PLSI410
Middle East Politics
Fall 2004 SFSU
T, Th 10:10-11:50 a.m.,
Bus 110
Course Web Site:
/ Asst. Prof. Nicole Watts
Office: HSS 129
Office Hours:
M, Wed 11-11:50 a.m.
Office Phone: 405-2470
Email:
Home page:

Course Description

The part of the world we most commonly call the Middle East is today the focus of considerable attention – most of it negative. This introductory course on the politics of the Middle East is designed to help you get beyond the headlines and TV news to understand some of the region’s most important political dynamics. We will do this by looking at the ways different states in the region set about trying to create new administrative and social frameworks for rule after the end of European colonialism, at how the societies under their authority responded to these new states’ plans for social and political reorganization, and at how international ideas and actors affected these processes. Through this conceptual framework we will explore a number of key events and issues.

The course is divided into six parts. In part one we will briefly look at the way the area was governed prior to the 20th century and then at the impact of European colonialism. An important part of this discussion will involve an assessment of how “we” as Americans continue to treat and view the Middle East. In parts two, three, and four we will explore different types of state-building and social responses in Israel-Palestine, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Part five provides us with a hiatus in our regular schedule for a simulation of a Palestinian-Israeli peace process and for Thanksgiving holiday. Finally, in part six we return to look at the Iranian Revolution and subsequent efforts there to build an Islamic theocracy.

You should note that the Middle East is a large area that encompasses many diverse places, politics, and people; this class does not attempt to cover all of them. The material we examine should, however, give you a solid background on the politics of the region and some of the conceptual and historical tools necessary to explore them further.

Course format

This course will be a mixture of short lectures, in-class discussion of assigned readings, and other class activities. In addition, a key element of the class organization and required work will be a semester-long simulation of Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations, culminating in a proposal for a peace plan. This simulation will require extensive group work, some of which will be undertaken during class hours, but most of which will be conducted through electronic discussions and “meetings” on Blackboard.

BLACKBOARD: Blackboard is an Internet-based program designed (among other things) to facilitate electronic discussion and information sharing among students and faculty. We will be using Blackboard for simulation discussions, document sharing, and project development. In addition, you can use Blackboard to comment or ask questions about the assigned reading, about papers and assignments, and to comment on relevant current events. Because of our reliance on Blackboard, you must have an SFSU email account and must have regular access to the Internet to participate in this class.

The URL for Blackboard is:

Class Web Site

In addition to the Blackboard site, we have a class web site. You will find lecture notes (posted AFTER the date on which they were delivered in class), test review questions, and other instructional material on the class web site. The class web site also has links to primary documents you will need for your reading. All simulation-related material will only be available on Blackboard, however.

The class web site is:

Course Texts:

There is one required book: R. Stephen Humphreys, Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age (Berkeley: UC Press, 1999). This text is available at the SFSU Bookstore.

The remainder of our readings are available either on e-reserve at SFSU library or on the Internet. URLs for the Internet-based documents are available on the class web site. You are expected to PRINT OUT these texts and bring them to class for use during discussion.

The URL for e-reserves is

The password for e-reserve is: sultan

Course Requirements

  • Attendance

Because of the simulation and the emphasis on participation, your attendance is critical to the success of the class. You may miss THREE class sessions during the semester without penalty to your grade, with the exception of key simulation dates, for which attendance is mandatory for all class members. (See schedule below for these dates.) A roll sheet will be handed out at the beginning of class; you are responsible for signing yourself in. Please remember to sign in. If you miss more than three class sessions your attendance grade will be marked down by half a letter grade per missed day.

  • Reading

You will be asked to read all the assigned material carefully, bring the texts to class, and be prepared to discuss them. Reading will be anywhere from about 40-100 pages per week. Texts are supplementary to lectures and will not replicate information given in class. If I feel that the assigned material is not being read, I reserve the right to issue unannounced pop quizzes asking you to answer questions about the material!

  • Participation

This class is about all of us getting together and learning from each other. Your preparation and participation is thus essential. Please come to class prepared to contribute to discussion. In addition, you will be asked to contribute to electronic discussions at least 3 times during the semester -- NOT including your simulation discussions. Your participation grading will be based on your in-class and electronic discussion. It will not be based on “how brilliant your remarks are” but on your effort to grapple with the assigned material.

To participate in electronic discussions, go to Blackboard and select “Discussion Board” from the options on the left-hand side of the page. You will then see several discussion lists to which you may contribute.

  • Geography Quiz

You will be asked to take a geography quiz of Middle East countries and territories. A list of places you are expected to know, along with links to practice maps, is available on Blackboard.

  • Two exams

There will be two exams during the semester. Exams will cover lectures, readings, and other class activities. The format will usually be a mixture of short answer, short essay, and multiple choice. Exams will not be comprehensive, although some questions may ask you to compare analysts covered in different parts of the class. (i.e. the 2nd exam is NOT cumulative for the entire semester).

A review sheet for each exam outlining the material you will be expected to know will be made available on the class web site in the week prior to the exam. There will be no make up exams except in cases of a documented medical or family emergency.

  • One analytical response paper, 3½-4 pages, double-spaced, 12 point font

This paper asks you to compare/contrast various readings as you analyze a particular topic. I will provide you with a list of possible questions; several students will each sign up to answer one of them. Papers will be due at various points throughout the semester. If you are dissatisfied with your grade on your paper, you may revise it and turn it in up to 7 days after you receive the first paper back. In this case, only the second, revised paper will be graded. You may not turn in a “second” paper if you did not turn in a completed first paper. Instructions for the papers will be available on the class web site. No late papers will be accepted.

  • Simulation of Palestinian-Israeli Peace Process (from now on referred to as PIPP)
  • Assignment 1: Self Identification and evaluation of preexisting knowledge (hard copy, take-home assignment, individual grade)
  • Assignment 2: Group Roles: Statement of Identity and Interests (Blackboard, group grade)
  • Assignment 3: Annotated Bibliography (Blackboard, individual grade)
  • Assignment 4: “In Character” Peace Proposal (Blackboard and hard copy, group and individual grades)
  • Assignment 5: Negotiations and Compromise: Blackboard and in-class debate; voting, and the production of one final peace document (group grades)
  • Assignment 6: Individual Analysis. (NOT “in character”, individual project with individual grade)

Each part of the project is worth a certain number of points, adding up to 100 points total (see below). At several points throughout the semester you will be asked to conduct a self- and peer evaluation of your own and your teammates’ work. This will help me assign the individual grades and make sure groups are working effectively. If this system encounters serious bugs, I reserve the right to modify it with the consent of the class.

PIPP grading:

Assignment 1: 5 points (individual)

Assignment 2: 20 points (group)

Assignment 3: 5 points (individual)

Assignment 4: 30 points (15 group, 15 individual)

Assignment 5: 25 points (individual/group)

Assignment 6: 15 points (individual)

Total individual points possible: 40

Total group points possible: 60

Total project points possible:100

Note: failure by any individual to participate in a written or in-class assignment will result in a zero for that individual, regardless of the overall group grade.

Course Grading

Attendance and Participation: 10%

Geography Quiz: 5 %

2 Exams: 35%

Paper 15%

PIPP Simulation Projects 35%

Other notes

  • We will sometimes be discussing topics that are very controversial. Please make sure you remain civil in class and in writing.
  • Please turn off cell phones and other electronic items
  • Feel free to bring food or drink to class, but please be considerate and don’t bring smelly or messy food (especially during any religious holidays that might involve fasting).
  • Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated. Please make sure all work is your own and that you properly cite all sources.
  • In the interest of fairness, students who arrive more than 15 minutes late or leave early will NOT receive credit for attendance.
  • No incompletes will be issued in this class.
  • No make up exams without a documented medical or family emergency.
  • Feel free to ask me about your grade at any point in the semester until the last day of scheduled class. Please do not ask me about your grade or tell me what you expect to receive after this point.
  • If you have a physical, perceptual, or learning disability, please contact the Disability Programs and Resource Center ( and inform me as soon as possible so we can provide appropriate accommodation.
  • If you have any concerns at all with the class, please notify me as soon as possible so we can try to do something about it.

Class Schedule

Part I Foundations

Week One

Th Aug 26 Introductions

Week Two Studying the Middle East: Perspectives and Pitfalls

Reading to be discussed:

* Edward Said, “Knowing the Oriental,” from Orientalism, pp. 31-49

* Ian R. Manners and Barbara McKean Parmenter, “The Middle East: A Geographic Preface,” from Understanding the Contemporary Middle East, ed. Deborah Gerner, pp. 5-31

* R. Stephen Humphreys, Preface and “Hard Realities: Population Growth and Economic Stagnation,” from Between Memory and Desire, pp. xi-22

T Aug 31 Studying the Middle East

 PIPP Assignment #1 due in class (hard copy)

Th 09/2 Studying the Middle East

Week Three: Some Basics

Reading to be discussed:

  • Donald Quataert, “Why Study Ottoman History?” from The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922, pp. 1-12
  • Humphreys, 148-173
  • Ibn Battuta, Ch. II, pp. 78-105
  • P. Dumont, “Said Bey—the Everyday Life of an Istanbul Townsman at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century,” from The Modern Middle East: A Reader, ed. Hourani et al, pp. 271-287

T 09/7 Political Identities and Configurations Before the 20th century: A Very Brief Overview

 Group allocations available on Blackboard; begin to read the MERIP Palestinian-Israeli/Arab-Israeli Conflict Primer

Th 09/9 More on the Ottomans, Islam, and life before European colonialism

 Geography quiz

Week Four Colonialism and Imperialism

Reading to Be Discussed:

  • Rashid Khalidi, “The Legacy of the Western Encounter with the Middle East,” from Resurrecting Empire, pp. 1-36
  • Toby Dodge, “The Mandate System, the End of Imperialism, and the Birth of the Iraqi State,” from Inventing Iraq, pp. 5-41.
  • Primary Documents:
  • Sharif Husayn ibn Ali: “Desire for Arab Independence”
  • Sir Henry McMahon, “Qualifying British Pledges”
  • The Sykes-Picot Agreement on Dividing up Arab Lands
  • League of Nations Covenant, Article 22 (the Mandate system)

T 09/14 East-West: Imperialism, Colonialism

Th 09/16 Colonialism: the case of Iraq

Week Five Colonialism Concluded and onwards

Reading to be discussed:

  • Frantz Fanon, excerpt from The Wretched of the Earth, pages TBA
  • Humphreys, 23-28
  • Roger Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East, pp. 8-21

T 09/21 East-West: Wars of Liberation

Th 09/23 Film: Battle of Algiers

Part II Statebuilding: Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

Week Six

Reading to be discussed:

  • You should have finished the MERIP Primer by this date
  • Avraham Zilkha, “By the Rivers of Babylon (Psalm 137),” from Remembering Childhood in the Middle East, pp. 120-126
  • Salma Khadra Jayyusi, “On the Elusive Chords of Memory: Remembering ‘Akka”, from Remembering Childhood in the Middle East, pp 58-66
  • Humphreys, 46-58
  • Primary Documents:
  • Theodor Herzl, “Zionism: The Vision of an Eventual Jewish State”
  • The Balfour Declaration: A Jewish Home in Palestine
  • The General Syrian Congress, “Our Objections to Zionism and Western Imperialism”
  • UN General Assembly, the Partition Plan of 1947

T 09/28 State Building and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict-- Intro

Th 09/30 State Building and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

Week Seven

Reading to be discussed:

  • Baruch Kimmerling and Joel Migdal, “Steering a Path Under Occupation,” from The Palestinian People, pp. 274-311
  • Primary Documents:
  • Israeli Knesset, The Law of Return (1950 etc)
  • Palestinian National Council: The National Charter (1964, 1968)
  • UN Resolution 242 (1967, 1973)
  • Hanan Ashrawi, “The Meaning of the Intifadah” (1989)
  • The Oslo Accords
  • Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, “The Price of Occupation” (1994)
  • Ariel Sharon, “Program for Dealing with the Palestinians” (2000)
  • Marwan Barghouti, “Grassroots Leadership and the Second Intifadah” (2001)

Optional (you might want to skim this to get the general picture):

Bill Cleveland, “Israel and the Palestinians from 1948 to the 1970s,” pp. 336-358

T 10/5 Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

Th 10/7 Palestinian Israeli Conflict

 PIPP Assignment #2 due by 10 p.m. (Blackboard)

Week Eight

No Reading

T 10/12 Film: Promises

TH10/14 Exam #1

Part III State-Building and Nationalism: Turkey (and Iraq)

Week Nine

Reading to be discussed:

  • Ziya Gökalp, Short biography (by editor Niyazi Berkes), and “The Program of Turkism,” from Turkish Nationalism and Western Civilization, pp. 13-16; 284-322
  • Primary Documents:
  • Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, “Design for a Modern Secular Turkish State”
  • Halide Edib Adivar, “Dictatorship and Reform in Turkey” (1929)
  • Nicole Watts, “Relocating Dersim: Turkish State-Building and Kurdish Resistance, 1931-1938,” New Perspectives on Turkey 23 (Fall 2000): 5-30

T10/19 State Building and Nationalism: Turkey

 PIPP Assignment #3 due on Blackboard

TH10/21 State-Building and Nationalism: Turkey

Week Ten

Reading to be discussed:

  • Yeşim Arat, “The Project of Modernity and Women in Turkey,” from Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, ed. Bozdoğan and Kasaba, pp. 95-112
  • Humphreys, 204-226

Optional: Humphreys, “The Strange Career of Pan-Arabism,” pp.60-82

  • Primary Document:
  • The Constitution of the Arab Ba’th Party

T10/26 State-Building and Nationalism: Turkey

TH10/28 State-Building and Nationalism: Iraq as comparison

Part IV: State-building with Oil, and when it runs out

Week Eleven

Reading to be discussed:

  • Michael L. Ross, "Does Oil Hinder Democracy?" World Politics 53:3 (April 2001), pp. 325-361.
  • Mamoun Fandy, “Context: Concepts, Parameters, and History,” from Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent, pp. 21-41

T11/2 State-Building and Oil

TH11/4 State-Building and Oil: the Saudi Case

 PIPP Assignment #4 due (Blackboard)

Week Twelve

Reading to be discussed:

  • Gwenn Okruhlik, “Understanding Political Dissent in Saudi Arabia,” Middle East Report Online,
  • Michael Scott Duran, “The Saudi Paradox,” Foreign Affairs Jan/Feb 2004, and
  • F. Gregory Gause III “Keeping it in the Family” (a response to Duran),Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004
  • Joe Stork, The First Gulf War: Iran vs Iraq, 1980-1988, pp. 266-269 (from the Middle East and Islamic World Reader)
  • Humphreys, “Saddam Hussein’s Decision to Occupy Kuwait,” pp. 104-111

T11/9State Building and Oil: the Saudi Case

TH11/11 State Building and Oil: Iraq as comparison

Part V Debates and Holidays

Week Thirteen: PIPP ASSIGNMENT #5

Reading: Review Proposals for Simulation

T11/16 Simulation Debates: Attendance Required

Th11/18 Simulation Debates: Attendance Required

Week Fourteen

Thanksgiving Week Holiday -- no class T or Th

Part VI Building an Islamic State: the Iranian Revolution and its aftermath

Week Fifteen

Reading to be discussed:

  • Humphreys, 28-38; 131-147
  • Nikki R. Keddie, “Iranian Revolutions in Comparative Perspective,” pp. 601-623

T 11/30 Iranian Revolution

TH 12/2 Iranian Revolution

 PIPP Assignment #6 due in class (hard copy)

Week Sixteen

Reading: TBA

T 12/7 Iranian Revolution

Th 12/9 Last Day of Class:

 Exam #2

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