This book explores the political trajectories of various countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, tracing the shifts in party systems and regime transitions along a model‐like trajectory that spans from revolutionism to authoritarianism and electoral Islamism. Adopting a comparative perspective, this book places patterns of party formation and developments in authoritarian and semi‐authoritarian systems within a historical and regional context. It argues that during distinct periods, such as the prevalence of nationalism in the 1920s pre‐independence era, the flourishing of pan‐Arabism in the 1950s, and the rise of Islamism in the 1970s, ideologies have played a pivotal role in shaping the political landscape. While secular nationalism initially wielded a significant influence on political, social, and cultural change in the MENA region, the author argues that political Islam emerged as its primary rival. Even as secular leaders in MENA guided their republics through top‐down reforms to establish a unified national ideology, many (though not all) eventually incorporated Islam to address popular demands. This book’s key contribution lies in conceptualizing Islamism as a form of dialectical ideology. This book offers an in‐depth analysis of politics, party systems, and regime transitions in the MENA region. It is poised to resonate with students and researchers in political science, history, and Middle East studies.

Mobilizing Islam explores how and why Islamic groups succeeded in galvanizing educated youth into politics under the shadow of Egypt's authoritarian state, offering important and surprising answers to a series of pressing questions. Under what conditions does mobilization by opposition groups become possible in authoritarian settings? Why did Islamist groups have more success attracting recruits and overcoming governmental restraints than their secular rivals? And finally, how can Islamist mobilization contribute to broader and more enduring forms of political change throughout the Muslim world? Moving beyond the simplistic accounts of "Islamic fundamentalism" offered by much of the Western media, Mobilizing Islam offers a balanced and persuasive explanation of the Islamic movement's dramatic growth in the world's largest Arab state.

Analyzes Muslim countries' contemporary problems, particularly violence, authoritarianism, and underdevelopment, comparing their historical levels of development with Western Europe.

Why does Islam seem to dominate Egyptian politics, especially when the country's endemic poverty and deep economic inequality would seem to render it promising terrain for a politics of radical redistribution rather than one of religious conservativism? This book argues that the answer lies not in the political unsophistication of voters, the subordination of economic interests to spiritual ones, or the ineptitude of secular and leftist politicians, but in organizational and social factors that shape the opportunities of parties in authoritarian and democratizing systems to reach potential voters. Tracing the performance of Islamists and their rivals in Egyptian elections over the course of almost forty years, this book not only explains why Islamists win elections, but illuminates the possibilities for the emergence in Egypt of the kind of political pluralism that is at the heart of what we expect from democracy.

In the face of Islam's own internal struggles, it is not easy to see who we should support and how. This report provides detailed descriptions of subgroups, their stands on various issues, and what those stands may mean for the West. Since the outcomes can matter greatly to international community, that community might wish to influence them by providing support to appropriate actors. The author recommends a mixed approach of providing specific types of support to those who can influence the outcomes in desirable ways.

Rethinking Political Islam offers a fine-grained and definitive overview of the changing world of political Islam in the post-Arab Uprising era.

This book concentrates on the formative period of the Gaza Strip and the bordering Israeli Gaza Frontier Area, considering them as a distinct geographic region that might best be understood as an integral unit of analysis. Based on abundant Israeli, British and American documentation, articles from the contemporary Arab press and other sources that reflect Arab perspectives, the book deals with the formation of the Gaza Strip between the initial drawing of the boundaries of the 1947 UN partition plan until the Israeli withdrawal from the area in March 1957, following the 1956 War. It also concentrates on the development of the Israeli urban and rural settlement systems that enveloped the Gaza Strip and formed the Gaza Frontier Area. Ultimately, the book provides a wider understanding of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, shedding light on political, military and demographic-spatial plans to solve the Gaza Strip abnormality that involved radical measures such as mass population transfers. The innovative historical-geographical approach of the research offers key insights into the politics of the region, and the book will be of particular interest to anyone studying the history and development of the Arab-Israeli conflict.