TUTORIAL 5

TRADITIONAL ISLAMIC AND ARABIC POLITICAL SYSTEMS:

INSTITUTIONS AND IDEOLOGY

 QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

1. WHAT ROLE DID AND DOES ISLAM PLAY IN TRADITIONAL AND MODERN MIDDLE EASTERN POLITICAL SYSTEMS?
2. WHAT ARE THE MAIN INSTITUTIONS OF TRADITIONAL ISLAMIC AND ARABIC POLITICAL SYSTEMS?

 Dr. Sadiki has his own Home Page at

This contains lots of resources, but amongst them, he recommends the following readings as essential:

S. Bromley, Rethinking Middle East Politics

W. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East

M. Hudson, Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy

Ismael & Ismael, Politics and Government in the Middle East and North Africa

R. Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East

Bill & Springborg, Politics in the Middle East

M. Yapp, The Making of the Modern Middle East

E. Said, Orientalism 

You might also want to look at the first four weeks of his site for POL 2008

 Other possible readings, this time on Islam are:

Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World, London: Routledge, 1991 (chapters 4 & 5).

P.J. Vatikiotis, Islam and the State, London: Routledge: 1987 (chapter 3).

Akbar Ahmad, Postmodernism and Islam, London: Routledge, 1996 (chapters 1& 6).

Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad Versus McWorld, New York: Ballantine Books, 1995 (Introduction, Part 1, chapter 1, Part 2, chapters 10, 11 &14, Part 3, chapter 15).

On the authoritarian vs.ethnocentrism debate try:

Samuel Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations", Foreign Affairs 72 no. 3 (1993): 22-49.

Yahya Sadowski, "The Neo-Orientalism and the Democracy Debate," Middle East Report (July-August 1993): 14-21.

Richard Norton, "Associational Life: Civil Society in Authoritarian Political System," in Mark Tessler ed., Area Studies and Social Science Strategies for Understanding Middle East Politics, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.

Jillian Shwedler ed., Toward a Civil Society in the Middle East: A Primer, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995 (Introduction).

Lisa Anderson, "Democracy in the Arab World: A Critique of the Political Culture Approach," in Rex Brynen, Bahgat Korany and Paul Noble, eds., Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World: Theoretical Perspectives, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995.

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