The Quest for Constitutional Order in the Middle East

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The Arab Spring represented a moment of challenge to intransigent repressive structures and aspiration to new democratic constitutional orders. To understand this moment we need to appreciate the complex history of the region. This is a survey course that approaches the intellectual history of Islam from a very specific angle: its encounter with Western political and intellectual thought. We will be looking at the first encounter with Greek political philosophy during the formative period of Arab-Islamic thought, in addition to Early and Late Modern responses to the European military and cultural challenge. The historical/comparative structure of the course makes salient the continuities and discontinuities in the thematic treatment of subjects like reform, representation, forms of government, the role of the community, and the rule of law. Some of the case studies that we will consider include Ottoman administrative and constitutional reforms, Arab nationalism, Lebanese consociationalism, and the Iranian Revolution and its constitutional project.