The Politics of the Arab-Conflict, Pol Sci 404
The aim of this course is to study the causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict and why it fails to be resolved. It considers the competing historical claims to the “holy land”, the creation of political “facts” on the ground, the rise of national consciousness and institutions, and the relation between colonialism, nationalism, religion, and statehood. The course also examines the various solutions proposed to end the conflict. This is a reading intensive class that expects students to have strong writing skills as well as some prior knowledge of the Middle East.
Middle East Politics, Pol Sci 369
This course examines the making of the modern Middle East. It explores the development of its modern political system and the tension between authoritarian rule and democratic aspirations. The course examines the role of colonialism, nationalism, oil, international intervention and Islam in shaping the character of Middle East States and the forces pushing for democracy. It will focus on three main Arab countries, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia as well as Iran, paying attention to central themes such as democratization, popular uprisings, political parties, state-military relations and state-society relations.
Comparative Politics, Pol Sci 202
It is often said that democracy is the least evil system of government humans have invented. It is also said to be the best political system capable of reducing poverty, or is it? China has been able to have the highest economic growth in 30 years and yet it is far from being democratic. India, on the other hand, is a largest democracy in the world, but its poverty levels remain high, despite significant economic growth over the past 6 decades.
This course provides a general introduction to the political challenges of development and democratisation in developing countries. It explores how different political systems achieve and maintain legitimacy, even if they are not democratic. It investigates the economic and social forces that can explain why and when people rebel against their government to demand of freedom and political accountability. By comparing and contrasting the different political systems in five countries (China, India, Mexico, Iran and Nigeria), students will learn about the role of political parties, ideologies, institutional structures and social forces in sustaining a political regime and/or forcing it to change.
States and Empires, Pol Sci 377
The aim of this course is to examine theories of the State. It seeks to explore how states emerge and what role do wars, empires and processes of economic development play in determining States’ structures and durability. The first half of the semester will focus on the works of major political philosophers and political scientists to grasp the different ways in which the State is being conceptualized and understood in modern political thinking. The second half of the course will concentrate on third world countries, analyzing in particular the nature of the Middle Eastern State, exploring how imperialism, oil and wars impacted its authoritarian structure. This class is reading and writing intensive. It requires some backward in political theory and Middle East politics.
Nation-States and Civil Wars, Pol Sci 377
Over the last decade over 90% of all major violent conflicts worldwide were wars within states, rather than between states. Civil wars waged in the name of national self-determination have historically been the most violent and intractable, lasting for years and not always ending peacefully. More recently civil wars have increasingly taken on a religious character, as armed militias defying the state define their struggle in religious rather than pure nationalist terms. Meanwhile, the State’s political character and its political and economic approach towards its various constituents remain key to understanding how civil wars arise and how they can be brought to an end.
In the first part of the course, students will learn about on various theories of the State, examining why people obey it and when they stop to consider it legitimate. In the second part, they will review theories of nationalism and how people come to define themselves in ethnic and/or religious national terms and justify their attempt to secede and/or violently challenge State authority. In the third part of the course, students will present individual cases of different civil wars to highlight the different local, regional and international political forces that sustained them and eventually ended them.
The United States and the Middle East: Issues in World Politics, INTREL 612
September 11, the US war on Afghanistan and Iraq, the Arab uprisings, and the rise and fall of ISIS reveal that the Middle East remains a turbulent region of central importance to world politics. This course asks why the US is involved in it and how far has its involvement helped maintain a stable, albeit authoritarian, Middle East. It takes a historical look at the dynamics of US involvement in the Middle East since World War II, exploring how the Middle East has figured in the US national security, including the need to ensure steady supply of oil, US special relation to Israel, and its interests in promoting democracy and/or stability. The course examines the role of domestic, regional and international factors shaped US policy towards the region and shaped its success and failure in addressing key policy concerns, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, political Islam, and the war on terror.
Intermediate Seminar, Pol. Sci. Int-D 200G
This Intermediate Seminar examines the process of political development in third world countries. Together we will analyze the meaning of development and how it is tied to the process of economic change. We will address questions such as: does political development mean democracy or stability? Is it compatible with poverty or not? What economic processes bring about political development? What do we mean by globalization and does it impact women in the same way as it impacts the environment, the rich as much as the poor? We will seek to answer some of these questions by paying some attention to the challenges developing countries face in providing their population with security and growth.
The Politics and Literature of Resistance
(co-taught with Professor Askold Melnyczuk) Pol Sci 377/Engl 397, 2016)
The aim of this course is to explore some of the politically and literary dimensions of resistance and revolutions. One of the primary meanings of resistance is “the inherent ability of an organism to resist harmful influences and disease.” In electricity, it’s a way of measuring and controlling the flow of power. On a personal level, resistance arises for a variety of reasons, usually in reaction to aggression. In the social and political realm, the word frequently points to an individual’s or a group’s response to oppression, and is directly related to controlling the flow of power. Many of our greatest works of literature—from Dante’s Divine Comedy to James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time—were created as acts of resistance and rebellion against the status quo.
We will focus on the literature and politics of resistance and revolution by looking at both classic and contemporary works. The readings include Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Albert Camus’ The Rebel, Ta-Nehisi Coats’ Between the World and Me, as well as selected work by William Blake, Claudia Rankine, William Carlos Williams, Jeanette Winterson, Mahmoud Darwish, Primo Levi, Patricia Hampl, and others. We’ll also read classic works of political theory by Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Michel Foucault, while examining literature’s role in times of profound social upheaval.
From Ferguson to Palestine: The Quest for Justice in a Corrupt Age
(co-taught with Professor Askold Melnyczuk) Pol Sci 377/Engl 397, 2022
Crooked politicians; trigger-happy cops; waves of refugees exiled from their native lands, and as if that weren’t enough, a climate on the verge of a nervous breakdown…. As always, the poor and the seemingly powerless suffer the brunt of this present-day assault on “civilization”. How is this fair? Where in all this can we find justice? Has there ever been a “just society”? Is it possible to create one? But just exactly what is justice? On what principles does it run?
We will explore how the concept of justice is understood and dealt with from a variety of perspectives, reading texts both classic and contemporary, political and literary. Literature has long been the crucible in which abstract theories and ideas are “tested” by writers imagining utopias and probing contemporary social questions.