Political Science 346 Middle East Politics, Section 730 Fall Semester, 2018 Course Instructor: Dr. Alon P. Kraitzman (kraitzma@msu.edu) Course Topic: This course is designed to offer an overview of the political, social and economic dynamics in the contemporary Middle East. First, we will gain familiarity with the history of Middle East, highlighting the conditions that shape state formation and the consolidation of non-democratic political systems. Then we will explore the major topics of comparative politics research on the region, while also building empirical knowledge about the politics of individual countries. The topics explored include economic development, social changes, political participation, religionstate relations with a special emphasis on political institutions, Islamic politics, international relations, and political conflicts. Through careful examination of theoretical and empirical evidence, we will identify broad trends for each of these topics. Textbook: Lust, Ellen. The Middle East, 14th Edition, CQ Press (link for preview: https://goo.gl/edd15l) The rest of the readings will be available on D2L. Course Web Site: https://d2l.msu.edu SS17-PLS-346-730 - Middle East Politics Table of contents is organized into weekly classes and each class covers a specific topic Each week will include the following: o Weekly class memo o First lecture of the week o Second lecture of the week (except for weeks with quizzes or exams). Three quizzes will be open during weeks 4, 7 and 12. Two exams (a midterm and a final) will be open during weeks 9 and 15. On-Line Aspects of the Course and Course Communication: [1]
Make sure you have consistent access to the internet through the semester. This course is not self-paced there are due dates for exams and quizzes. All course emails will be sent to your Michigan State (mail.msu.edu) account only via the D2L system. You will need to check your MSU account at least once a day. This is an on-line course and hence the only contact you are likely to have with your instructor or with others in the class is through email. Your instructor will respond to any inquiries within 48 hours usually sooner. Course Topics: The course is organized around eleven topics 1. Introduction 2. Historical Background 3. Institutions and Governance 4. Political Economy 5. Political Participation 6. International Relations 7. Social Change 8. Religion 9. Conflict, Violence and Terrorism 10. The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 11. The Arab Uprisings Lectures: There will be two lectures each week, except for weeks with quizzes or examinations. Each lecture is a set of narrated slides designed to review and enhance the readings. Lecture Topics/Reading: Week 1 Introduction to the Course Week 2 Historical Background Part 1 - Definition of the MIDDLE EAST? o Roger Adelson, British and U.S. Use and Misuse of the Term, Middle East, in Is There a Middle East? The Evolution of a Geopolitical Concept, edited by Michael E. [2]
Bonine, Michael Gasper, and Abbas Amanat (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011): pgs 36-55. o Davidson, Roderic H. 1960. Where is the Middle East? Foreign Affairs 38: pp. 665-75. Historical Background Part 2 - Colonialism and State Formation o The Middle East, Chapter 1: The Making of the Modern Middle East o Anderson, L. (1987). The State in the Middle East and North Africa. Comparative Politics, 20(1), 1-18. Week 3 Institutions and Governance Part 1 Overview of Institutions and Governance o The Middle East, Chapter 4: Institutions and Governance, pp. 160-184 o Film: Persepolis Institutions and Governance Part 2 Persistence of Authoritarianism o Bellin, Eva. 2004. The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective, Comparative Politics 36. o Larry Diamond, Why are There No Arab Democracies?, Journal of Democracy, Volume 21 No 1 (January 2010), pp. 93-112. Week 4 Institutions and Governance Part 3 Regime Breakdown and Key Institutions o The Middle East, Chapter 4: Institutions and Governance, pp. 185-204 First Quiz: The quiz will cover all the material from Week 1 through Week 4, and will be open from Monday, September 17, at 12:00 p.m. until Sunday, September 23 at 11:00 p.m. No makeup quiz will be offered. Quiz length: 50 minutes. Week 5 Political Economy Part 1 Economic Development o The Middle East, Chapter 3: The Political Economy of Development in the Middle East Political Economy Part 2 Political Economy of Oil o Kuran, Timur. 2004. Why the Middle East is Economically Underdeveloped? Historical Mechanisms of Institutional Stagnation, Journal of Economic Perspectives 18. o Ross, Michael. Does Oil Hinder Democracy? World Politics 53:3 (2001) Week 6 [3]
Political Participation Part 1 o The Middle East, Chapter 6: Actors, Public Opinion, and Participation, pp. 242-252 o Lust, Ellen. "Competitive clientelism in the Middle East." Journal of Democracy 20.3 (2009): 122-135. Political Participation Part 2 o Langhor, Vicky. Too Much Civil Society, Too Little Politics: Egypt and Liberalizing Arab Regimes. Comparative Politics (June 2004) o Posusney, Marsha Pripstein. "Multi-party elections in the Arab world: Institutional engineering and oppositional strategies." Studies in Comparative International Development 36.4 (2002) Week 7 Political Participation Part 3 o The Middle East, Chapter 6: Actors, Public Opinion, and Participation, pp. 253-287 Second Quiz: The quiz will cover all the material from Week 5 through Week 7, and will be open from Monday, October 17, at 12:00 p.m. until Sunday, October 23 at 11:00 p.m. No makeup quiz will be offered. Quiz length: 50 minutes. Week 8 International Relations Part 1 Overview of International Relations o The Middle East, Chapter 8: International Relations, pp. 369-379 International Relations Part 2 Attitudes toward the US o Jamal, Amaney et al. 2015. Anti-Americanism and Anti-Interventionism in Arabic Twitter Discourses Perspectives on Politics 13 (1): pp. 1-19. o Blaydes, Lisa and Drew A. Linzer. 2012. Elite Competition, Religiosity, and Anti- Americanism in the Islamic World American Political Science Review 106 (2): pp. 225-43. Week 9 International Relations Part 3 Ideology and Identity o The Middle East, Chapter 8: International Relations, pp. 380-401 Midterm Examination: The exam will cover all the material from Week 1 through Week 9, and will be open from Monday, October 22, at 12:00 p.m. until Sunday, October 28 at 11:00 p.m. No makeup exam will be offered. Exam length: 70 minutes. [4]
Week 10 Social Change Social Issues, Gender and Politics Part 1 o The Middle East, Chapter 2: Social Change in the Middle East Social Change Social Issues, Gender and Politics Part 2 o Blaydes, Lisa and Drew Linzer. 2008. The Political Economy of Women's Support for Fundamentalist Islam, World Politics 60. o Ross, Michael. 2008. Oil, Islam, and Women, American Political Science Review 102. Week 11 Religion Part 1 Overview of Religion in the Middle East o The Middle East, Chapter 5: Religion, Society and Politics in the Middle East, pp. 205-221 o Clingingsmith, David, Asim Khwaja and Michael Kremer. 2009. Estimating the Impact of the Hajj: Religion and Tolerance in Islam's Global Gathering, Quarterly Journal of Economics 124. Religion Part 2 Islam and the State o The Middle East, Chapter 5: Religion, Society and Politics in the Middle East, pp. 221-241 o Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky. 2003. Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Chapter 7. Week 12 Conflict, Violence and Terrorism o Hegghammer, Thomas. 2013. Should I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists' Choice between Domestic and Foreign Fighting, American Political Science Review 107. o Berman, Eli and David D. Laitin. 2008. Religion, Terrorism, and Public Goods: Testing the Club Model Journal of Public Economics 92: pp. 1942-67. o Wiktorowicz, Quintan and Karl Kaltenhaler. 2006. The Rationality of Radical Islam Political Science Quarterly 121 (2): pp. 295-319. Third Quiz: The quiz will cover all the material from Week 10 through Week 12, and will be open from Monday, November 12, at 12:00 p.m. until Sunday, November 18 at 11:00 p.m. No makeup quiz will be offered. Quiz length: 50 minutes. Week 13 Case Study: Israel [5]
o The Middle East, Chapter 13: Israel The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict o The Middle East, Chapter 7: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Week 14 The Arab Uprisings Part 1 o Bellin, Eva. 2012. Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Lessons from the Arab Spring, Comparative Politics 12. o Campante, Filipe and Davin Chor. 2012. Why was the Arab World Poised for Revolution? Schooling, Economic Opportunities, and the Arab Spring, Journal of Economic Perspectives 26. 4 o Brownlee, J., Masoud, T., & Reynolds, A. (2013). Why the modest harvest?. Journal of Democracy, 24(4), 29-44. The Arab Uprisings Part 2 o Masoud, The Road to and from Liberation Square, Journal of Democracy, July 2011 o Zoltan Barany, The Role of the Military, Journal of Democracy, 22:4, October 2011 o Yom and Gause, Resilient Royals: How Arab Monarchies Hang On, Journal of Democracy, 23:4, October 2012 o Film: The Square Week 15 Preparation/Review for Final Examination Final Examination: The exam will cover all the material from Week 10 through Week 15, and will be open from Monday, December 3, at 12:00 p.m. until Sunday, December 9 at 11:00 p.m. No makeup exam will be offered. Exam length: 70 minutes. Weekly Class Memo: Each week, a class memo will be posted on D2L. Each memo will include the following information: Required Reading Key concepts from reading and lectures Discussion questions from reading and lectures Assignments: Quizzes 3 quizzes 100 points each, 300 points total. [6]
o The quizzes are spaced as evenly as possible throughout the course this way you can demonstrate your grasp of the material from the online lessons/readings while it is relatively fresh. o Quizzes will consist of several multiple-choice questions and a few short answer questions at the end. All questions are selected at random from a larger pool of questions. Please note: your quiz is unlike that of any other student in the class. There are no makeup options for the quizzes. o The weekly class memos will serve as study guides for the quizzes. o Each quiz will be offered for about seven days, as specified in the following table. You may log into the quiz at any time during that window. Once logged in, you have 50 minutes to complete the quiz and turn it in. You must submit your quiz before your time limit expires; if you fail to submit the quiz by the expiration of the allotted time, your quiz will be submitted automatically. The scheduled dates for the quizzes are as follows note that all times are Eastern Daylight Time: Quiz Number Start Date (12:00 End Date (11:00 p.m.) Total Points p.m.) First Quiz 17-September 23-September 100 Second Quiz 8-October 14-October 100 Third Quiz 12-November 18-November 100 Examinations There will be two required on-line examinations. Each of the exams is worth 250 points. The exams will be open for about seven days, as specified in the following table. You may log into the quiz at any time during that window. Once logged in, you have 70 minutes to complete the quiz and turn it in. You must submit your exam before your time limit expires; if you fail to submit the exam by the expiration of the allotted time, your exam will be submitted automatically. The scheduled dates for the examinations are as follows note that all times are Eastern Daylight Time: Exam Number Start Date (9:00 End Date (9:00 a.m.) Total Points a.m.) Midterm Exam 22-October 28-October 250 Final Exam 3-December 9-December 250 Grading: Total of 800 points in the class Assignment Total Points 3 Quizzes 300 points Exams 500 points Total 800 points [7]
Grades are assigned according to the following rubric: Grade Lower bound: Upper Lower Upper points bound: points bound: % bound: % 4.0 736 800 92 100 3.5 688 765 86 91 3.0 640 687 80 85 2.5 600 639 75 79 2.0 560 599 70 74 1.5 520 559 65 69 1.0 480 519 60 64 0.0 0 479 0 59 Academic Honesty: Article 2.3.3 of the Academic Freedom Report states: The student shares with the faculty the responsibility for maintaining the integrity of scholarship, grades, and professional standards. In addition, the Political Science Department adheres to the policies on academic honesty specified in General Student Regulation 1.0, Protection of Scholarship and Grades; the all-university Policy on Integrity of Scholarship and Grades; and Ordinance 17.00, Examinations. In PLS 346, academic dishonesty is defined as conduct that violates the fundamental principles of truth, honesty, and integrity. The following conduct violates these principles: (a) supplying or using work or answers that are not one's own; (b) providing or accepting assistance with completing assignments or exams; or (c) interfering through any means with another's academic work. Please note: if you study together, be sure that you do not submit identical answers to open questions. To do so, violates both the spirit and the letter of academic integrity. It is imperative that the work you turn in is your own work even if you study together and jointly prepare for the exams. The penalties for dishonesty will vary from getting a 0 on individual exams to getting 0 for the entire semester. [8]
Course Calendar: Week Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Topics One 29-Aug 30 31 1-Sep 2 Introduction Two 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Historical Background: Three 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Institutions & Governance: parts 1& 2 Four 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Institutions & Governance: part 3 Five 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Political Economy: Six 1-Oct 2 3 4 5 6 7 Political Participation: Seven 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Political Participation: part 3 Eight 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 International Relations: Nine 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 International Relations: part 3 Ten 29 30 31 1-Nov 2 3 4 Social Change: Eleven 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Religion: Twelve 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Conflict, Violence and Terrorism Thirteen 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 The Israeli Palestinian Conflict: Fourteen 26 27 28 29 30 1-Dec 2 The Arab Uprisings: Fifteen 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Review for final Examination Quizzes Open Exams Open [9]