Econ 4999-004
POLITICAL ECOMY OF THE MIDDLE EAST
12:00 to 12:50, M-W-F, in STAD 135
Fall 2005
Professor Akacem
Office Econ 10
No Email please unless it is an emergency. If you need to
see me please do so during my office hours, M-W:
Do not PRINT this syllabus until we
finalize the presentation schedule. Once this is done, we will finalize the
lecture, presenation schedule and case studies.
Prequesites for this course: Econ 3070 and Econ 3080. If
you signed up for this course but have not taken these courses, I will assume
that you are able to follow the discussion and material coverage on economic
policy and theory covered in the pre-requesites. This will also be necessary
for your paper and final exam, since you need to show your understanding of the
major economic issues for the country or region that you choose.
Objective of the Course:
This course will deal with the overall political economy of the
First, the course will help you understand and discuss the relevant issues that are important to this region as well as its strategic importance to the West and the United States. The region is often associated with oil, Islam, the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and overall instability that occurs in different parts of the area. Through class discussion and presentations, we will try to focus on the main issues as well as use current events to highlight and emphasize topics that are important to our class. Some days, class discussions may be driven by current unfolding events.
Second, the course will also help you identify the religious, historical, social, political, economic and security issues that affect the region as a whole. Again, students are encouraged to read the papers (print and via the Web) to discuss ongoing developments either for the whole region or developments that affect their particular country or countries. The emphasis will be on the economic development, policy and overall economic issues facing your country or region of interest.
Third, we will also make an attempt to compare the Economic and Political developments in the region with other regions of the world. Has democracy taken hold? Why or why not? Has the region achieved sustainable economic growth and development? Why or why not? Finally, I will invite a number of outside speakers-depending on their schedule- who will speak to the class on specific topics, such as the role of Islam, politics in the region, the economic models chosen by these countries and why, and other topics by people who have lived in the region.
Fourth: At least two thirds of your paper will have to deal with en economic issue of the country, region, topic at hand. Remember, this is an Econ course.
Fifth: We will have guest lectures whenever possible if the speakers are available.
Sixth: E-Reserves has a number of articles posted on it. These will be assigned in class as the material and the topic as well as the events are fluid and change so we need to be flexible. The list of articles will be expanded. I have a number of articles but after we get a clear picture as what will be presented, then we will decide what will be posted on E-Reserve.I will be adding more material.
Main Sources:
1. Arab Human Development Report 2003, United Nations Development
Program, 2003 found at: http://www.miftah.org/Doc/Reports/Englishcomplete2003.pdf
http://www.undp.org/rbas/ahdr/
2. Arab World Competitiveness Report
2002-2003, The World Economic Forum,
http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Global+Competitiveness+Programme\Regional+Competitiveness+Reports\Arab+World+Competitiveness+Report+2002-2003
You can either print these reports or just read chapter by chapter as we go
along and depending on your country of interest. We may not have the time to
read all of it, but these are is the FIRST authoritative reports written by
Arab scholars on the region and is somewhat critical on a number of issues such
as economic, social and political that we will be discussion in class.
3. The Gulf 2000 Site: Covers the following countries:
4. The IMF and the World Bank
University of Texas, Austin
http://menic.utexas.edu/menic.html
Harvard University http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~mideast/inMEres/inMEres.html
Optional from the library and for your paper
projects:
Peter Mansfield, A History
of the
H.W. Brands, Into the
Labyrinth: The
Ian J. Bickerton and Carla L.
Klausner, A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (4th
edition)
James F. Hoge, Jr. and Gideon
Rose (editors), How Did This Happen?
Terrorism and the New War
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB21/06-01.htm
The Politics of
Oil: see F. Gregory Gause, III, Oil Monarchies , chapter 3 on “Oil and
Politics.” Available from McGill University-Universite de Montreal
Interuniversity Consortium on Arab Studies:
http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/icas/gause/chapter3.html
Democracy in the Arab World, see Daniel Brumberg, “Liberalization versus
Democracy: Understanding Arab Political
Reform,”
http://www.ceip.org/files/pdf/wp37.pdf
Optional Text:
"A political economy of the
I will try to leave a copy on reserve but if you wish to buy a copy, you can do
so. It has not been ordered so you may want to get it on-line which may be
cheaper.
"The Arab World Facing The Challenge of the
New Millennium" by Henry T. Azzam, I.B. Taurus, 2002
Elias H. Tuma, Economic and Political Change in the Middle East, (Palo
Alto, Pacific Books, 1987)
Colbert C. Held, Middle East Patterns: Places, Peoples, and Politics, 2nd
edition, (Boulder, Westview Press 1994)
Other Sources:
You
have to subscribe to (or have access to) either The
Wall Street Journal, The
New York Times or The
Economist , The Library of Congress and the CIA's site are also good
sources. Access to the New York Times is free for some parts of the paper.
Access to the Economist is limited. However, The Wall Street Journal gives you
access to more than one paper. Once you subscribe to it, you will have access
to the European edition of the journal as well as the Asian edition in addition
to Barron's and the ability to do searches. I also highly recommend that
you bookmark the site for the Financial Times of London which covers the
"Plan of Attack" by Bob Woodword, 2004, Simon and Schuster
"Against
all Enemies" by Richard A Clarke, 2004, Free press
"The
9/11 Commission Report" found on the web at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/
We
will be viewing a number of case studies, the order of which will be determined
after we clear the presentation schedule and the topics from the class.
2. Norlin Library:
You need to compile to a good reference list of
recent works published on the country(ies) that you will be working on. These
can be books, journals, periodicals etc...One particular source that I highly
recommend is Finance and Development, published by the IMF and The World
Bank. Each December issue will have a complete list of the articles published
during that year. I highly recommend that you use it or try to search the data
base at the library so that you can locate the articles that you need. Articles
published in Finance and Development tend to be short and the to point with, at
times, considerable ammout of data.
3. The World Bank's World Development Report (annual), The Internatinal Monetary Fund's International
Financial Statistics.
4. http://www.uae-pages.com/me-newspaper.htm,
some papers are in Arabic, just ignore those (some of you may be able to read
Arabic but most probably won't.)
5. This is a MUST stop for your research: http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/,
from this site, you can get all kinds of information on the Gulf (
Must sites and sources for your research:
Library of Congress: http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/ ,
here you can find country report on almost any country that you decide to study
or do your paper on.
There is one site out of
The World Bank special page on the region: http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/mna/mena.nsf?OpenDatabase
The International Monetary Fund at: http://www.imf.org/ and particularly Finance and
Development at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2003/12/index.htm
where you can find report on all of the countries of the region. Just do a
search under the country's name.
The CIA's site for the annual fact book at: http://www.cia.gov/
and particularly at: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/docs/faqs.html This will give you up to date information
also. Finally The World Bank’s
Also search for sites that are particular to your country(ries). There are
number of Research centers and institutes that specialize in the study of the
Middle East and North Africa, your goal and objective is to "hunt"
and find as many as you can and as a class, we will compile the best and post
them on our class home page. Also, each student must compile a list of
important and relevant sites for the country(ies) that they are working on.
This list should be part of the paper and appended at the end of the paper
after the bibliography.
COURSE
OUTLINE:
This is tentative at this time until after we collect the topics for
presentations form students. This will change when we have the dates of
presentations of the different students then the topics and the week by week
assignments will all be finalized. Remember, you need to choose your
country/topic by the first week.
NOTE: You are expected to come to class each
day with at least one story on your country/area/topic (complete source of the
story should be included in your article) from a major paper such as the New
York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Economist Or
other well known and establshed sources. We will begin the class with a
discussion of a major current event and how it relates to our class.
Week One: Introduction, discussion of sources,
and topic discussion
Here are a few areas and countries that you may consider. One
presentation/Paper per student:
Islamic Economics
Islamic Banking
OPEC, World oil markets and US energy policy
Arab Economies and competitiveness in the global economy (see the Arab
Competitive report source cited earlier)
Any one of these countries or regions:
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
Afghanistan
Algeria
Bahrain (alone or part of the GCC)
Egypt
Israel
Jordan
Kuwait (alone or part of the GCC)
Lebanon
Libya
Qatar (either alone or part of the GCC)
Morocco
Oman (alone or part of the GCC)
Saudi Arabia (either alone or part of the GCC)
Sudan
Syria
Tunisia
Turkey
United Arab Emirate (either alone or part of the GCC)
West Bank and Gaza
If you have a topic in mind, you need to clear it with me first. You need to
make your choices immediately. Once a country/topic is claimed you need to
choose another one.
Topic One: Iraq from Gulf War 1, to Gulf War III. Case studies and
Articles to reviewd and discuss in class.
The New Yorker Magazine has a whole archive of articles on the Iraq. It used to
have one on 9/11 but you may have to search for it. I expect you to read
some of them and discuss them in class.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/
Another starting point for our discussion on
Iraq, democracy, dual containement, Economics of War, Oil and other issues can
be found in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine at:
Week Two: Library visit, lab visit if
possible, web search, schedule of presentations
Deadline for your paper topic is August 29th or earlier. However, the
paper topics will accepted on a first come basis. That is if a country/region
is chosen by a student and submitted to me before the deadline, that
country/region is already taken and cannot be covered by another student.
You also need to give me an outline/proposal by
the same date, August 29th, 2005. This should have the main objective of your
paper and clearly explain your thesis and your methodology. The proposal should
also have an initial bibliography.
Continue viewing the case studies on Iraq and material on the Economics of War.
Truths, Wars and Consequences
The Man Who Knew
Gulf War (parts 1 and 2)
The Saudi Question and others as time permit
Important Note:
At the end of each case study that is viewed in class, you are expected to hand
in a one page hand written commentary on what you watched. This should be an analysis/critique/raising
questions on what you just observed.
Continue viewing the case studies on Iraq and material on the Economics
of War
Week Three: Overview of the main issues
affecting the Middle East and North Africa, lectures and discussion.
Week Four: Oil, Islam and Politics in the
Middle East. US and West dependence on it and what should be done?
Week Five: Economic Development in the
region, Global currency crisis and regional impact
Week Six: Guest lectures and case studies
viewed and discussed in class.
Week Seven: Continue with Case Studies
viewed and discussed in class
Week Eigth: Discussion, presentations,
current events
Week Nine: Discussion, presentations,
current events
Week Ten: Discussion, presentations,
current events
Week Eleven: Discussion, presentations,
current events
Week Twelve: Discussion, presentations,
current events
Week Thirteen: Discussion, presentations,
current events
Week Fourteen: Short country reports
(brief) due and distributed to the class.
Week Fifteen: Consultation with students
on final phase of the paper, continue with presentations/case studies
Week Sixteen: Final paper due no later
than Monday December 5th, 2005, continue with presentations/case studies
This outline will change significantly
after I get the topics and assign the presenation dates. We will decide if we
will have two presenations per class or one and that will drastically change
the outline. To save paper, wait until I give you the list of presenations
before printing this syllabus. We do this every semester and it works best if
you wait until we get everyone's topic which would be after the first week of
classes.
Grading:
Each student will have to complete the
following:
1. A major
paper on the country(ies) or region.The paper should be no more than 25 pages,
double spaced.. Each student will do one project. The paper needs to emphasize
the economic policy aspects-and political and religious when necessary but the
emphasis should be on the economic analysis- and be analytical and NOT
descriptive. What the major econmic problems facing your country? How did it
face them? What sorts of economic policy (ies) were followed to address them?
What would you recommend? You need to have a clear paper backed up by data and
very good sources. Relying on Web sources only will not do. You need to have a
solid list of resources such as scholarly articles, books, reports, etc... If
need be, your paper will address the different issues facing the given country
(economic, social, religious, political, military etc...) and produces an
outlook for the future (not necessarily a forecast). Given the region under
study, you may choose to do something on oil and its importance to the region
and the world economy. Dependence on oil by the region is also a topic worthy
of consideration. The paper will count for 40% of your grade. Remember,
you need to make sure that your paper is well written, complete with references
and footnotes and a bibliography. Do not merely summarize what reports already
written by others. You need to have a theme, argue your case and come with
policy recommendations. If you need help, consult. All papers will be submitted
to Turnitin.com. You should submit a paper copy AND a disk or a CD with both
your presenation AND your paper on it by Monday December 5th, 2005 or before if
you are done. Late paper will be graded down by one letter grade.
2. By June 2nd, each student should hand in a typed two or
three page outline/proposal for their topic. This should include a detailed
outline, thesis, methodology and data sources. These should NOT be all web
sources.
A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses,
and Dissertations, by Kate. L. Turabian,
Please consult. Failure to have a proper bibliography will reduce your grade.
As mentioined earlier, all papers will be
uploaded to Turnitin.com. Remember that plagiarism is a serious offense and it
will be reported to the Honor's Code office as well as to the Dean's office.
Check the policy on this issue at:
http://www.colorado.edu/policies/acadinteg.html
Please note that not all papers will be given an A. The grade distribution will
be as follows:
Grade 100% scale
A 93.4-100
A- 90.0-93.3
B+ 86.7-89.9
B 83.4-86.6
B- 80.0-83.3
C+ 76.7-79.9
C 73.4-76.6
C- 70.0-73.3 =
D+ 66.7-69.9
D 63.4-66.6
D- 60.0-63.3
F less than 60
3 . Attendance and class
participation both in class will count toward the final grade. Attendance
means being in class on time. Being late will count as absent. Not having read
the assignments for the day will count as an F for that component of the
course. We will be discussing different current issues, news articles, current
events etc... It will be our virual classroom. The class participation will
count for 20% of your grade, mostly on class discussion, material that you find
and bring to class for discussion etc... Asking questions does not consitute
class participation. You have to be fully engaged and show that you are keeping
up with the material and have read it and comment/critique it. The same applies
to the presenations of other students. You are expected to have read in advance
and be prepared to ask/challenge/add/critique a presention. Attendance will
count for 15%. However, not being in class will automatically be reflected in a
lack of attendance.
4. Prior to finishing your final paper, you will have to make
a presentation and get feedback from the class. Based on the comments from the
class and myself, you will be able to put the finishing touches on your paper.
The presentation has be comprehensive. By that, I mean you are expected to
present your thesis, your findings, predictions, what you learned from the
project etc... I highly suggest that you bring in a detailed outline to be
presented to the class, as well as encourage you to use transparencies if need
be. We will work out a schedule during the first week of classes. The
presentation will count for 10%.
5. There is will
be a short exam which will count for 15% and the material to be covered will be
given to you in class early enough.
The Exam will take place on: Saturday December 10th, 2005, from 10:30 a.m. to
1:00 p.m. You are required to double check by looking at the schedule of of
Final exams for these dates and times in case there is a change.
Remember that this is subject to change. New material will be assigned as it
becomes available and the order of coverage may change as events dictate.