Structuring Conflict in the Arab World

Ellen Lust-Okar is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale University. She received her M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan. She has studied and conducted research in Jordan, Morocco, Israel, Palestine and Syria, and her work examining the relationships between states and oppositions has appeared in Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Middle Eastern Studies and other volumes. She is currently working on a second manuscript, Linking Domestic and International Conflict: The Case of Middle East Rivalries, with Paul Huth at the University of Michigan.

• List of figures and tables; Acknowledgments; A note on the use of language; Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. The manipulation of political opposition; 2. Structures of contestation; 3. Playing by the rules: the inclusion and exclusion of political oppositions; 4. Dynamics of opposition in unified SoCs; 5. Opposition dynamics in divided SoCs; 6. Formal SoCs and informal political manipulation; Conclusion; Appendix: political forces in Egypt, Jordan and Morocco; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

'For more than a decade, observers have been puzzled by the failure of the opposition in the Arab world to take advantage of timid regime liberalizations to push harder for genuine democratic reform. Now we have the answer. In this remarkable - indeed, almost unique - marriage of thorough field research in the Arab world and rigorous formal modelling, Lust-Okar explains how regimes write rules that discourage opposition groups from mobilization, even when they have the resources to do so. This book is an all too-rare treat, a work that deploys real science to illuminate real politics.' Lisa Anderson, Columbia University