78449 - HISTORY AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST

Anno Accademico 2019/2020

  • Docente: Federico Donelli
  • Crediti formativi: 10
  • SSD: SPS/14
  • Lingua di insegnamento: Inglese
  • Moduli: Federico Donelli (Modulo 1) Salvatore Drago (Modulo 2)
  • Modalità didattica: Convenzionale - Lezioni in presenza (Modulo 1) Convenzionale - Lezioni in presenza (Modulo 2)
  • Campus: Forli
  • Corso: Laurea in Scienze internazionali e diplomatiche (cod. 8048)

    Valido anche per Campus di Bologna
    Laurea in Sviluppo e cooperazione internazionale (cod. 8890)

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

At the end of the course, students - are able to articulate informed and coherent arguments about the main aspects of Middle Eastern political , social and cultural development in Turkey, Iran and the Arab Middle East by referring to the relevant scholarly literature

Contenuti

The course deals with the historical, political, economic and social processes in the Middle East during the last two centuries. It surveys the history of the modern Middle East by analyzing the main features of the process of nation building and state building in the former Ottoman Empire’s dominions. The course is divided into two parts: a chronological history and overview of the region, and a selection of thematic topics from the post-Ottoman era to date. Topics covered include the late Ottoman Empire, the state and nation building processes, the Arab-Israeli conflict, political Islam and the role of the extra-regional powers (U.S., Russia and China) in the region. Attention will be paid to the links between the history of the modern Middle East and current events such as the Syrian and Yemeni civil war, the sectarianization process (Sunni-Shia) and the enlargement of regional borders. The first part of the course will deal with the political history of the Middle East starting with the late Ottoman period until the end of the Second World War. Some fundamental themes will be the Sykes-Picot agreement, the Arab-Israeli wars, the birth of modern states in the Middle East, modernization and nationalism. The second part deals with the Cold War period, analyzing relevant events such as Nasserism in Egypt, the Iranian revolution of 1979, the rise of political Islam in the region. The third part refers to the post-9/11 era, examining phenomena such the Iraqi War, the political experience of the AKP in Turkey (2002-19), the new Middle Eastern Cold War, the birth of Daesh, the so-called Arab Springs and the reconfiguration of the regional polarity during the last decade.

Importantly, the approach to this class uses a theoretical framework that avoids Orientalist characterizations of the region. Students will hear the perspectives of both Western and non-Western scholars. Students will be required to attend all lectures and to keep up with the reading according to the schedule below. The students are also advised to familiarize his/her-self –at least one from each- with mainstream national, regional and global daily newspapers, news agencies, political magazines, journals and periodic publications and also web sites of countries’ political and bureaucratic institutions.

 

Week 1: Overview of the course (presentation of the syllabus; audiovisual tools; hashtags; journals; archives) and preliminary inputs. Introduction to the study of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern history.

Required reading: Karen Culcasi, Constructing and Naturalizing the Middle East, in Geographical Review, Vol. 100, No. 4 (2010), pp. 583-597.

Week 2: Reform and Rebellion in the ME: the Tanzimat and the end of religious coexistence, Mohammad Ali's Egypt, the Qajar Iran.

Required reading: Guang Pan, Revelations of Muhammad Ali’s Reform for Egyptian National Governance, in Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Vol. 7, No. 4 (2013), pp.17-35.

Week 3: The Great War in the Middle East: the Ottoman Empire and the Qajar Iran from the revolution to the First World War.

Required reading: Eugene Rogan, Rival jihads: Islam and the Great War in the Middle East, 1914–1918, in Journal of the British Academy, Vol. 4, (2016), pp. 1–20.

Week 4: The modern Middle East state-system: the mandates and the State formation (Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iran).

Required reading: Peter Sluglett, An improvement on colonialism? The ‘A’ mandates and their legacy in the Middle East, in International Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 2 (2014), pp. 413-427.

Week 5: The Second World War and the entry of superpowers: the Israel’s birth, Nasser’s pan-Arabism and the military coups (Iran, Turkey and the Arab States).

Required reading: Maqbool Ahmad Awan, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Pan-Arabism and Formation of the United Arab Republic: An Appraisal, in Journal of Research Society of Pakistan, Vol. 54, No. 1 (2017).

Week 6: Cold War Battles: The Suez Crisis, Arab-Israeli Conflicts, the Lebanese Civil War.

Gasiorowski, Mark J., U.S. Perceptions of the Communist Threat in Iran during the Mossadegh Era, in Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 21 No. 3 (2019), pp. 185-221.

Week 7: The rise of political Islam: the Islamic Revolution, the Turkish-Islamic synthesis, the Kurdish issue, the Iran-Iraq War and the Afghanistan Jihad.

Required reading: Shireen T Hunter, Iran and the spread of revolutionary Islam, in Third World Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1988), pp. 730-749.

Week 8: The Middle East security in the post-Cold War era: the 9/11 and the Pax Americana project for the ME: the Iraq War, the new Turkey’s foreign policy and the rise of small assertive powers (UAE, Qatar).

Required reading: Raymond Hinnenbusch, The US Invasion of Iraq: Explanations and Implications, in Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2007), pp. 209-228.

Week 10: The Arab uphevals and the reshuffle of regional balances: Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Syrian proxy-war, Gezi Protests, the sectarianization process and the birth of Daesh.

Required reading: Monier, Elizabeth Iskander Ranko, Annette, The Fall of the Muslim Brotherhood: Implications for Egypt, in Middle East Policy, Vol. 20, No. 4 (2013), pp. 111-123

Hanau Santini, Ruth, A New Regional Cold War in the Middle East and North Africa: Regional Security Complex Theory Revisited, in International Spectator, Vol. 52, No. 4 (2017), pp. 93-111.

Testi/Bibliografia

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Students are required to study the following book.

  • Peter Mansfield, A History of the Middle East (4th Edition), London: Penguin Books, 2013.
  • Nader Hashemi, Danny Postel (eds.), Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East, Oxford: OUP, 2017.

All teaching materials for attending students will be provided on the class website or in a dedicated page of dropbox. Students are requested to prepare the required readings carefully, in order to be able to participate to class discussions.

The use of the historical maps is highly recommended.

Metodi didattici

Frontal lectures, students' presentations, use of media, class discussion. The course will be taught by a combination of lectures and tutorials. featuring individual or group presentations on assigned readings and discussion of key research questions. Active contribution to class seminars is considered extremely important and it will be subjected to informal assessment.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

Student grades will be calculated using the following criteria:

Attendance and Class Performance 10%

Mid-term exams (2) 60%

Final written/oral examination 30%

Attendance and Class performance: this course is based on seminar format and the goal is to get students to actively debate, engage, and critically reflect on class material. Students will present a current event orally to the class each week. The presentation should be no more than five minutes in length. The current event must relate to conflict or politics in the Middle East. The source should be from a respected news source, be less than one week old and pertain in some way to one or more international organizations. Each student should try to relate the article to some element of what we have been discussing in class. Although class roll will be taken and unexcused absences will be sanctioned, the bulk of the grade is about the quality and frequency of your participation. Come ready to participate, challenge, and debate issues.

Midterm exam: Students will answer to 20 multiple choice and one open question about the topics covered during classes. The two midterm exams will be held on April 7th and May 5th.

Final examination: Oral exam.

Students who are unable to attend classes are required to prepare the two texts required and an additional text among those listed below:

-Raymond Hinnebusch, Adham Saouli (eds.), The War for Syria: Regional and International Dimensions of the Syrian Uprising, London: Routledge, 2019.

- Mark Lynch, The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East, Washington, Public Affairs, 2017.

- Carlo Degli Abbati, Il radicalismo nel mome dell'Islam. Una responsabilità condivisa?, Roma: Aracne Editrice, 2015.

- Federico Donelli, Le due sponde del Mar Rosso. La politica estera degli stati mediorientali nel Corno d’Africa, Milano: Mondadori Università, 2019.

- Massimiliano Trentin (a cura di), L'ultimo califfato: L'Organizzazione dello Stato islamico in Medio Oriente, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2017.

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

Pc, videos, slides, maps.

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Federico Donelli

Consulta il sito web di Salvatore Drago