State and Society in the Middle East
Module ARAM054 for 2018/9

Postgraduate Module Descriptor

ARAM054: State and Society in the Middle East

This module descriptor refers to the 2018/9 academic year.

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

1. Orientalism, Area Studies & Social Science: Approaches to Middle East Politics

2. Historical Sociology of the State in the Middle East

3. Nationalism: Theory, Ideology and Practice

4. Authoritarianism: Violence, Discourse and Symbolic Power

5. Military Politics: Armed Forces and Society

6. Sectarianism: Politics outside the State

7. Religion and State-Building: Modernity without Secularism

8. Political Islam and Civil Society: Inside or Outside the State?

9. Ethnicity: Primordial Ties and Imagined Communities

10. Corruption, Economic Reform and Neo-Patrimonialism

11. a) Informal Politics: Poverty, Power and Resistance

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
22	278	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	22	11 x 2 hour seminars
Guided independent study	120	Reading for seminars
Guided independent study	158	Completion of course work

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).