The Middle Eastern Economies

The Middle Eastern Economies is a Social Science class taught by Omar S. Dahi.

Course Description
This course is an introduction to the Middle Eastern. Some questions we will be exploring in the course are: How can we reconcile the existence of massive natural resources with the levels of poverty and underdevelopment throughout the region? Is this contradiction a result of inward orientation of the regimes or other cultural pre-dispositions, as is widely repeated in popular discourse? How have the processes of de-colonization, the clash of the various nationalist projects, and reoccurring wars, sanctions, and occupations hindered human development? By exploring novels, films, and scholarly articles we will examine the interaction between the various social actors, state structure and policy, and structural transformation. The course will focus on the case of Syria, a country in transition from a state-socialist to a market-oriented economy.

Learning Goals

 * Reading
 * Writing
 * Quantitative
 * Multi-Cultural
 * Presenting