Sean Yom

Temple University, Political Science, Faculty Member

Foreign Policy Research Institute, Middle East Program, Senior Fellow

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Associate Professor of Political Science, Temple University
Address: Philadelphia, PA USA

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Papers and Chapters

Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Arab World

Middle East Journal, 2023

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Kuwait's Democratic Promise

Journal of Democracy, 2023

Kuwait is a democratic outlier in the Middle East. In this oil-rich Muslim Arab state, the ruling... more Kuwait is a democratic outlier in the Middle East. In this oil-rich Muslim Arab state, the ruling Sabah monarchy claims considerable executive authority, but it also coexists with a powerful, elected parliament and well-mobilized civil society. This oft-overlooked hybrid system is rooted in liberal norms of pluralism and openness, and enables opposition blocs to advance democratic reforms and rebuff the threat of repression. A transition towards parliamentary democracy, a rarity in the Arab world, is possible. However, this will require overcoming intense cleavages within the royal family, across social groups, and between the royal autocracy and society itself.

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US Security Assistance in Jordan: Militarized Politics and Elusive Metrics

Security Assistance in the Middle East: Challenges and the Need for Change. Edited by Bob Springborg and Hicham Alaoui. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2023

NOTE: EMBARGOED BY PUBLISHER. Since the late 1950s, the United States has furnished Jordan a... more NOTE: EMBARGOED BY PUBLISHER.

Since the late 1950s, the United States has furnished Jordan a heavy stream of security assistance, meaning economic funds, military weaponry, specialized training, skills transfers, and other technical support designed to bolster the Jordanian Armed Forces. What has this accomplished? This book chapter argues that the rhetoric of security assistance, which focuses on building partner capacity and enhancing field-based competency, obscures the deeper political logic of sustaining the coercive apparatus of a client state. By virtue of its historical origins and social foundations, the Jordanian military guarantees authoritarian rule in the Hashemite Kingdom through mechanisms of welfarism, communalism, and identity-building.

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Mobilization without Movement: Opposition and Youth Activism in Jordan

Struggles for Political Change in the Arab World: Regimes, Oppositions, and External Actors after the Spring. Edited by Lisa Blaydes, Amr Hamzawy, and Hesham Sallam. University of Michigan Press, 2022

Jordan has experienced a historically contentious decade since the Arab Spring. Youth activists ... more Jordan has experienced a historically contentious decade since the Arab Spring. Youth activists in hirak groups have been demonstrating, marching, and protesting more than ever. Yet such mobilization has not generated a nationally organized movement, one with permanent leadership and mass structure. This chapter explains why by inverting the moral economy and normative expectations of normalized protest in an era of uprising. The new generation of activism prefers horizontal and informal modes of resistance that shy away from the ideological ideals of traditional opposition actors--a preference borne from the adaptive learning and social origins of activist youths. They seek to avoid the exigencies of repression and identity politics, but also find social meaning in the fluidity and formlessness of grassroots networks. By contrast, they avoid the bureaucratic formalization of more established actors like civil society associations and political parties, which lack credibility as effective vehicles for collective dissent.

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Authoritarianism Reconfigured: Evolving Forms of Political Control

The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research since the Arab Uprisings. Eds. Marc Lynch, Jillian Schwedler, and Sean Yom. Oxford University Press, 2022

This chapter explains how strategies and forms of authoritarian rule in the MENA have evolved gre... more This chapter explains how strategies and forms of authoritarian rule in the MENA have evolved greatly since the Arab uprisings. Sidestepping normative expectations for democracy and democratization, the chapter shows the primary pathways of change and persistence for many dictatorships. Many autocracies have become personalistic, bucking assumptions that rational leaders should protect themselves with hegemonic parties rather than cronies and sycophants. Most have become far more repressive since the uprisings, despite the costs of ramping up coercion. Others have catalyzed new modes of cultural domination that induce compliance through ideology. This chapter examines the shift in these different domestic practices, showing also at the external level how many regimes have also become imbricated in new networks of international support. These developments enrich prevailing theories about authoritarianism but also show how quickly regional events outpace them.

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Roles, Identity, and Security: Foreign Policy Contestation in Monarchical Kuwait

European Journal of International Relations, 2020

The 2011-2012 Arab Spring posed an existential threat to the Gulf Cooperation Council's six monar... more The 2011-2012 Arab Spring posed an existential threat to the Gulf Cooperation Council's six monarchies. A major response was the 2012 GCC Internal Security Pact, an innovative project to enhance cross-border repression of domestic opposition and thus bolster collective security. Yet despite its historic weakness, ongoing domestic unrest, and initial enthusiasm for the agreement, Kuwait's monarchy did not ultimately ratify the accord. Building on theories of foreign policy roles and identity, this article presents an ideational explanation for this puzzle. The Security Pact failed because it sparked identity contestation. For many Kuwaitis, the prospect of the Sabah monarchy imposing this scheme for greater repression was incompatible with the regime's historical role of tolerating domestic pluralism and protecting Kuwait from foreign pressures. This role conception of a tolerant protector flowed from historical understandings and collective memory and was cognitively tied to a national self-conception of "Kuwaiti-ness." The mobilizational scope and symbolic power of this popular opposition convinced the regime to acquiesce, despite possessing the strategic incentive and resources to impose the treaty by force. The Kuwaiti case therefore exemplifies how domestic contestation over regime identities and roles can constrain foreign policy behavior, even in authoritarian states facing severe crises of insecurity.

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Bread, Fear, and Coalitional Politics in Jordan: From Tribal Origins to Neoliberal Narrowing

Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability: Duration, Financial Control, and Institutions, ed. Victor Shih (University of Michigan Press), 2020

Jordan’s monarchical autocracy weathered devastating financial crisis in the late 1980s that thre... more Jordan’s monarchical autocracy weathered devastating financial crisis in the late 1980s that threatened its coalitional base of longstanding tribal supporters. Afterwards, the regime began shifting away from its historic tribal constituencies in favor of a narrower stratum of new business elites, in line with neoliberal economic restructuring. Yet neither fiscal shock nor coalitional realignments converted tribal communities into hotbeds of radical opposition. This chapter argues that inherited institutional loyalties and fear of Palestinian domination has operated to keep most tribal Jordanians tied to the ruling monarchy, even during circumstances that have imperiled their traditionally privileged status. It also notes the centrality of foreign aid in financing tribal patronage, as well as the fact that monarchist rule rather than ruling party institutions have helped this autocracy maintain stability during hard times. By tracing the colonial origins and development of the tribal-state compact, and then exploring its crisis and recalibration since the 1990s, the chapter accentuates that early incorporation into ruling political institutions, fueled along the way by ethnocratic fear wrought by social competition, can generate long-lasting legacies that can outlive even the worst economic turbulence.

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US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Logic of Hegemonic Retreat

Global Policy Journal, 2020

The Trump administration's foreign policy is often perceived as an isolationist ideology that has... more The Trump administration's foreign policy is often perceived as an isolationist ideology that has radically reversed American global leadership in a matter of years. In the Middle East, critics have harangued the Trump Doctrine as an even hastier surrender of the US hegemony that has defined regional order since the 1980s. In reality, American interest in this region has been declining for a decade as expressed by its rising reluctance to leverage its economic and military supremacy to constrain, regulate, and destroy perceived foes as it once did. This waning interventionism precedes the Trump Doctrine. It stems not from any ideological turn, or the financial and military exhaustion of a cresting superpower, but rather a structural dynamic: the Middle East no longer generates credible threats against the US. Whereas in the past alarmist fears of communism and energy insecurity propelled Washington's regional imperium, today the perceived enemies of US interests -- radical Islamism and Iran -- do not endanger the political institutions and economic prosperity of American society. Absent a catastrophic terrorist attack, the US will continue to relinquish its hegemonic mantle, turning away from overt interventionism as the logic of coercively dominating a region of diminishing importance runs its course.

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Analytic Transparency, Radical Honesty, and Strategic Incentives

PS: Political Science and Politics, 2018

As a pillar of Data Access and Research Transparency (DA-RT), analytic transparency calls for rad... more As a pillar of Data Access and Research Transparency (DA-RT), analytic transparency calls for radical honesty about how political scientists infer conclusions from their data. However, honesty about one's research practices often means discarding the linguistic template of deductive proceduralism that structures most writing, which in turn diminishes the prospects for successful publication. This dissonance reflects a unique dilemma: transparency initiatives reflect a vision of research drawn from the biomedical and natural sciences, and struggle with the messier, iterative, and open-ended nature of political science scholarship. Analytic transparency requires not only better individual practices, such as active citations, but also institutional strategies that reward radical honesty. Journals can provide authors with protected space to reveal research practices, further blind the review process, and experiment with special issues. More broadly, analytic openness can be mandated through procedural monitoring, such as real-time recording of research activities and keystroke logging for statistical programs.

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Regimes, Identities, and Regional Order: Kuwait, Qatar, and the Gulf Cooperation Council

Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 2018

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is an authoritarian regional organization whose unity among it... more The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is an authoritarian regional organization whose unity among its six constituent kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman waxes and wanes in cyclical fashion. Historically, periods of cross-regime cohesion have been followed by defection. This essay examines the GCC since the Arab Spring, characterized by crisis-fueled unity, followed by sharp divergence from Kuwait and Qatar in two regards: Kuwait by refusing to ratify an internal security pact that would have transnationalized standards of repression, and Qatar by maintaining an activist foreign policy that defied GCC consensus by engaging Iran, Islamists, and other GCC foes. Unlike conventional neorealist explanations, this essay argues that such small state defections from regional order stem not from a desire to compensate for security weaknesses but rather from an effort to protect their underlying regime identities. In Kuwait, constitutive norms of domestic pluralism and openness, rooted in historical tradition, so permeates the Sabah dynasty and its societal linkages that integrating Gulf standards of coercion is seen as profoundly incompatible. In Qatar, a new relational understanding of the Thani monarchy as an activist global force, distinct from its Gulf peers, negates the impulse for deeper regional integration. The reassertion of these regime identities helps explain resistance to regionalism even when bandwagoning with the GCC majority would objectively enhance state survival. In sum, domestic order trumps regional order.

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Counterterrorism and Youth Radicalization in Jordan: Social and Political Dimensions

by Sean Yom and Katrina Sammour

CTC Sentinel, 2017

Youth radicalization by Islamist extremists poses a domestic security challenge for Jordan, a key... more Youth radicalization by Islamist extremists poses a domestic security challenge for Jordan, a key U.S. ally and crucial link in the campaign against the Islamic State. Jordanian policies aimed at neutralizing this jihadi threat have long emphasized bolstering the government's policing capabilities and control over society. Yet ongoing terrorist attacks carried out by Jordanian youths suggest this conventional approach is not working. Economic deprivation, substandard education, and the presence of radical Islamist discourse are part of the problem, but the fundamental concern is that Jordan's booming youth population has no emotive attachment to Jordanian identity and thus little stake in political order. Recent research by the authors in Jordan makes clear that young Jordanians are susceptible to radicalization not just because Islamist radicalism seems so strong, but because the political alternative-everyday life as a Jordanian citizen-is so weak. This creates a compelling argument for more political engagement with youngsters as part of a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy.

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Jordan and Morocco: The Palace Gambit

Journal of Democracy, 2017

Ruling monarchies in Morocco and Jordan outlasted the Arab Spring through familiar tactics such a... more Ruling monarchies in Morocco and Jordan outlasted the Arab Spring through familiar tactics such as halfhearted reforms, as well as upgraded strategies of management. No longer intent on avoiding elections, now these regimes welcome them in order to expose opposition as too incompetent to govern even when given the opportunity. They no longer deny royalist absolutism to the public, but rather embrace it as the ideal guarantor of normalcy and stability. Adapting back, however, is a new generation of youth activists who elude their regimes’ grasp and radically challenge the legitimacy of monarchical governance. The potential for revolution still exists.

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Comparative Politics and Area Specialization: The Hidden Costs of Analytic Transparency

Chinese Political Science Review, 2016

New transparency initiatives emerging from Western political science make an ill-fitting standard... more New transparency initiatives emerging from Western political science make an ill-fitting standard for global comparativists who serve as experts in countries and regions-that is, area specialists. This study explores the origins of the current push for greater research transparency, including its underlying norms and genesis in the natural sciences. Noting its strict adherence to a model of deductive proceduralism, I then show how area-focused comparative political scholarship clashes with newfound demands for analytic transparency due to fundamental differences in its real-world practice-that is, how explanations are constructed and evidence is analyzed. Rather than a linear step-by-step approach emphasizing hypothesis confirmation, much area studies work thrives through iterative engagements between theory and evidence in which researchers craft persuasive explanations by repeatedly revising propositions, reconsidering data, and questioning assumptions over time. Squaring this reality with the idealization of enhanced transparency means one of two things: the diminishment of area studies within comparative politics, or the collective lying of many scholars when it comes to divulging how they came to their ultimate causal conclusions.

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Understanding the Arab Spring: One Region, Several Puzzles, and Many Explanations

Government and Opposition, 2015

This comprehensive review essay ties together the latest scholarly interventions from the study o... more This comprehensive review essay ties together the latest scholarly interventions from the study of the Arab Spring. It finds that beyond a mass of descriptive generalizations, the best works on the uprisings focus upon three questions. First, how did the Arab Spring begin – that is, what were the causative origins of popular mobilization in these non-democratic states? Second, how did national insurrections that varied in length and escalation become a truly regional wave of contention, spreading so quickly across borders? Third, why did regime trajectories and outcomes vary so widely, from revolutionary insurrections to leadership survival to civil war?

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The New Landscape of Jordanian Politics: Social Opposition, Fiscal Crisis, and the Arab Spring

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2015

The absence of regime change in Jordan during the Arab Spring obscured two critical trends transf... more The absence of regime change in Jordan during the Arab Spring obscured two critical trends transforming political order in this authoritarian kingdom. First, new opposition forces demanding democratic reform mobilized, within not only the youth population but also East Bank tribal communities long assumed to be citadels of loyalty. Second, worsening fiscal dysfunction and budgetary pressure have amplified the state's institutional weakness, and precluded the possibility that increased foreign aid could buy off dissent. Such possibilities require a serious reassessment about the foundations of stability in this kingdom. This double bind presents a nascent opportunity with profound ramifications: in the near future, the Hashemite monarchy may be forced to initiate credible political reform, because even a diminished autocracy is superior to a collapsing regime mired in mass insurrection.

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From Methodology to Practice: Inductive Iteration in Comparative Research

Comparative Political Studies, 2015

Most methods in comparative politics prescribe a deductive template of research practices that be... more Most methods in comparative politics prescribe a deductive template of research practices that begins with proposing hypotheses, proceeds into analyzing data, and finally concludes with confirmatory tests. In reality, many scholars move back and forth between theory and data in creating causal explanations, beginning not with hypotheses but hunches and constantly revising their propositions in response to unexpected discoveries. Used transparently, such inductive iteration has contributed to causal knowledge in comparative-historical analysis, analytic narratives, and statistical approaches. Encouraging such practices across methodologies not only adds to the toolbox of comparative analysis but also casts light on how much existing work often lacks transparency. Because successful hypothesis testing facilitates publication, yet as registration schemes and mandatory replication do not exist, abusive practices such as data mining and selective reporting find easy cover behind the language of deductive proceduralism. Productive digressions from the deductive paradigm, such as inductive iteration, should not have the stigma associated with such impropriety.

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Authoritarian Monarchies as an Epistemic Community: Diffusion, Repression, and Survival during the Arab Spring

Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 2014

During the Arab Spring, revolutionary insurrections targeted republican dictatorships while large... more During the Arab Spring, revolutionary insurrections targeted republican dictatorships while largely bypassing the eight ruling monarchies. Popular domestic explanations for such royal exceptionalism, such as cultural legitimacy and economic wealth, not only lack analytic validity but also ignore the most pertinent reason for monarchical persistence-more effective strategies of opposition management. Presidential regimes reacted against protests with mass coercion, which radicalized opposition and mobilized further resistance, while most ruling kingships refrained from systematic violence and neutralized dissent through nonrepressive means, such as co-optation. What accounts for such striking policy convergence? This essay suggests an innovative answer: the royal leaderships atop the Arab monarchical regimes constitute an epistemic community, one predicated on not just a collective perception of threat from regional democratization, but also shared normative beliefs regarding their historical rarity and dynastic superiority. Under this framework, dense communal ties facilitated the diffusion of noncoercive strategies of opposition management, and helped enshrine promises of mutual security within existing institutions such as the Gulf Cooperation Council. Based upon a combination of historical analysis and fieldwork, this essay argues that such transnational circulation of ideas and strategies did not merely aim to prevent democracy, but specifically promoted a special subtype of authoritarianism-ruling monarchism-as a viable type of political order.

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Tribal Politics in Contemporary Jordan: The Case of the Hirak Movement

Middle East Journal, 2014

During 2011/12, East Bank tribal youths in Jordan mobilized a new wave of political opposition th... more During 2011/12, East Bank tribal youths in Jordan mobilized a new wave of political opposition through the Hirak movement. Reflecting generational change in their communities, as well as the historical erosion of tribal-state relations, these protest groups demanded sweeping democratic reforms from the monarchy. They also utilized language and methods more radical than the established legal opposition. This changing dynamic of tribal politics holds enormous implications for politics and stability within the Hashemite kingdom.

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Jordan: The Ruse of Reform

Journal of Democracy, 2013

Why has Jordan’s authoritarianism remained so stubborn? What makes the country’s Hashemite monarc... more Why has Jordan’s authoritarianism remained so stubborn? What makes the country’s Hashemite monarchy exceptional is that virtually no constituency apart from domestic oppositionists and international human-rights organizations puts consistent pressure on the kingdom to democratize. Western policy makers and Jordanian officials have successfully cultivated the kingdom’s image as a “moderate” Arab state, an oasis of stability and key ally in the world’s most strategic and turbulent region. Foreign aid from the United States and its allies remains the kingdom’s economic lifeline, and thus the best means by which to encourage the regime to actually take popular demands into account in its next reform gambit. With stability on the line, the next five years will prove to be the crucible for the Jordanian crown.

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Resilient Royals: How Arab Monarchies Hang On

by Sean Yom and Gregory Gause

Journal of Democracy, 2012

No monarchy fell to revolution in the Arab Spring. What accounts for this monarchical exceptional... more No monarchy fell to revolution in the Arab Spring. What accounts for this monarchical exceptionalism? Analysts have argued that royal autocracies are inherently more resilient than authoritarian republics due to their cultural foundations and institutional structure. By contrast, this paper leverages comparative analysis to offer a different explanation emphasizing deliberate regime strategies made in circumstances of geographic fortuity. The mobilization of cross-cutting coalitions, hydrocarbon wealth, and foreign patronage account for the resilience of monarchical dictatorships in the Middle East. Without these factors, kingships are just as vulnerable to overthrow as any other autocracy—something that history indicates, given the long list of deposed monarchies in the region over the past half-century.

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Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Arab World

Middle East Journal, 2023

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Kuwait's Democratic Promise

Journal of Democracy, 2023

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US Security Assistance in Jordan: Militarized Politics and Elusive Metrics

Security Assistance in the Middle East: Challenges and the Need for Change. Edited by Bob Springborg and Hicham Alaoui. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2023

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Mobilization without Movement: Opposition and Youth Activism in Jordan

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Authoritarianism Reconfigured: Evolving Forms of Political Control

The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research since the Arab Uprisings. Eds. Marc Lynch, Jillian Schwedler, and Sean Yom. Oxford University Press, 2022

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Roles, Identity, and Security: Foreign Policy Contestation in Monarchical Kuwait

European Journal of International Relations, 2020

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Bread, Fear, and Coalitional Politics in Jordan: From Tribal Origins to Neoliberal Narrowing

Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability: Duration, Financial Control, and Institutions, ed. Victor Shih (University of Michigan Press), 2020

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US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Logic of Hegemonic Retreat

Global Policy Journal, 2020

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Analytic Transparency, Radical Honesty, and Strategic Incentives

PS: Political Science and Politics, 2018

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Regimes, Identities, and Regional Order: Kuwait, Qatar, and the Gulf Cooperation Council

Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 2018

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Counterterrorism and Youth Radicalization in Jordan: Social and Political Dimensions

by Sean Yom and Katrina Sammour

CTC Sentinel, 2017

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Jordan and Morocco: The Palace Gambit

Journal of Democracy, 2017

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Comparative Politics and Area Specialization: The Hidden Costs of Analytic Transparency

Chinese Political Science Review, 2016

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Understanding the Arab Spring: One Region, Several Puzzles, and Many Explanations

Government and Opposition, 2015

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The New Landscape of Jordanian Politics: Social Opposition, Fiscal Crisis, and the Arab Spring

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2015

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From Methodology to Practice: Inductive Iteration in Comparative Research

Comparative Political Studies, 2015

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Authoritarian Monarchies as an Epistemic Community: Diffusion, Repression, and Survival during the Arab Spring

Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 2014

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Tribal Politics in Contemporary Jordan: The Case of the Hirak Movement

Middle East Journal, 2014

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Jordan: The Ruse of Reform

Journal of Democracy, 2013

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Resilient Royals: How Arab Monarchies Hang On

by Sean Yom and Gregory Gause

Journal of Democracy, 2012

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The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research Since the Arab Uprisings

by Sean Yom and Jillian Schwedler

Oxford University Press, 2022

NOTE: EMBARGOED BY PUBLISHER. The Arab Uprisings of 2011-12 catalyzed a new wave of rigorous, de... more NOTE: EMBARGOED BY PUBLISHER. The Arab Uprisings of 2011-12 catalyzed a new wave of rigorous, deeply informed research on the politics of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In The Political Science of the Middle East, Marc Lynch, Jillian Schwedler, and Sean Yom present the definitive overview of this pathbreaking turn. This is a monumental stocktaking organized around a singular theme: new theorizing from the MENA has advanced the frontiers of comparative politics and international relations, and the close-range study of the region occupies a core place in mainstream political science. Its dozen chapters cover an exhaustive array of topics, including authoritarianism and democracy, contentious politics, regional security, military institutions, conflict and violence, the political economy of development, Islamist movements, identity and sectarianism, public opinion, migration, and local politics. For each of these topics, leading MENA experts and specialists highlight innovative concepts, vibrant debates, diverse methodologies, and unexpected findings. The result is an indispensable research primer, one that stands as a generational statement from a regional subfield.

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From Resilience to Revolution: How Foreign Interventions Destabilize the Middle East

Columbia University Press, 2015

What explains the durability of authoritarianism in the Middle East? This book offers a bold ans... more What explains the durability of authoritarianism in the Middle East? This book offers a bold answer to this urgent question: external support to dictatorships can sabotage their future stability. As colonial rule dissolved in the 1930s and 1950s, Middle Eastern autocrats constructed new political states to solidify their reigns, with varying results decades later. Some have lasted into the present day, enjoying long periods of stability and legitimacy, such as Kuwait. Others collapsed in bloody revolutions, with their societies violently rejecting their rule, as in Iran under the Pahlavi crown. Yet others barely survived, having suffering repeated opposition and unrest, like Jordan under the Hashemites. To explain these divergent fates, this book emphasizes the social *and* geopolitical origins of political order. At the dawn of the postcolonial era, many autocratic states had little support from their people and struggled to overcome widespread opposition. When foreign powers intervened to bolster these regimes, they unwittingly undermined the prospects for long-term survival by discouraging leaders from reaching out to their people and bargaining for mass support—early coalitional decisions that created repressive institutions and planted the seeds for potential unrest. Only when they were secluded from larger geopolitical machinations did Middle Eastern regimes come to grips with their weaknesses and build broader coalitions with society. In essence, the most successful dictatorships are those that received the least help from great powers.

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The Societies of the Middle East and North Africa: Structures, Vulnerabilities, and Forces

Routledge, 2019

NOTE: EMBARGOED BY PUBLISHER. This new regional anthology explores the societies and populations... more NOTE: EMBARGOED BY PUBLISHER. This new regional anthology explores the societies and populations of the Middle East and North Africa. Presenting original chapters written by the world’s leading Middle East scholars, it analyzes the social fabric of the region’s varied countries to uncover the organizing structures, human vulnerabilities, and dynamic forces that shape everyday lives. It provides the historical and cultural context necessary for understanding the peoples inhabiting Arab world, Israel, Turkey, and Iran since the early twentieth century. Linking past to present to future, it also ascertains the ongoing developmental trajectories of these societies, including their overall stability and prosperity. The chapters are clearly structured, and contain insightful case studies, illustrative photographs, and visualized data. They also end with discussion questions and annotated bibliographies to help spark further research. It is an invaluable companion for students of Middle Eastern politics, as well as sociology, history, economics and anthropology.

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Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa: Development, Democracy, and Dictatorship (9th edition)

Routledge, 2019

NOTE: EMBARGOED BY PUBLISHER. The latest edition of this renowned textbook explores the states a... more NOTE: EMBARGOED BY PUBLISHER. The latest edition of this renowned textbook explores the states and regimes of the Middle East and North Africa. Presenting heavily revised, fully updated chapters contributed by the world’s leading experts, it analyzes the historical trajectory, political institutions, economic development, and foreign policies of the region’s nearly two dozen countries. The volume can be used in conjunction with its sister volume, The Societies of the Middle East and North Africa, for a comprehensive overview of the region. The chapters are organized and structured identically, giving insightful windows into the nuances of each country’s domestic politics and foreign relations. Data tables and extensive annotated bibliographies orient readers towards further research. In sum, the book provides the most comprehensive and detailed overview of the region’s varied politics available for prospective readers, travelers, journalists, scholars, and policymakers who need usable knowledge about the MENA region.

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