Political Science

This course studies and interprets political issues in the Middle East. Topics include its geographical position, historical evolution, civilization, development, relationship between church and state, religion, revolution and reform, war and peace, and oil economy. The course combines a realistic perspective of theory with practice.

This course considers the role of ethnicity as a social and political cleavage. It examines the impact of immigration and ethnic diversity on party politics and political behaviour, using the experiences of countries in Europe and North America. Immigration and ethnicity are one of the major long-term social issues of today, and studying the effects of these phenomena on politics allows students to gain a deeper understanding of long-term political change - as well as current affairs. The approach taken is to consider both the political engagement and representation of immigrants and ethnic minority citizens, and the broader consequences and development of ethnicity and immigration as political issues in their own right. This includes a consideration of racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and Brexit. This course has an empirical emphasis, teaching students to evaluate empirical (including quantitative) research.

This course addresses how immigration has been built into the political and social dimensions of France from a socio-historical perspective. The course traces the history of immigration in France beginning with the industrial revolution until today. The French and European institutional context, as well as geopolitical and ideological upheavals, are viewed as the driving forces that brought immigration to the political and societal forefront.

Radical Islam is one of the most significant political phenomena of the last decade. This course examines major contemporary Islamist movements and ideologies in the Sunni Muslim world, and the major changes within Islam and jihadism since the events of the Arab Spring of 2011. It explores the origins, motivations, and practices of radical Islamic movements. It examines major Sunni Islamist thinkers, schools, and movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb, post-MB Egyptian radicalism, and modern Salafism. The course also looks at the rise of ISIS and the impact of the Arab Spring.

The objective of the course is to provide a comprehensive overview of international cooperation and of international organizations. Attention will be devoted to the role of international organizations (IO), particularly UN, EU, WTO, and ASEAN+3 in the contemporary global political system and to those aspects of international relations that are or may be conducted through institutionalized international cooperation.

This course is taught at Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Faculty of Social Sciences in the spring term. There is another course with the same title that is taught by Rothberg International in the fall term. This course focuses upon the topic of negotiations and conflict resolution in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1977 to the present. The course is divided into three parts. First, the course examines the general theoretical framework for explaining and understanding negotiations in international relations. Second, students discuss in general terms the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the main issues and patterns of negotiations. Third, the course address several case studies of successes and failures of negotiations between Israel and its several Arab neighbors Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinians.