1. Sectarian VIolence in the Middle East: Myths and Realities
POLS1270
Prof. M Cammett
March 20, 2012

2. Civil Conflict in Iraq

3. Ethno-Sectarian Depictions of Iraq

4. Shia Communities in the Middle East

5. The Sunni-Shia “Divide”
“The Shia-Sunni conflict is at once a struggle for the soul of Islam – a great war of competing theologies and conceptions of sacred history – and a manifestation of the kind of tribal wars of ethnicities and identities, so seemingly archaic at times yet so surprisingly vital ”
Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival (2006)

6. Sectarian Conflict What is sectarianism?
Why sectarian conflict and violence?
Common default answer: “Pressure cooker” model
Social science explanations for identity conflict:
Primordialism
Constructivism
Instrumentalism & the “cultural entrepreneur”

7. Post-2003 Institutional Design: Ethno-Sectarian Power-Sharing

8. The Bombing of the Askari Mosque, Samarra (February 2006)

9. “Ethnic Cleansing” and the Homogenization of Residential Patterns

10. Contemporary Iraqi Politics

11. Lebanon

12. Sectarianism: Further Questions
But why does sectarianism resonate among “ordinary” people?
Under what conditions does sectarian identity become politicized?
Why religion? Why ethnicity?