Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions, Ellen Lust-Okar, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 279.

For a very long time, the scholarship on Middle Eastern politics has suffered from scarce use of the analytical tools provided by the field of comparative politics. The result has too often been descriptive research in the anthropological style. Such studies lacked the rigour necessary for providing cumulative knowledge and theoretical insight. In recent years, however, an increasing number of scholars have been recognizing the value of complementing their in-depth knowledge of the region with appropriate social science theories. New theoretically oriented scholarship—produced by Mark Tessler (Area Study and Social Science, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), Carrie Wickham Rosefsky (Mobilizing Islam, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), Quintan Wikorowitcz (Islamic Activism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), Eva Bellin (Stalled Democracy, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), Lisa Anderson (Transition to Democracy, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), and a few others—filled such a need that, as a result of their publication, knowledge of Middle Eastern politics has taken a great leap forward since the early 2000s.