Non-State Actors Contemp MENA

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course aims to address the modern emergence of non-state actors in an increasingly polarizing Middle East region. The empirical motives, ideological orientations, and the political transformation of some of these actors from opposition forces to official political actors (either through incorporation into the states’ apparatus or through a power rise in parallel to the latter) will be discussed and analyzed. In considering key questions and debates about the political evolution of non-state actors in the MENA countries, the interaction of cultural, national, and religious memberships within and across the politics of these actors will be studied. This course will examine the fundamental issues which established the various non-state actors across the MENA region while simultaneously introducing students to core concepts and ideas which will form part of the foundations for the study of the region’s politics.