Power and Identity in the Middle East

Harvard FAS

How do material interests and identities shape the foundations of political order?Why are some countries governed democratically while dictators seem to have a firm grasp on power in others? Why do people threaten and even kill each other in the name of ethnicity or religion in some places and times but not others? This course will give you a chance to explore these questions in the context of the Middle East, a region that has been widely perceived as a bastion of authoritarianism and a…