Protest Politics in the Middle East

Guidelines and Topics (A) Guidelines: 1. These papers require that you write both a standard academic paper while, at the same time, write that paper from the perspective of a particular individual within a particular context within the region. As such, the paper will marked on a two-fold basis: 20% for the quality of your role-playing within the paper; and 80% for the quality of your academic analysis. 2. Academically, while the formats for the paper are varied – from summaries of conversations to position papers – you are nonetheless still required first and foremost to include in these formats all of the components that a standard research essay would require. This includes (i) an introduction to the paper that would include both (a) a thesis statement and (b) a clear statement of how the paper will be organized and argued as well as a conclusion. If you are having difficulties with the creative format, I would advise you, first, to write the paper as you would any other essay and, second, then transform it into something more creative. 3. You are also required to have 12 substantive academic sources – be they books or academic articles. Not counted towards these are newspaper articles and/or blog sites - though they will be very helpful in giving you a sense of the actors and the environment within which they are operating and, hence, I encourage you to supplement your regular research with them. 4. You are also required to document all sources that you use – including those from the internet and the press. Please make sure you use correct citations and you must include a bibliography. Topics: 1. Led by the likes of Tawakel Karmen, women have made up to 30% of the protestors in Yemen's version of the Arab Spring. You were one of those female protestors. In a subsequent conversation with your female colleagues (while the men were away at an afternoon qat chew!), you had an in-depth discussion of the challenges that women had faced within Yemen under President Saleh, reflecting at the end of that conversation on the opportunities that the social mobilization of women within the opposition might offer for women in any post-Saleh era. Please provide us with a transcript of that conversation. 2. You are a member of a clandestine Kurdish opposition group in Syria and have been asked to write a position paper on the situation of the Kurds in Syria before the Syrian uprising, concluding with some reflections on why the Kurdish opposition has had to tread very carefully when considering its open support for the Syrian opposition as a whole. Please provide us with a copy of that secret memo. 3. You are part of a small, informal group of Saudi women, eager to expand women's rights in the Kingdom. You have made contact with a feminist association in Egypt who have asked you to provide them with your analysis of, first, the state of women's rights within the Kingdom to date and, second, an analysis of the challenges and opportunities that exist for advocating and mobilizing around the issue of women's rights – including an analysis of the significance of recent reforms announced by the monarch around women's participation in both commerce and municipal politics. Please provide us with a copy of that analysis. 4. You are a founding member of the April 6th Movement in Egypt. In a recent strategic planning session, you entered into an interesting discussion of how the constraints on your efforts to promote social and political mobilization differed in the pre-and post-Mubarak era. Please provide us with a transcript of that conversation, focusing in particular on the strengths and limitations of social media as a mobilizational tool. 5. You are a researcher at a University seeking insights into the politics of the burgeoning informal sectors in the Middle East. You have just completed an interview with a Tunisia street vendor in which you asked him to compare life before and after the Tunisian uprising, with a particular focus on what factors led him to his own participation in the demonstrations and his evaluation as to whether he had made the right decision in doing so. Please provide us with a transcript of that interview.