HDS 3632  Religion and Democratization in the Context of the
Arab Spring  Jocelyne Cesari   In the light of the Arab Spring
events that are currently unfolding, the course will examine the
role of Islam in democratic changes and compare it to other
religious and political experiences outside the Middle East. We
will systematically analyze the status of Islam within modern
nation-states through case studies of Iran, Pakistan, Egypt,
Iraq Turkey and Tunisia and discuss the interactions between
modernization, secularization and democratization in the
political evolution of Muslim-majority countries.The course will
examine the dominant modernization and secularization theories
and discuss their relevance to understand the influence of
religion and more specifically of Islam on political
development. For each country, the course will: Explain the
status of Islam in the nation -building process; Examine the
continuous use and redefinition of Islam in the tensions between
the State and the political opposition; Anal