An eye opening experience. I really hope this becomes a mandated course among anyone participating in any diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East and the Arabic world.

This course is Coursera's hidden gem of neo colonial discourse and that is what makes it worthy of attention. It's not so easy today to find an academic institution which members openly support cultural imperialism and teach in a way like Edward Said never existed. And I really like those subtle details when white majority make people of colour voice this kind of content. If a white person would have to say something like "members of underperforming socieities", that would be racism. But like now it can be safely named "diversity"!

I understand that any course is a mix of the professor's views and facts. However, the balance needs to be right to ensure that students get the most knowledge and insight out of it, not just the professor's personal beliefs and points of view. In this course, I felt that the balance was not right, and skewed towards the professor trying to state and reinforce his point of view. This course was 60% hectoring of the existing set-up in the Arabic states, 30% about the Arab Spring and 10% on why it didn't succeed. The course would also have been more useful if it had tried to use frameworks to compare the Arab set-up with other regions and things that can be done to improve. Instead the course started with the implicit belief that the Arab set-up is the worst, the "Denmark" system the best and then a continuous talking down to call out that the Arab set-up has failed. Students know that the Arab set-up has failed and are coming to this class to intellectually analyse a framework based analysis which also, atleast in a classroom, show ways of reaching these better versions and ultimately "Denmark". This course didn't even attempt to do that.

I was looking for a course with balanced content that tackles politics and its different dimensions in the Arab region, but unfortunately found out that this course has inaccurate, biased content. You will see that it's subjective and one-sided; quoting specific journalists and activists, giving you a poor view on a scene taken from one lens while ignoring the whole spectrum that its many views are needed to archive a wide, accurate view.

It's hard for me not to notice that it seems packed with certain agenda, unfortunately!

Not a very objective outlook on the Middle East after the Arab Spring. Quite disappointed to be honest as the University of Copenhagen is well known, and I expected their courses to be more informative instead of highly subjective.

Provides a fascinating and important approach to studying this topic. The professor's framework and intellectual depth enriched my understanding of this important and enduring problem.

That is the second class I am taking with Professor Afsah and would love to take more. The class is interesting, engaging and relevant. Highly recommended!

a very colonialistic and un-critical take of the arab religious, cultural and political issues.

Some students have complained that Dr. Afsah ignores the effect of external factors on the current state of Middle East societies. This is largely true, but he is intentionally focusing on what the citizens of those countries can change for themselves, which would also change the power differential between them and external actors. His analysis of what has gone wrong is outstanding. Now the people of those nations must develop plans to fix it. It can't be a solution from outside, although we should help as we can and as we are permitted to.

Nice format to measure one's understanding of each subject matter. The course is thoughtfully intersectional; and its comprehensive in making good use of western political theories and concepts and how these idea have failed to develop or take root in Arab political history.

Ha sido un gran curso.

Very good presentation and structure. Whilst I mostly agreed with Dr. Afsah's views, these are oftentimes presented as fact, and I would have liked to have had more of a sense of the debates over key issues. I would also have liked to have a more nuanced dissagregation of the Arab world at times, even along Cammett et. al.'s RRLA, RRLP, RPLA categories. The Gulf states have got vastly different levels of state capacity, and even though I do not think the overall arguments about the Arab world's failure to adopt a fuller modernity would be threatened by considering the Gulf states more carefully, I think it would give value to the course.

2nd course I have taken from this instructor. This one was thankfully much shorter. Good info, would have rated it higher, but the last quiz was made overly difficult. They keep switching the positions of the answers. I watched the week 6 video twice but could not pass after 6 attempts.

I watched through part of the first week and decided not to continue. The instructor is biased toward the eurocentric perspectives. They ignore for example the impact of the west starting from the Sykes-Picot Agreement, western mandates and modern innovations and occupations. One can not assess such a complex situation just by relating back to these "Arabic and Islamic exceptions" as it seems to be a lack of understanding of cultural differences by intellectuals who have no background in the richness of philosophical approaches to analysis and only look at reality from the lens of enlightenmet and rational whereas reality is more complex than that. I deem the course racist and harmful and I hope that other more sophisticated cultural thinkers would write a piece on this.

Fantastic course. Unlike some of the others I've taken on Coursera, this is not an introductory survey. Nor is it a simple event-by-event history of the Arab Spring. Instead, it's a focused and searching investigation of the chronic conditions which led to the uprisings. Professor Afsah makes compelling arguments about the causes and future consequences of the Arab Spring and Arab state difficulties more generally. In doing so, he takes a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing widely from political science, philosophy, economics, sociology, literature, law, and personal experience. The assigned readings and the quotations sprinkled throughout the lectures provide a wealth of resources for further research. Thank you for a thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening experience.

I loved this course. It was very informative and the Professor was so acknowledgeable. I would love to take another course that he is teaching. I learned a lot.

very insightful course for me. Learning the facts of the failure and significance of the Arab world is so fascinating and new subject for me. Thank you very much.

Very informative and eye opting for an Arab trying to understand why we r behind other countries and to realize how to go about it

thank you very very match

This was my first course on Coursera. For context, I am final year undergraduate student studying International Relations, I am quite experienced in this area.

I had high expectations for the course, but sadly these were not met. The content itself was interesting, but presented in a very dry way. Dr. Afsah was clearly reading from a script the entire time, and the information became very hard to absorb because he was not really 'lecturing', but rather just 'presenting'. Very convoluted academic language was used, which also often did not make sense (English is obviously not his first language, but he is nevertheless very educated). The fact that, I, and educated university student who speaks native English, could not understand The quizzes are quite easy and there is no other form of assessment.

My biggest criticism is of the discussion forums. My native language is English, and none of the prompts made sense. There was no question, or even a point of contention. Instead, simply a statement with little context. I was not alone in not understanding this, as 90% of people did not respond at all (like me), or simply wrote one or two words (like 'good'). Discussion forums and prompts can be a great way to reinforce your learning, but they were useless here.