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Teaching
In four years of teaching, I designed courses for undergraduate and graduate students. Course descriptions and syllabi are available below. In Spring 2012, I will be teaching "Comparative Politics" and a graduate level "Promseminar on Transnational and Comaprative Politics".
Comparative Politics (Pols 10004)
Comparative Politics examines the domestic politics of countries and people. The course is designed around multiple theoretical tools to aid students analyze country cases for comparative insights. Students encounter theories of state formation, political economy, collective identity, culture, institutional structures, and regime type. The course includes examinations of the character of colonialism and imperialism as well as globalization. This enables students to comparatively think about different countries as well as investigate important questions long considered by social scientists. This is a foundation course for undergraduates studying politics.
World Politics explores the terrain between optimism and pessimism concerning human poliitcal potential. This course's purpose is to situate and improve your theoetical understanding for analyzing world Politics in ways that help you become a more informed global citizen.
Politics of Social Movements (POLS 40920)
When state institutions or social norms are unresponsive to the demands of discontented segments of society, movements develop to resist the prevailing order. The movements’ aims are always the same: to change the status quo. This course focuses on four case areas to examine such social moments. The areas include: The Civil Rights movement, labor movement, lesbian & gay activism, and Islamist movements. We consider important themes such as shifts in social and historical structures, cultural framing, and the struggle to win civil and political rights. The goal will be to extract theories of social movements from the cases. We will particularly focus our attention on the process of “being included” as well as consider which groups remain excluded and why. To achieve our aims, this course considers three American and one Middle Eastern example. This encourages explicit cross-regional and comparative thinking about the politics of social movements.The Politics of the Middle East (POLS 40995)
The peoples and countries of the Middle East are frequently portrayed as existing in a timeless state. In the lands of history, they are supposedly prisoners of it. It was an unpredictable but welcome shock when the region's populations mobilized and demanded change beginning in December 2010. Subsequently, the peoples in the countries of the Middle East produced multiple uprisings and (some say) revolutions since January 2011.
The 2011 Arab Intifadas have sent very clear messages: Those who have been ruled have had enough of those who have ruled them, controlled their natural resources, and interfered with their daily lives. Questions persist however: Since some of the autocratic leaders have been deposed, can we expect the emergence of democracy? Or - on a more pessimistic note - has all that much changed? Are we witnessing the reconstitution of the ancien regimes in different guises?
These are important and interesting questions to be sure. But there are, at least two fundamental questions from which they all eminent from:
1) What counts for political change?
2) Who or what is producing or can produce political change?
We will spend the semester asking these questions as we try to understand the changes that are taking place within a larger historical perspective of political and social change.
Proseminar in Transnational and Comparative Politics (POL 70501)
This graduate seminar explores some of the foundational literature that compise the study of Comparative Politics and International Relations
Two questions occupy our consideration and compete for our focus this semester. They are:
1) Why do states differ from one another?
2) What determines a state's behavior?
Specifically, in reference to the former, we will throughtfully work with the character of "The State" as well as the many assumptions often made about it. We will consider the origins of the modern Nation-State as well as study state-building, regime type, and economic development. With regard to the latter question, we will consider the "isms" of International Relations - Realism, Liberalism, and Constructivism. We will also criticially struggle with some of the predominate theories of International Political Economy.
Comparative Public Policy: Democracy Promotion, The State, & Development (POLS 70505)
This graduate seminar is an explorative journey that revolves around two central themes:
1) The worldwide promotion of democracy
2) The character of "The State" in promoting development
The seminar examines these themes from the view of policy and the theoretical study of politics. While readings will cover many regions of the world, seminar participants will detect a Middle East case bias when considering democracy and development. We will also emphasize the and reconsider the relationaships between the disciplines of Political Science, Area Studies, and Public Policy.
Qualitative Research Methods (POLS 6/79091)
This graduate seminar is an explorative journey through QRM, which are used in the systematic and theoretical study of politics.
The central themes invite participants to:
1) Consider various epistemic communities as well as distinct philospohies of social science
2) Improve research design: Cases (small N) and with-in case analysis
3) Utilize content analysis and qualitative data analysis (QDA) software
4) Incorporate Mixed-Method Approaches
5) Weigh Ethnography and Interpretivist Frameworks
6) Contemplate the "Process" of conducting field research
Politics of the Arab World (POLS 6/70591)
This graduate seminar considers competing ideas about the region identified as the Arab world. This includes key theories such as Orientalism, dependency theory (core-periphery relations), structuralism, constructivism, and modernization. Particular attention is paid to ideas of hegemony, populist and post-populist authoritarianism, civil society, Islamism, rentierism, and authoritarian persistence. These topics cast a wide net around the leading approaches to the study of the Arab world. This seminar is also methodologically driven and focuses on deeply contemplating the practice of solid, multi-disciplinary social science. In the process, the students develop an appreciation of the endogenous and exogenous factors that contributed to the emergence of the Arab state system and that continue to influence its politics.