Understanding the Arab Spring: Sociology of the Middle East

What explains the continuous mass uprisings in different parts of the Middle East since the beginning of 2011? Have they been successful in transforming power structures? Or already been co-opt by the legacies of the older regimes? This class probes the "Arab Spring" comparatively and sociologically from a historical perspective. It is sociological, it assumes a strong relationship between different forms of exclusions (on the basis of religion, ethnicity, gender and class) and the uprisings. It is historical because it explores these exclusions through a close analysis of the historical particularities of nation-state formation in the region.