POLI SCI 351 Study Guide - Winter 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Middle East, Syria, Saudi Arabia
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
POLI SCI 351
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Politics:
• “Who gets what, when, and how” - Harold Lasswell
o Power: how is it acquired and applied
▪ Diverse interests; scarce resources lead to struggles
▪ Study of power is the study of struggles over power
o Elements of power to study:
▪ Actors, ideas, goals, institutions
MENA - middle east / north africa
In this class: Turkey, Iran, Israel, 22 Arab League countries
History
• Empires - multi-ethnic, multi-religious rule established over large area
• By 6th century, most of Middle East under Byzantine empire (not Arabian
peninsula)
• 7th century rise of Islam
o Mohammed (570-632) becomes prophet of Islam
▪ Recited commands of God into The Quran
▪ Becomes the basis of the religion Islam
• Islam = “submission to one true God”
o Mohammed expands Islamic Ummah (Islamic community)
▪ Converting and conquering
▪ Eventually conquered Mecca
o Mohammed dies, split over succession of him as leader of community
▪ Shi’i / Shiite (adj) … Shi’a (collective noun)
• Leadership should remain in the family of the prophet (Ali)
• ~ 15% of Muslims today
▪ Sunni
• Believe that elites of community should choose best leader
• ~ 85% of Muslims today
o 4 Sunni Successors: “Rightly Guided Caliphs” ruled from 632-661
▪ Established a caliphate (empire)
▪ Spread Islam throughout Levant, North Africa, Spain during their
rule
o The Caliphate (622-750)
▪ Fused religious and political authority
▪ Successive Sunni dynasties move the capital of the Caliphate
▪ “Golden Age of Islam”
• 11th century: rise of “gunpowder empires”
o Through gunpowder, these empires able to conquer and rule
▪ Mughul Empire
▪ Safavid Empire
• Established Iran’s borders
• Persian (Farsi) declared official language
• Shiite Islam established as state’s religion
▪ Ottoman Empire
• Capital in Istanbul
• Ruled most of the Middle East for centuries (foundation on
which modern Middle East is built)
• Expansion rivals the expansion of the Caliphate
• Rules until the 19th century
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Ottoman political order
o 1. Sultan’s central authority
▪ Absolute monarch, yet limits to Sultan’s reach
• Empire so large, no technology, hard to rule over whole
area
▪ Local elites worked as intermediaries
• Some concentrate large land holdings
o Register a lot of land under their names (ordinary
people scared to have things under their names,
pay taxes)
• Power exercised through networks beyond the center
o 2. Heterogeneity (ethnic, religious)
▪ Millet system
• System of communal self-government
• Did not force conversion, allowed religions to organize
themselves
• Institutions shape politicization of difference
• Ottoman sources of decline
o Internal
▪ Corruption, inefficiency
o External
▪ World trade increases from 16th century
• Europe has upper hand in trade
o Commercial revolution - improved shipping,
manufacturing
• Ottomans become dependent on Europe
o Less economically developed
• Consequences:
o Ottoman economic crisis; state weakens
o Great power competition of stronger states in
Europe competing over Ottoman lands, Ottoman
unable to defend itself
o Ottoman loses provinces
▪ Countries rebel for their own national
independence (Greece)
▪ European colonialism carves off pieces of
empire; empire shrinks in size
o State struggles to reform to face these challenges
o Cultural / social movements from citizens of empire
▪ Arab (roots of Arab nationalism); Islamic;
reformist
o World War 1: Ottoman sides with German (losers), becomes clear that
Ottomans will not survive this defeat, Ottoman empire split up
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
In this class: turkey, iran, israel, 22 arab league countries. Heterogeneity (ethnic, religious: millet system, system of communal self-government, did not force conversion, allowed religions to organize themselves. Institutions shape politicization of difference: ottoman sources of decline. Ottomans will not survive this defeat, ottoman empire split up. ***consider ideology/identity, institutions, mobilization**: what is nationalism, collective identity / consciousness (with element of history, competing identities. Ideology: ernest gellner: nationalism is a principle of legitimacy for a political unit that holds that the political unit and national unit should match. A group that can see itself as a nation should have a state, and a state should have a nation: what explains nationalism: gelvin reading enumerates factors. How did nation-states become the focus of politics and loyalty: pre-colonial authenticity, examples: gasper on egypt, gelvin on greater syria / the levant, colonial rule makes state the context.
