SUİ362

School of Economics and Administrative Sciences \ Political Science and International Relations

3

6

Elective

Turkish

-

SUİ program takes it as departmental elective, other programs can take as faculty or university elective.

This course examines the political, economic and social transformations of the modern Middle East from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire to the present day from a historical perspective. The course analyzes the formation of modern nation-states in the post-World War I period, the role of external powers in regional politics, the interaction of regional actors with external powers and with each other, the basic dynamics of state-society relations, the political economy of the region shaped by oil, political rent and its varying degrees of integration into global capitalism and the role of different identities such as nationalism, Islamism and Pan-Arab nationalism in regional politics.

William Cleveland, Modern Ortadoğu Tarihi, çev. Mehmet Harmancı, (İstanbul: Agora Kitaplığı, 2008).
Youssef M. Choueiri, Ortadoğu Tarihi, (İstanbul: İnkılap Kitabevi).
Julia Clancy Smith and Charles Smith, The Modern Middle East and North Africa: A History in Documents, (Oxford University Press, 2014).
Albert Hourani, Arap Halkları Tarihi, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1997).
Louise Fawcett, International Relations of the Middle East, (Oxford University Press, 2013).
Roger Owen, The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life, (Harvard University Press, 2012).
Martha Wenger, “Primer: Lebanon’s 15-Year War, 1975-1990”, MERIP 162 (January/February 1990).
Meliha Benli Altunışık, “Ortadoğu ve ABD: Yeni bir Döneme Girilirken”, Ortadoğu Etütleri, Temmuz 2009, 1 (1), 69-81.
MERIP Primer on Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, http://www.merip.org/primer-palestine-israel-arab-israeli-conflict-new
Asef Bayat, “Arab Uprisings in the Modern Middle East”, içinde Omnia El Shakry (ed.), Understanding and Teaching the Modern Middle East, (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020), 201-216.
James L. Gelvin, “Arap İsyanlarını Anlamak”, içinde Doğan Çetinkaya (ed.), Ortadoğu: Direniş, Devrim, Emperyalizm, (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2014), 63-88.
Marc Lynch, “The Arab Uprisings Never Ended”, Foreign Affairs, (January-February 2021), 111-122.

The course aims to offer a systematic historical overview and discussion of Middle East politics from WWI onwards and bring forth an up-to-date analysis of regional actors and issues. It aspires to understand the dynamics of change and continuity in the region through historical turning points and processes. It integrates major IR discussions of power transition, state-building and war-making, globalization into historical analysis of Middle East. These thematic issues will be illustrated by single case studies of historical experiences of both Arab and non-Arab countries of the region such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Israel and Iran.

1. Students learn about the critical historical junctures, processes and personalities of modern Middle East history and regional politics as well as the impact of the region's historical transformation on the state, society and foreign policies of the countries of the region.
2. Students make connections between the history of the Middle East and International Politics through categorizations of the Cold War, Post-Cold War, Post-9/11 and Post-Arab Uprisings periods. While acquiring knowledge on Area Studies, they use and deepen their knowledge in their Political Science and International Relations discipline.
3. Students gain an interdisciplinary perspective, especially with knowledge based on the field of History. Students will be able to interpret politics and society in the region by blending the knowledge and approaches of disciplines such as Political Science, International Relations and History.

Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: "Middle East": geographical boundaries, political definitions and academic discussions & Reform and Transformation in the 18th and 19th century Ottoman Empire, Iran and Egypt
Week 3: World War I and the Middle East
Week 4: Post-WWI Middle East- Part I: British mandate countries (Egypt, Iraq and Transjordan)
Week 5: Post-WWI Middle East-Part II: French mandate countries (Syria, Lebanon) & Countries with no formal mandate experience (Saudi Arabia and Iran)
Week 6: "Independent" Middle East Since Post-World War II Until the 1970s: Cold War and Pan-Arabism
Week 7: Arab-Israeli Conflict: Dynamics of War and Peace & Societal Transformation
Week 8: Middle East From 1970s Until 1990s: Lebanese Civil War & Authoritarian Consolidation in Iraq and Syria
Week 9: Political Econom of the Middle East & Oil Age: Development and Transfomation of the Arabian Peninsula
Week 10: Iranian Revolution and the Rise of Political Islam in the Middle East
Week 11: Middle East in the Post-Cold War Era: Palestinian Intifada and Middle East Peace Process & The Road from the 1990-1991 Gulf Crisis to September 11 2001
Week 12: The "Arab Spring" and the Middle East

• Participation 15 %
• Midterm 40 %
• Final 45 %