Research on Political Changes and Political Stereotypes in the Middle East

Joint Research on “Islamic Area Studies” Commissioned by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)’s “Promotion Project of the Development of Joint Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences” (2008)

Summary

The purpose of this study is to, while considering the existing study trends over the politics of the Middle East (those studies from the perspective of current affair analyses and modern history as well as (comparative) political studies), provide the clues to viewing the future of regional politics by revealing how people’s political awareness that can never be neglected in determining the direction the regional politics is heading in has been reconstructed in the process of political changes in recent years. The “political awareness” here doesn’t mean the presence or absence of the interests in politics possessed by the people of the subject countries but how they recognize and evaluate the government, political actors and social groups of their own countries as well as further the roles of such political factors in their own countries’ politics. In other words, the main challenge of this study is to reveal how those people living in the Middle East change their political stereotypes about the political factors inside and outside their own country.

Members

Supervisor

Co-Investigators

Research Collaborators

  • Yutaka TAKAOA (Sophia University)
  • Dai YAMAO (Research Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science)
  • Masaki MIZOBUCHI (Sophia University)

Other Collaborating Institutions and Researchers

Outcomes

Created in April 2008