HU Credits: 4

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: International Relations

Semester: Yearly

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr. Daniel Sobelman

Coordinator Email: Daniel.sobelman@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours:

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Daniel Sobelman

Course/Module description:
This course is about the international relations of the Middle East. As such, it will discuss the core strategic interests driving the local and foreign actors currently taking part in the reshaping our region, and the increasing rivalry between the Sunni states and the Iranian-led "axis of resistance." The course will provide a panoramic view of the shifting geopolitical landscape and security environment in the region in a historical and contemporary context, exploring the emergence and breakdown of regional alliances and shifts in the balance of power. The course will try to assess the shape the Middle East will have taken when the dust finally settles on the ongoing crises ravaging the region.

Course/Module aims:
This class will analyze the Middle East through a theoretical, historical and contemporary lens, and provide tools for understanding the International Relations in the region

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
Analyze the International Relations of the Middle East

Demonstrate the applicability of IR theory to the region

Explain the core interests driving the various powers shaping the Middle East

Compare between the historical and current motivations of the primary movers and shakers in the region

Attendance requirements(%):
100%

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:

Course/Module Content:
1. Introduction: IR and the Middle East – an Overview

2. Energy, Geography and Geopolitics: The interests driving the main actors in the Middle East.

3. The Middle East and the Global Balance of Power: Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and the European Powers

4-5. Structural Attributes: Is the Middle East Prone to Instability? The impact of oil economy on the region.

6. The Middle East and the Cold War.

7. Security Dilemma, Preventive War, and the unintended consequences of coercion: The Suez Crisis as a case study.

8. Explaining the absence of a Middle Eastern superpower: Nasser, Pan-Arabism, the Struggle for a Regional Order, and their Impact on the International Relations in the Region.

9. Israel’s Pursuit of Regional Alliances: From the Periphery Doctrine to the Joint Interests with Saudi Arabia.

10. The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Efforts to Prevent Ant-American Hegemony in the Middle East.

11. The Dynamics that Led to the Six-Day War, and the Subsequent Collapse of the Pan-Arab Order.

12. Perception and Misperception: The Road to the 1973 Yom Kippur War and its Formative Impact on the Arab-Israeli Conflict, the Arab System and the Cold War.

13. The Evolution of the Palestinian National Movement: From Proxy to Actor to be Reckoned With.

14. The Strategic Relations Between Israel and the United States.

15. In the Wake of the Cold War: The 1991 Gulf War and the Establishment of U.S. Hegemony in the Region.

16. From Madrid to Oslo to the Second Intifada: The Effort to Create a New Regional Order Collapses.

17. The 2003 Iraq War and the Rise of Iran: The Unintended Consequences of the Use of Force.

18. The Iran Nuclear Deal and the Debate About a Preventive Strike: Would a Nuclear Iran Stabilize or Destabilize the Region?

19. Obama’s Legacy and the Middle East: Can Iran and Saudi Arabia Share the Middle East?

20. Russia’s Return to the Middle East.

21. A Middle Eastern Cold War: Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s Indirect Clash in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

22. The Arab Spring: The Collapse of the State System and the Search for a New Regional Order.

23. The Rise of Violent Non-State Actors in the Middle East.

24. Qatar: How the Tiny Gulf State Became an Actor with Regional Influence.

25. Israel and the Challenges of the Arab Spring: From Worrying About Powerful Neighbors to Worrying About their Weakness.

26. Conclusion.

Required Reading:
Saul Bernard Cohen, Geopolitics: The Geography of International Relations, Third Edition, (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), pp. 375-416.




Eugene L. Rogan, "The Emergence of the Middle East into the Modern State System," in Louise Fawcett (ed), International Relations of the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 18-39.



Eva Bellin, “Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Lessons from the Arab Spring,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 44, No. 2 (January, 2012), pp. 127-149.




Peter Sluglett, “The Cold War in the Middle East,” in Louise Fawcett (ed.), International Relations of the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 41-58.



מוטי גולני, תהיה מלחמה בקיץ...ישראל בדרך אל מלחמת סיני, 1955-1956, כרך ראשון, (תל אביב: מערכות, 1997), עמ׳ 157-206.




Ian Lustick, “The Absence of Middle East Great Powers: Political ‘Backwardness’ in Historical Perspective,” International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 653-683.

אבי שליים, קיר הברזל: ישראל והעולם הערבי (תל-אביב, ידיעות אחרונות, 2005), עמ׳ 217-1900.




Clive Jones and Yoel Guzansky, "Israel and the Gulf States: Toward the Emergence of a Tacit Security Regime?" Contemporary Security Policy (February, 2017), pp. 1-22

Uzi Rabi, “Qatar's Relations with Israel: Challenging Arab and Gulf Norms,” The Middle East Journal Vol.63, No. 3 (Summer 2009) pp. 443-459.

Peter L. Hahn, “Securing the Middle East: The Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1 (March, 2006), 38-47.


Dan Reiter, “Exploding the Powder Keg Myth: Preemptive Wars Almost Never Happen,” International Security, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Fall, 1995), pp. 5-34.



Avraham Ben-Zvi, "Perception, Misperception and Surprise in the Yom Kippur War: A Look at the New Evidence", Journal of Conflict Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1995), pp. 15-29.
זכי שלום, ״מלחמת יום הכיפורים: קונספציות שגויות ושברן״, ב-משה שמש וזאב דרורי (עורכים) מלחמת יום הכיפורים אחרי שלושים שנה ועוד מלחמה (באר-שבע: מכון בן-גוריון ואוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב, 2008), עמ׳ 273-304


Yezid Sayigh, "A Non-State Actor Coercer and Coerced: The PLO in Lebanon, 1969-1976," in Lawrence Freedman (ed), Strategic Coercion: Concepts and Cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 212-248.


Douglas Little, “The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and Israel, 1957-68,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Nov., 1993), pp. 563-585.



Benjamin Miller, "The International System and Regional Balance in the Middle East," in T.V. Paul, James J. Wirtz, and Michel Fortmann (eds), Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 239-266.


Raymond Hinnebusch, The International Politics of the Middle East (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), pp. 225-271.


Frederic Wehrey, Dalia Dassa Kaye, Jessica Watkins, Jeffrey Martini, Robert A. Guffey, "The Iraq Effect: The Middle East After the Iraq War," (Santa Monica, California: RAND Corporation, 2010), pp. 17-48.
Kenneth N. Waltz, "Why Iran Should Get the Bomb," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 4 (July/August, 2012), pp. 2-5.




Marc Lynch, "Obama and the Middle East: Rightsizing the U.S. Role," Foreign Affairs Vol. 95, No. 5, (September/October, 2015), pp. 18-27.

שי הר-צבי, ״שובו של הדוב הרוסי למזרח התיכון״, עיונים בביטחון המזרח התיכון, מס׳ 120 (רמת-גן: אוניברסיטת בר-אילן, 2016).





F. Gregory Gause, III, “Revolution and Threat Perception: Iran and the Middle East,” International Politics, Vol. 52, No. 5 (September, 2015), pp. 637-645.



Bassel F. Salloukh, “The Arab Uprisings and the Geopolitics of the Middle East,” The International Spectator, Vol. 48, No. 2 (June, 2013), pp. 32-46.

David Gardner, "A New Balance of Power in the Middle East,” Financial Times, December 28, 2016.



Barak Mendelsohn, “God vs. Westphalia: Radical Islamist Movements and the Battle for Organizing the World,” Review of International Studies, Vol. 38. (2012), pp. 589-613.




Jonathan Grix and Paul Michael Brannagan, "Of Mechanisms and Myths: Conceptualizing States’ Soft Power Strategies through Sports Mega-Events," Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2016), pp. 251-272




Daniel Byman, “Israel’s Pessimistic View of the Arab Spring,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3 (2011) pp. 123-136

David Ignatius, "Israel's Arab Spring Problem," The Washington Post, July 6, 2012.

Additional Reading Material:
Arthur Goldschmidt Jr., “The Historical Context,” in Deborah J. Gerner and Jillian Schwedler (eds.), Understanding the Contemporary Middle East, Second Edition (London: Boulder, 2004), pp. 47-51.


Ian R. Manners and Barbara McKean Parmenter, “The Middle East: A Geographic Preface,” in Deborah J. Gerner and Jillian Schwedler (eds.), Understanding the Contemporary Middle East, Second Edition (London: Boulder, 2004), pp. 5-32.


Henry A. Kissinger, World Order (New York: Penguin Books, 2015), pp. 97-111.


Michael C. Hudson, “The United States in the Middle East,” in Louise Fawcett (ed.), International Relations of the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 203-305.


Irene Gendzier, Dying to Forget: Oil, Power, Palestine, and the Foundations of U.S. Policy in the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), pp. 3-22.


Max Fisher, “40 Maps That Explain the Middle East,” Vox, March 26, 2015.


Gal Luft, “China’s New Grand Strategy for the Middle East,” Foreign Policy, January 26, 2016.


“China and the Arab World: The Great Wells of China,” The Economist, June 18, 2015.


Marc Lynch, "Regional International Relations," in Elen Lust (ed), The Middle East (CQ Press, 2010), pp. 314-340.


Steve Yetiv, “The Travails of Balance of Power Theory: The United States and the Middle East,” Security Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1 (January-March, 2006), pp. 70-105.


Stephen M. Walt, "Alliances: Balancing and Bandwagoning," International Politics, pp. 125-132.

מלקולם א׳ יאפ, המזרח התיכון למן מלחמת העולם הראשונה (ירושלים: מוסד ביאליק, הוצאת הספרים של אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב), עמ׳ 315-342


דוד פרומקין, השלום האחרון: כך נוצר המזרח התיכון המודרני (תל-אביב: דביר, 1994).


Thierry Gongora, "War Making and State Power in the Contemporary Middle East," International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3 (August, 1997), pp. 323-340.


Etel Solingen, "Pax Asiatica versus Bella Levantina: The Foundations of War and Peace in East Asia and the Middle East," American Political Science Review, Vol. 101, No. 4 (November 2007), pp. 757-780.


Benjamin Miller, “Balance of Power or the State-to-Nation Balance: Explaining Middle East War-Propensity,” Security Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2 (October-December, 2007), pp. 658-705.


Larry Diamond, "Why Are There No Arab Democracies?" Journal of Democracy, Vol. 21, No. 1 (2010), pp. 93-104.


Michael Axworthy and Patrick Milton, "A Westphalian Peace for the Middle East," Foreign Affairs, October 10, 2016.


Selim Can Sazak, "No Westphalia for the Middle East: Why Such a Framework Would Fail," Foreign Affairs, October 27, 2016.


Raymond Hinnebusch, The International Politics of the Middle East (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), Chapters 2, 3.


Raymond Hinnebusch, The International Politics of the Middle East (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), pp. 293-312. (“Between IR Theory and the Middle East Case”).


Avraham Sela, The Decline of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Albany: SUNY, 1998), pp. 9-30.


Roger Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East, 3rd edition (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 23-38.


Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 50-80.



Jack S. Levy and Joseph Gochal, “Democracy and Preventive War: Israel and the 1956 Sinai Campaign,” Security Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Winter 2001/2), pp. 1-49.



אבי שליים, קיר הברזל: ישראל והעולם הערבי (תל-אביב: ידיעות אחרונות, 2005), עמ׳ 153-189.


Silvia Borzutzky and David Berger, “Dammed If You Do, Dammed If You Don't: The Eisenhower Administration and the Aswan Dam,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Winter, 2010), pp. 84-102.


Aleksandr Furksenko and Timothy Naftaly, Khrushchev’s Cold War (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006), Chapter 3, 4.


Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), pp. 522-549 (Hebrew version: pp. 528-501)


Abdel Monem Said Ali, Shai Feldman, and Khalil Shikaki, Arabs and Israelis: Conflict and Peacemaking in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 85-117.


Dennis Ross, Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), pp. 27-50.


Abba Eban, Diplomacy for the Next Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 49-59.


Steven A. Cook, "Why Suez Still Matters," Foreign Affairs (2013)


“The Suez Crisis: An Affair to Remember,” The Economist, July 27, 2006.


Michael N. Barnett and Jack S. Levy, "Domestic Sources of Alliances and Alignment: The Case of Egypt, 1962-73," International Organization, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Summer, 1991), pp. 369-395.


Alan R. Taylor, The Arab Balance of Power (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1982), pp. 1-6.
Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 50-103.

Majid Khadduri, “The Problem of Regional Security in the Middle East: An Appraisal,” Middle East Journal Vol. 11, No. 1 (Winter, 1957), pp. 12-22.

Gerald L. Sorokin, “Patrons, clients, and allies in the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1997), 46-71.


יוסי אלפר, מדינה בודדה: החיפוש החשאי של ישראל אחר בעלות ברית באזור (תל אביב: הוצאת מטר, 2015).


Yousef Munayyer, “Why Iran Won’t Bring the Israelis and Arabs Together,” Foreign Affairs, June 6, 2017.


John Allen Gay, “Iran Steals a Strategy from Israel's Playbook,” The National Interest, January 12, 2016.


Wm. Roger Louis and Roger Owen, A Revolutionary Year: The Middle East in 1958 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002), pp. 1-13.


Diane B. Kunz, “The emergence of the United States as Middle Eastern Power, 1956-1958,” in Wm. Roger Louis and Roger Owen (eds.) A Revolutionary Year: The Middle East in 1958 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002), pp. 77-100.


Michael Hudson, “To Play the Hegemon: Fifty Years of US Policy toward the Middle East,” The Middle East Journal Vol. 50 No. 3 (1996), pp. 329-343


מיכאל אורן, ששה ימים של מלחמה: המערכה ששינתה את פני המזרח התיכון (תל-אביב: דביר, 2002), עמ׳ 19-55.
Stephen Van Evera, The Causes of War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), pp. 4-6.

Kenneth N. Waltz, "The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 18, No. 4, (Spring, 1988), pp. 615-628.

Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War (New York: The Free Press, 1973), pp. 53-56.

John J. Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983).

Louise Fawcett, “Alliances, Cooperation and Regionalism in the Middle East,” in Louise Fawcett (ed.), International Relations of the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 174-193.


Moshe Gat, “Nasser and the Six Day War, 5 June 1967: A Premeditated Strategy or An Inexorable Drift to War?” Israel Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 4 (October, 2005), pp. 608-635.


Avner Cohen, “Crossing the Threshold: The Untold Nuclear Dimension of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and its Contemporary Lessons,” Arms Control Today, Vol. 37, No. 4 (June, 2007), pp. 12-16.

Isabella Ginor, “The Cold War's Longest Cover-Up: How and Why the USSR Instigated the 1967 War,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol.7 No. 3 (September 2003), pp. 34-59.

Galia Golan, “A (Dubious) Conspiracy Theory of the 1967 War,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 32, No. 4 (September, 2008), pp. 669-673.



״מדיניותה של מוסקבה במלחמת יום הכיפורים: הפזילה אל עבר האמריקנים," ב-משה שמש וזאב דרורי (עורכים), מלחמת יום הכיפורים אחרי שלושים שנה ועוד מלחמה (באר-שבע: מכון בן-גוריון ואוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב, 2008), עמ׳ 43-155.


Kenneth W. Stein, “Evolving a Diplomacy Legacy from the War: The US, Egyptian and Israeli Triangle,” in Asaf Sivinir (ed.), The Yom Kippur War: Politics, Diplomacy, Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 209-230.


Abdel Monem Said Ali, Shai Feldman, and Khalil Shikaki, Arabs and Israelis: Conflict and Peacemaking in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 156-194.

Henry A. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 1982), pp. 450-544, pp. 545-613.




Yezid Sayigh, “Turning Defeat into Opportunity: The Palestinian Guerillas After the June 1967 War,” The Middle East Journal, Vol. 46, No. 2, (Spring, 1992), pp. 244-265.


Dan Tschirgi, "Palestine 2003: The Perils of De Facto Statehood," in Tozun Bahcheli, Barry Bartmann, and Henry Srebrink, De Facto States: The Quest for Sovereignty (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 187-209.



John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), pp. 49-77.


Dennis Ross, Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015).


Martin Indyk, "Watershed in the Middle East," Foreign Affairs, vol. 71, No. 1 (Winter, 1992), pp. 70-93.

Janice Gross Stein, “Deterrence and Compellence in the Gulf, 1990-91: A Failed or Impossible Task?” International Security, Vo. 17, No. 2 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 147-179.

Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, “Passive belligerency: Israel and the 1991 Gulf War,” The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3 (September, 1992), pp. 304-329.


Avi Shlaim, “Israel and the Conflict,” in Alex Danchev and Dan Keohane (eds.), International Perspectives on the Gulf Conflict, 1990-91 (London: St Martin’s Press, 1994), pp. 59-79.





Peter W. Rodman, “Middle East Diplomacy after the Gulf War,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 70, No. 2 (Spring, 1991), pp. 1-18.


Zeev Maoz, “Regional security in the Middle East: Past trends, present realities and future challenges,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1997), pp. 1-45.


Mohsen M. Milani, "Tehran's Take: Understanding Iran's U.S. Policy," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 8, No, 4 (2009), pp. 46-62.


Raymond Hinnebusch, "The US Invasion of Iraq: Explanations and Implications," Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Fall, 2007), pp. 209-228.

Vali Nasr, “When the Shiites Rise,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 4 (July-August, 2006), pp. 58-74.


Ze’ev Schiff, “Israel’s War with Iran,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 6 (November-December, 2006), pp. 23-31.


Kayhan Barzegar, “Iran and the Shiite Crescent: Myths and Realities,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Fall/Winter 2008), pp. 87-99.


Chaim Kaufmann, “Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War,” International Security, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2004) pp. 5-48



Louise Fawcett, “Iran and the Regionalization of (In)security,” International Politics, Vol. 52, No. 5 (September, 2015), pp. 646-656.


Matthew Kroenig, "Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike is the Least Bad Option," Foreign Affairs, (January/February, 2012).


Ray Takeyh, "Time for Detente with Iran," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 86, No. 2 (March/April, 2007).


“A Rift in the Gulf,” Economist, April 7, 2015.



Joel S. Migdal, Shifting Sands: The United States in the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), pp. 248-300.


Ashton Carter, "The Logic of American Strategy in the Middle East," Survival, Vol. 59, No. 2 (April-May, 2017), pp. 13-24.


Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine,” The Atlantic, 2016


Payam Mohseni and Hussein Kalout, “Iran's Axis of Resistance Rises,” Foreign Affairs, January 24, 2017.


Mohammad Javad Zarif, “Arms Deals Won’t Bring Peace,” New York Times, May 26, 2017.


Nikolay Kozhanov, Russia and the Syrian Conflict, (Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2016), pp. 5-24.


Robert Person, "Balance of Threat: The Domestic Insecurity of Vladimir Putin," Journal of Eurasian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (January, 2017), pp. 44-59.


David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (New York: Holt, 1989), pp. 465-479.


Andrej Kreutz, Russia in the Middle East: Friend of Foe? (Westport: Praeger Security International, 2007), pp. 1-43.


Pavel K. Baev, “Moscow Does Not Believe in Change,” in The Arab Awakening (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), pp. 291-297.


Stephen Blank, “Russia’s New Presence in the Middle East,” American Foreign Policy Interests, Vol. 37. No. 2, (2015), pp. 69-79.


Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells us about Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate (New York: Random House, 2012), pp. 154-187.


Amnon Sella, Soviet Political and Military Conduct in the Middle East (London: The Macmillan Press, 1981), pp. 1-20.


Saul Bernard Cohen, Geopolitics: The Geography of International Relations, Third Edition, (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), pp. 217-269.


Simon Sebag Montefiore, “Putin’s Imperial Adventure in Syria,” New York Times, October 9, 2015.


Henry A. Kissinger, "A Path Out of the Middle East Collapse," The Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2016.


“The Iran-Saudi Rift: Geopolitical or Sectarian?” A discussion with Bernard Haykel, Karim Sadjadpour, and Meghan O'Sullivan, YouTube, March 1, 2016.


Henry A. Kissinger, World Order (New York: Penguin Books, 2015), pp. 122-145.


Robert Springborg, "Whither the Arab Spring? 1989 or 1848?" The International Spectator, Vol. 46, No. 3 (September, 2011), pp. 5-12.


Michelle Pace, "The Arab Uprisings in Theoretical Perspective -- An Introduction," Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2012), pp. 125-138.


Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict,” International Security Vol. 33 No. 1 (2008) pp. 7-44


Robert D. Kaplan, “The Ruins of Empire in the Middle East,” Foreign Policy, May 25, 2015.


Juan Cole, “What’s Wrong with Robert Kaplan’s Nostalgia for Empire,” The Nation, May 26, 2015.


Jason Brownlee, Tarek Masoud, and Andrew Reynolds, The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 18-39.

Henry A. Kissinger, “A Path Out of the Middle East Collapse,” Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2015.


Zeynep N. Kaya, “When Sovereignty and Self-Determination Overlap in Claims to Statehood: The Case of Iraqi Kurdistan,” Stephen M. Walt, “What Should We Do if the Islamic State Wins,” Foreign Policy, June 10, 2015.


Daniel Sobelman, “Hezbollah 'Delivers' Assad: Implications of Iran's Involvement in Syrian Crisis,” Iran Matters, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, April 17, 2015.


John Watkins, "Introduction: Non-State Actors in Mediterranean Politics," Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2017), pp. 1-8.


Graham Allison, “Defeating ISIS: With Whose Boots on the Ground?” The Atlantic, October 27, 2014.


Andrew Cooper and Besma Momani, “Qatar and Expanded Contours of Small State Diplomacy,” The International Spectator Vol. 46, No. 3 (September 2011) pp. 113-128


Marc Lynch, Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006) pp. 29-88


Blake Hounshell, “The Qatar Bubble,” Foreign Policy (May/June 2012) pp. 1-4


Dina Esfandiary and Ariane M. Tabatabai, "The Gulf Widens: The Roots of the Regional Spats with Qatar," Foreign Affairs, June 6, 2017.


Gideon Rachman, "The Qatar Crisis Has Global Implications," Financial Times, June 19, 2017.


Daniel Sobelman, “A Shifting Center of Gravity Across Israel’s Northern Border,” in Payam Mohseni (ed.) Tipping the Balance? Implications of the Iran Nuclear Deal on Israeli Security, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School (Cambridge: BCSIA, 2015), pp. 23-33.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 80 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 0 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 20 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information: