Steven A. Cook is a Douglas Dillon Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

• Preface1. A Logic of Regime Stability2. The Egyptian, Algerian, and Turkish Military Enclaves: The Contours of the Officers' Autonomy3. The Pouvoir Militaire and the Failure to Achieve a ''Just Mean''4. Institutionalizing a Military-Founded System5. Turkish Paradox: Islamist Political Power and the Kemalist Political Order6. Toward a Democratic Transition? Weakening the Patterns of Political Inclusion and ExclusionNotesIndex

"One of the best books of its kind that I have read in years. It is not simply about militaries, it is about how informal politics itself limits the boundaries of formal democratic institutions. Cook's command of the relevant languages and his capacity to summarize three critical Middle East cases in clear and engaging language makes this a compelling and indeed indispensable piece of work." - Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University, coeditor of Islam and Democracy in the Middle East"

Steven A. Cook is a Douglas Dillon Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

• Preface1. A Logic of Regime Stability2. The Egyptian, Algerian, and Turkish Military Enclaves: The Contours of the Officers' Autonomy3. The Pouvoir Militaire and the Failure to Achieve a ''Just Mean''4. Institutionalizing a Military-Founded System5. Turkish Paradox: Islamist Political Power and the Kemalist Political Order6. Toward a Democratic Transition? Weakening the Patterns of Political Inclusion and ExclusionNotesIndex

"One of the best books of its kind that I have read in years. It is not simply about militaries, it is about how informal politics itself limits the boundaries of formal democratic institutions. Cook's command of the relevant languages and his capacity to summarize three critical Middle East cases in clear and engaging language makes this a compelling and indeed indispensable piece of work." - Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University, coeditor of Islam and Democracy in the Middle East"

Steven A. Cook is a Douglas Dillon Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

• Preface1. A Logic of Regime Stability2. The Egyptian, Algerian, and Turkish Military Enclaves: The Contours of the Officers' Autonomy3. The Pouvoir Militaire and the Failure to Achieve a ''Just Mean''4. Institutionalizing a Military-Founded System5. Turkish Paradox: Islamist Political Power and the Kemalist Political Order6. Toward a Democratic Transition? Weakening the Patterns of Political Inclusion and ExclusionNotesIndex

"One of the best books of its kind that I have read in years. It is not simply about militaries, it is about how informal politics itself limits the boundaries of formal democratic institutions. Cook's command of the relevant languages and his capacity to summarize three critical Middle East cases in clear and engaging language makes this a compelling and indeed indispensable piece of work." - Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University, coeditor of Islam and Democracy in the Middle East"