ECONOMIC POLICIES OF ISLAMIC COUNTRIES

Within the framework of the course in Language, Politics and Economics of the Arab countries, this teaching is aimed at providing students with the analytical and methodological background tools to understand the major economic and social dynamics that have been characterizing Arab countries since their independence. The Arab world is currently faced with several socio-economic challenges, such as high levels of unemployment, labour precariousness, huge social inequalities, a fragile production structure, and scarcely diversified economies, strongly dependent on exogenous rents. However, there exist significant political and socio-economic differences among Arab countries, which need to be taken into account in order to well understand the complexity of this geographical area and its current developments and problems. Studying the socio-economic problems of the Arab region as well as the social and economic policies explaining them through a historical perspective is necessary for a correct and deep understanding of current problems and future perspectives.

i) The course will allow students to acquire a good knowledge of the following issues:
- Major socio-economic characteristics and problems of the Arab region;
- History of social and economic policies pursued from the post-independence period until now.

ii) A country-case study approach (with a focus on Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia) will enable students to develop a specific awareness and understanding of the different political economies of the Arab region.

iii) By examining a plurality of perspectives and interpretations, students will learn to adopt a critical approach in assessing past and current social and economic policies in the Arab region.

Knowledge of English
Background knowledge of the contemporary history of Arab countries

The course will be structured around three parts.

i) The first part will present major economic and social problems of Arab countries (lack of diversification, high disparities, labour problems, food import dependency and so on).

ii) The second part will explain the reasons behind such problems by analysing the major social and economic policies implemented from the post-independence period until today, specifically:
- State centred policies and import substituting industrialization (in the 1960s-1970s)
- Structural adjustment programs and neoliberal reforms (since the mid-1980s until today).

iii) The third part will assess the social, economic and political implications of neoliberal reforms in six countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In particularly, those students who will attend the course are expected to carry out group activities (two or three students by group) aimed at preparing a critical review of the literature of the above mentioned topic. The final work prepared by each group will be presented at the end of the course.

For those students who will attend the course:
- Paciello, M.C. (2010), Introduzione all’economia del mondo arabo, Edizione Nuova Cultura, Università La Sapienza, Roma (manuale di riferimento per la prima e la seconda parte del corso).
- The power-point presentations of the lectures (available on moodle platform - https://moodle.unive.it/login/index.php - after each lesson).

Those students who will not attend the classes are expected to study the following:
- Paciello, M.C. (2010), Introduzione all’economia del mondo arabo, Edizione Nuova Cultura, Università La Sapienza, Roma, 2010 (for the first and second part of the course).
- The Power-point presentations of the course (available on moodle platform - https://moodle.unive.it/login/index.php - after each lesson).
- For the third part, students are required to select two case studies from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. The list of articles and chapters for the exam is available on the moodle platform (a.a. 2019-2020).

The topics covered in class will be discussed with students by reflecting on specific questions raised by the professor.

In the last part of the course, students are expected to work in group activities on the topic assigned by the professor.

- Power-point presentations
- Case study analysis
- Group activities
- Analysis of audio sources and videos
- Analysis of secondary sources (academic literature) and primary sources (interviews, official documents, statistical data..)
- Complementary readings on the covered topics (not compulsory for the exam)

Italian

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development