DPI-440: Middle Eastern Politics and Policy

Semester: Not Offered

Credit: 1.0

Faculty: Tarek Masoud

Schedule

Day Time Location
First Day
Meet Day
Review

Description

Explores themajor political, economic, social, and security challenges facing -and emanating from - the Middle East. Particular attention paid tothe durability of the regions authoritarian governments and to thefragility of its national economies. Attempts to understand theextent to which these challenges are a function of coloniallegacies, Islam, peculiarities of the physical environment,demographic patterns, cultures of patriarchy, the distortions offoreign aid and oil wealth, the machinations of great powers, orother factors. Embraces a variety of theoretical and empiricalliteratures, including translated works by Middle Easterncommentators, politicians, and social theorists. Students willemerge from the course with both an understanding of a region whosegeopolitical importance - to the United States and the world -shows no sign of waning, and a grounding in some of the principalanalytic approaches in the study of comparative politicalsystems.