International Ala-Too University

Faculty of Economics and Administration

Department of International Relations
Ethnopolitics in International Perspective
Spring 2023-2024

Lecturer: Malika Abdulbakieva

Email: malika.abdulbakieva@alatoo.edu.kg
Office: D Block, room 515 (Individual consultations by prior appointment)
Note! Correspondence via email only. All WhatsApp messages will be ignored by the instructor.

Course Description:
This course provides an in-depth examination of the intersection between ethnicity and politics,
exploring the ways in which ethnic identity influences political behavior, governance, conflict,
and cooperation. Through a combination of theoretical readings, case studies, and practical appli-
cations, students will develop a nuanced understanding of ethnopolitics and its implications for
contemporary societies.

Course Objectives:
By the end of the course, students should be able to develop following skills:

• OK-1: Ability to think systematically; ability to generalize, analyze and perceive information;
ability to determine goals and choose ways to achieve them; ability to identify international po-
litical and diplomatic meanings of problems.
• OK-10: Ability to analyze socially significant problems and processes.
• IK-2: Ability to apply computer technologies at the user level to solve professional problems.
• SLK-1: Knowledge and understanding of global processes and the development of the world-
political system of international relations in their historical economic and legal conditionality.

Course Policies:
● The course instructor reserves the right to modify any portion of this syllabus at any time
during the period of the course.
● Students, who fail to meet attendance requirements, fail the course automatically regard-
less of reasons of absence.
● Attendance is checked 15 minutes after the start of the class. Students, who come after at-
tendance has been checked, must notify the instructor of their presence. Otherwise, they
will be marked absent.
● All written assignments must be submitted to the instructor’s email address as Word at-
tachment until deadline. All reflection papers must be properly formatted and cited
in the APA7 style. Reflection papers must be of suitable length 300-350 words and
accompanied by proofs of the works’ originality from the plagiarism detector.net
 and zerogpt.com. Students, whose works do not meet one of the aforementioned re-
quirements will not be evaluated.
● Students have multiple opportunities to earn extra points during the course. No extra
tasks are given during or after midterm or final exams. All requests of such kind
will be ignored by the instructor.

Grading:
Midterm exam: maximum 50 points
Final exam: maximum 50 points
Reflection paper: 10 points
In-class presentation: 10 points
Video presentation: 15 points

Reflection paper grading criteria:

Depth of reflection and evidence 30%
Clarity and structure 30%
Writing style and grammar 20%
Formatting, in-text citations, and references 20%

In-class presentation grading criteria:

Content relevance and depth of analysis 30%
Organization and structure 30%
Engagement and audience interaction 30%
Visuals 10%

Video presentation grading criteria:

Content relevance and depth of analysis 25%
Organization and structure 25%
Visuals 25%
Quality of speech and sound 25%

Note! Students willing to make an in-class or video presentations must ensure that the topic
they choose has not been selected by another student.

Weekly Class Schedule

Week Topic Reading materials Assignments for extra

points
1 Introduction: Defining
Ethnicity
2 Defining the Nation
3 Theories of Nationalism
• Calhoun, Craig. “Nationalism • Reflection paper
and Ethnicity.” 211-239. (300-350 Words)
• Brubaker, Rogers. “Ethnicity • Class presentation
without Groups.” 163-189. • Video presentation
• Smith, Anthony D. “Ethnic (5-10 minutes long)
election and national destiny:
some religious origins of na-
tionalist ideals.” 331-355.
• Hutchinson, John and An-
thony D. Smith (eds.). Ethnic-
ity. pp. 35-106
• Hutchinson, John and An- • Reflection paper
thony D. Smith (eds.). Nation- (300-350 Words)
alism. pp 3-89. • Class presentation
• Suny, Ronald Grigor. “Con- • Video presentation
structing primordialism: Old (5-10 minutes long)
histories for new na-
tions.” 862-896.
• Anderson, Benedict. Imagined • Reflection paper
Communities: Reflections on (300-350 Words)
the Origin and Spread of Na- • Class presentation
tionalism. pp. 1-236. • Video presentation
• Hutchinson, John and An- (5-10 minutes long)
thony D. Smith (eds.). Nation-
alism. pp. 89-121
4 Nationalism as the Mod- • Hutchinson, John and An- • Reflection paper
ern or Civil Religion? thony D. Smith (eds.). Nation- (300-350 Words)
alism. pp. 132-159. • Class presentation
• Brubaker, Rogers. “Religion • Video presentation
and nationalism: four ap- (5-10 minutes long)
proaches.” 2-20.
• Aktürk, Şener. “Nationalism
and Religion in Comparative
Perspective: A New Typology
of National-Religious Config-
urations.” 205-218.
• Mavrogordatos, George. “Or-
thodoxy and nationalism in
the Greek case.” 117-136.
• Santiago, Jose. “From “civil
religion” to nationalism as the
religion of modern times: Re-
thinking a complex relation-
ship.” 394-401.

5 Classification and Its • Marx, Anthony W. “Race- • Reflection paper

Consequences for Identity making and the nation- (300-350 Words)
Formation state.” 180-208. • Class presentation
• Aktürk, Şener. Regimes of • Video presentation
Ethnicity and Nationhood in (5-10 minutes long)
Germany, Russia, and Turkey.
3-44.
• Singh, Prerna and Matthias
vom Hau. “Ethnicity in time:
Politics, history, and the rela-
tionship between ethnic diver-
sity and public goods provi-
sion.” 1303-1340.
• Kertzer, David I. and Do-
minique Arel. Census and
identity: The politics of race,
ethnicity, and language in na-
tional censuses.
6 Religion, Genocide, and • Hutchinson, John and An- • Reflection paper
Nation-Building in Early thony D. Smith (eds.). Nation- (300-350 Words)
Modern Europe alism. pp 160-195. • Class presentation
• Gorski, Philip S. “The mosaic • Video presentation
moment: An early modernist (5-10 minutes long)
critique of modernist theories
of nationalism.” 1428-1468.
• Marx, Anthony W. “The Na-
tion‐State and Its Exclu-
sions.” 103-126.
• Marx, Anthony W. Faith in
Nation: Exclusionary Origins
of Nationalism.
7 Religion and Genocide in • Sells, Michael. The Bridge • Reflection paper
Bosnia Betrayed: Religion and Geno- (300-350 Words)
cide in Bosnia. pp.1-52. • Class presentation
• Khan, Mujeeb R. “The • Video presentation
“Other” in the Balkans: His- (5-10 minutes long)
torical Constructions of Serbs
and “Turks”. 49-63.
• Sells, Michael. “Crosses of
Blood: Sacred Space, Reli-
gion, and Violence in Bosnia-
Hercegovina.” 309-331.
• Sokolovic, Dzemal.“How to
Conceptualize the Tragedy of
Bosnia: Civil, Ethnic, Reli-
gious War or…” 115-130.
• Karčić, Hikmet.“An Erased
Memorial, a Rape Motel, and
a Nationalist Disneyland:
Bosnian Genocide Denial and
the Fight for Memory in a
Bosnian Town.” 167-173.

8 Germany and Nazism: • Pergher, Roberta, Roseman, • Reflection paper

Ethnicity, Eugenics, Race, Mark, Zimmerer, Jürgen, (300-350 Words)
and Genocide/Holocaust Baranowski, Shelley, Bergen, • Class presentation
Doris L. and Zygmunt Bau- • Video presentation
man. “The Holocaust: a colo- (5-10 minutes long)
nial genocide? A scholars’ fo-
rum.” 40-73.
• Kuntz, Dieter and Susan
Bachrach. Deadly Medicine:
Creating the Master Race.

9 Midterm exam
10 Soviet Union and China: • Slezkine, Yuri. “The USSR as • Reflection paper
Marxist Approach to the a communal apartment, or (300-350 Words)
Nationalities Question in how a socialist state promoted • Class presentation
Practice ethnic particularism,” 414- • Video presentation
452. (5-10 minutes long)
• Martin, Terry. “The Origins of
Soviet Ethnic Cleans-
ing.” 813-861.
• Gladney, Dru. “Representing
Nationality in China: Refigur-
ing Majority/Minority Identi-
ties.” 92-123.
• Roberts, Sean R. “The biopol-
itics of China’s ‘war on terror’
and the exclusion of the
Uyghurs.” 232-258.
• Martin, Terry. The Affirma-
tive Action Empire: Nations
and Nationalism in the Soviet
Union, 1923-1939.
11 Turkish, Arab, Pakistani, • Hutchinson, John and An- • Reflection paper
and Jewish Nationalism thony D. Smith (eds.). Nation- (300-350 Words)
alism. pp.196-240. • Class presentation
• Akturk, Sener. “Religion and • Video presentation
Nationalism: Contradictions (5-10 minutes long)
of Islamic Origins and Secular
Nation‐Building in Turkey,
Algeria, and Pakistan.” 778-
806.
• Herzl, Theodor. The Jewish
State
• Khalidi, Rashid. “Arab nation-
alism: historical problems in
the literature.” 1363-1373.
• Haddad, Mahmoud. “The rise
of Arab nationalism reconsid-
ered.” 201-222.
• Dawisha, Adeed. “Requiem
for Arab nationalism.” 25-41.
12 Nation-Building and the • Hutchinson, John and An- • Reflection paper
International System thony D. Smith (eds.). Nation- (300-350 Words)
alism. pp.241-286. • Class presentation
• Mylonas, Harris and Maya • Video presentation
Tudor. “Nationalism: What (5-10 minutes long)
We Know and What We Still
Need to Know.” 109-132.
• Sambanis, Nicholas,
Skaperdas, Stergios and
William C. Wohlforth.“Na-
tion-building through
war.” 279-296.
• Barkin, Samuel J. and Bruce
Cronin.“The state and the na-
tion: changing norms and the
rules of sovereignty in inter-
national relations.” 107-130.
• Meyer, John W. Boli, John,
Thomas, George M. and Fran-
cisco O. Ramirez.“World so-
ciety and the nation‐
state.” 144-181.
• Wimmer, Andreas and Yuval
Feinstein.“The Rise of the Na-
tion-State across the World,
1816 to 2001.” 764-790.
• Mearsheimer, John J. “Bound
to Fail: The Rise and Fall of
the Liberal International Or-
der,” 7-50.
13 Ethnicity and Nationality: • Akturk, Sener. Regimes of • Reflection paper
Regimes of Ethnicity in Ethnicity and Nationhood in (300-350 Words)
Germany Germany, Russia, and Turkey. • Class presentation
47-113. • Video presentation
• Joppke, Christian.“Transfor- (5-10 minutes long)
mation of immigrant integra-
tion: Civic integration and an-
tidiscrimination in the Nether-
lands, France, and Germany.”
243-273.
• Çelik, Çetin. “Disadvantaged,
but morally superior: Ethnic
boundary making strategies of
second-generation male Turk-
ish immigrant youth in Ger-
many.” 705-723.

14 Ethnicity and Nationality: • Akturk, Sener. Regimes of • Reflection paper

Regimes of Ethnicity in Ethnicity and Nationhood in (300-350 Words)
Turkey Germany, Russia, and Turkey. • Class presentation
117-194. • Video presentation
• Akturk, Sener. “Persistence of (5-10 minutes long)
the Islamic Millet as an Ot-
toman Legacy: Mono-Reli-
gious and Anti-Ethnic Defini-
tion of Turkish Nationhood.”
893-909.
• Al, Serhun. “An Anatomy of
Nationhood and the Question
of Assimilation: Debates on
Turkishness Revisited.” 83-
101.
15 Ethnicity and Nationality: • Akturk, Sener. Regimes of • Reflection paper
Regimes of Ethnicity in Ethnicity and Nationhood in (300-350 Words)
Russia Germany, Russia, and Turkey. • Class presentation
197-273. • Video presentation
• Shevel, Oxana. “Russian na- (5-10 minutes long)
tion-building from Yel’tsin to
Medvedev: Ethnic, civic or
purposefully ambiguous?”
179-202.
• Akturk, Sener. “Post-imperial
democracies and new projects
of nationhood in Eurasia:
transforming the nation
through migration in Russia
and Turkey.” 1101-1120.

16 Final exam