72, (on Blackboard).
• Bellin, Eva, 1994. “Civil Society: Effective Tool of Analysis for Middle East Politics?,’ PS: Political Science and Politics 27(3), 509-510, (on
Blackboard).
• Langohr, Vickie 2004. Too Much Civil Society, Too Little Politics: Egypt
and Liberalizing Arab Regimes, Comparative Politics 36(2), 181-204, (on
Blackboard).
Ideologies and Political Attitudes: Nationalism, Support for Democracy, and Political Islam (17 November 2014)
Questions: What are the empirical effects of religiosity on political attitudes
and participation? Do people in the Middle East support democracy?
Required Readings:
• Hoffman, Michael and Amaney Jamal, 2012. “The Youth and the Arab
Spring: Cohort Differences and Similarities,” Middle East Law and Governance 4, 168-188, (on Blackboard).
• Tessler, Mark 2002. “Islam and Democracy in the Middle East: The
Impact of Religious Orientations on Attitudes toward Democracy in Four
Arab Countries,” Comparative Politics 34(3), 337-354, (on Blackboard).
• Tessler, Mark, Amaney Jamal, and Michael Robbins, 2012. “New Findings on Arabs and Democracy,” Journal of Democracy 23(4), 89-103, (on
Blackboard).
The Military: The Lasting Role of Arab Officers (24 November 2014)
Questions: What was the historical role of the military in the region? How
did military behavior contribute to shaping the Arab Spring? What is specific
about Arab militaries (if anything)?
Required Readings:
• Albrecht, Holger and Dina Bishara, 2011. “Back on Horseback: The Military and Political Transformation in Egypt,” Middle East Law and Governance 3, 13-23, (on Blackboard).
7
• Bellin, Eva, 2012. “Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism in
the Middle East,” Comparative Politics 44(2), 127-149, (on Blackboard).
• Brooks, Risa, 1998. Political-Military Relations and the Stability of Arab
Regimes, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), ‘Introduction,’ ‘The Stability
of Arab Regimes,’ and ‘Maintaining Power,’ (on Blackboard).
Revolution: Change and Upheaval in Arab Politics (1 December
2014)
Questions: What is a revolution? Does the Arab Spring fulfill this definition?
Which approaches in the study of revolutions might be particularly helpful in
studying the Arab Spring?
Required Readings:
• Goldstone, Jack A., 2001. “Toward a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary
Theory,” Annual Review of Political Science 4, 139-187, (on Blackboard).
• Goodwin, Jeff, 1994. “Toward a New Sociology of Revolutions,” Theory
and Society 23(6), 731-766, (on Blackboard).
• Kuran, Timur, 1989. “Sparks and Prairie Fires: A Theory of Unanticipated Political Revolution,” Public Choice 61(1), 41-74, (on Blackboard)
8