MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES IN DEEP ANALYSIS

This teaching will provide students with the analytical tools necessary for a critical approach to interpret current socio-economic and political dynamics in the Southern Mediterranean. In particular, such approach will consist in: emphasizing a bottom-up perspective, that means taking into account the needs of local communities, often left at the margin of policy decision making; putting social and economic rights at the centre of analysis; and treating the economic dimension as strictly interrelated to the political one. Students will learn to apply such an approach by discussing and reflecting on specific case studies related to Arab countries.

Students will acquire knowledge of the following issues:
- Gender impact of free trade agreements.
- Implication of Agribusiness for rural development and employment
- Policies toward youth in Southern Mediterranean
- Energy policies and their impact on local communities (oil production and renewable energy projects)

Students will acquire the following skills:
- Ability to assess, through a critical approach, statistics, documents, projects and policies toward Southern Mediterranean countries in the field of energy, industry, agriculture and employment.

Criteria for admission are the same as for the study programme MIM.

The first part will offer a brief introduction to:
i) the history of the political economy of Arab countries
ii) the methodological instruments required to study economic and political dynamics in the region.
This part will serve as a background to the second part.

The second part will provide students with the analytical tools necessary for a critical approach to interpret current dynamics of development cooperation in the Southern Mediterranean, based on the presentation of the following case studies:
- How to analyse and interpret statistics: “Statistics as instrument of power”.
- Implications of free trade agreements: T-shirts made in Morocco, employment of female labour and delocalisation strategies by European companies.
- Impact of agribusiness in the Mediterranean: Moroccan female workers employed in the production of strawberries in Southern Spain and in that of tomatoes in the region of Souss Massa.
- Prevailing narratives and policies on youth and employment in the Southern Mediterranean.
- Energy policies and their impact on local communities: renewable energy projects and oil production and exploitation.

The reading list to prepare the written exam, my power-point presentations and other material will be available on moodle platform (a.y. 2020-2021) (https://moodle.unive.it/login/index.php ).

Questions on the topics covered in class will be addressed to the students at the beginning or end of lesson.

The topics covered in the course will be discussed in class, starting from specific questions raised by the professor or daily newspapers connected to the topics covered by the lessons.

Group activities

- 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)

English

written

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