Overview

Our course will begin with an introductory introduction to the geography and demographic structure of the Middle East and North Africa, which includes Turkey. In this section, where we will focus on the traces of Western colonialism and its intellectual combination, orientalism, we will try to understand the traces that colonialism left on Turkey and the people of the region, and the effects that have survived to the present day. Then, in order to understand the political and social changes that emerged in the region, especially after World War II, the political histories of Egypt, Iran, Syria and Türkiye will be examined with a comparative approach. In the following week, the origins, legal dimensions and political effects of the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be discussed. In the following weeks, the democratization problems experienced in the region and the continuity of authoritarian regimes will be focused on, and the authoritarianization process in Türkiye will be discussed in this context. Following this, the causes of the Arab Spring and its short-term consequences will be evaluated separately, also taking into account the Gezi process in Türkiye. The transition processes experienced in Egypt and Tunisia will be compared.