This book examines transformation of political and religious spheres in Iran from the start of the Qajar period to the dramatic post-election crisis of 2009. It challenges dominant scholarly assumptions about the influence of Shi'ism in Iranian culture and the role of religious elites.

This book argues that the influence of international norms on Islamist politics goes beyond the surface of occasional and instrumental norm-conformist behavior by Islamist actors. More than that, international norms instill in the discourse and agency of Islamism the elaboration of conceptions of person and community as part of international society, instead of being its outcasts. By using the case of Lebanon's Hezbollah, the author draws the attention of the reader to how this Islamist movement has become more cognizant of the moral cogency of the norms of international society. The result...

This book offers a concise account of US "dual containment" policy towards Iran and Iraq during the 1990s, an overlooked era between the tumult of the liberation of Kuwait and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In particular, it uses a theoretical framework derived from neoclassical realism to examine the impact of domestic US politics and interest groups on policymaking, as well as perceptions of threat derived from two decades of mutual hostility between the US and Iran.

A study of US-Syria relations, this book analyzes the legacy of mistrust between the two states and continuities and discontinuities over time. It challenges the purely realist and power-political explanation that is dominant and points to a politically embedded set of ideas rooted in anti-colonial Arab nationalist ideology.

Based on newly declassified documents, this book offers a provocative new analysis of President Jimmy Carter's political role in Arab-Israeli diplomacy. It sets forth a novel analysis of the reflexive relationship between domestic politics and foreign pol

While the Arab people took center stage in the 'Arab Spring' protests, academic studies focus on state structure, regime nature, militaries, and external powers to understand popular uprisings in the Middle East. Contentious Politics in the Middle East redresses a gap in focus as it analyzes the complexities of popular agency through the framework of contentious politics theory, without neglecting the negotiations between the people and structural factors. The book's chapters apply familiar questions raised by theorists to the under-researched case study of the Middle East after the...

Offering a comprehensive, up-to-date examination of the complex web of wars and proxy wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions that are ripping the Middle East apart, From the First World War to the Arab Spring: What's Really Going On in the Middle East? puts events in their historical context and leads readers through the labyrinth that is the new Middle East. This book seeks answers to pressing, contentious questions. Why are there so many hereditary heads of state in the Middle East when the Prophet Muhammad did not appoint a successor? Why do Western countries claim to want democracy in...

Offering a comprehensive, up-to-date examination of the complex web of wars and proxy wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions that are ripping the Middle East apart, From the First World War to the Arab Spring: What's Really Going On in the Middle East? puts events in their historical context and leads readers through the labyrinth that is the new Middle East. This book seeks answers to pressing, contentious questions. Why are there so many hereditary heads of state in the Middle East when the Prophet Muhammad did not appoint a successor? Why do Western countries claim to want democracy in...

This book carries out a comparative study of the US response to popular uprisings in the Middle East as an evaluation of President Barack Obama's foreign policy commitments. In 2009, Obama publicly pledged "a new beginning in US-Muslim relations," causing eager expectation of a clear shift in US foreign policy after the election of the 44th president of the United States. However, the achievement of such a shift was made particularly difficult by the existence of multiple, and sometimes conflicting, US interests in the region which influenced the Obama administration's response to the popular...

This book explores key historical episodes to understand the reasons and consequences of the enduring partiality problem in cooperation between Turkey and Iraq.