The Middle East

This new edition of Ellen Lust′s The Middle East builds on its long-standing reputation as the most comprehensive, balanced, and nuanced introduction to the region. Lust and her outstanding contributors have fully revised the text to take into account the watershed events that have taken place in the Middle East since the 2011 uprisings. The book also adds important coverage with a new thematic chapter on religion, society, and politics in the region, which examines the role of both Islam and Judaism.

Based on reviewer feedback, other improvements to the text include:

• A reorganization of the thematic chapters in the first part of the book to better reflect how the course is taught, with chapters on Institutions and Governance and the Political Economy of Development in the Middle East preceding the chapter on Social Change in the Middle East.
• The chapter on Actors and Public Opinion now examines the role of social movements and activism in greater detail.
• All country chapters now address religion in the context of society and politics more explicitly.
• All tables, figures, boxes, and maps have been updated for the latest information.

Both students and instructors will appreciate the wealth of online ancillaries that accompany this edition:

• A downloadable, searchable chronology of major events,
• Lists of resources for further study;
• All of the maps, tables, and figures are available for download.

Ellen Lust is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Founder and Director of the Program on Governance and Local Development at the University of Gothenburg. She received her M.A. in Modern Middle East and North African Studies (1993) and PhD in Political Science (1997) from the University of Michigan. She has conducted research and engaged in policy dialogue across the Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Malawi, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Tunisia, as well as in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has served as an advisor and consultant to such organizations as the UNDP, UN Democracy Fund, The World Bank, USAID, Carter Center, Freedom House, and NDI. Ellen has authored numerous books and articles, including Structuring Contestation in the Arab World (Cambridge University Press, 2005); Political Participation in the Middle East and North Africa (Lynne Rienner Press, 2008), co-edited with Saloua Zerhouni; Taking to the Streets: Activism and the Arab Uprisings (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), co-edited with Lina Khatib and Trust, Voice and Incentives: Learning from Local Successes in Service Delivery in the Middle East and North Africa (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015) in collaboration with Hana Brixi and Michael Woolcock. Her research has been supported by foundations such as the Moulay Hicham Foundation, National Science Foundation, Social Science Research Council, FORMAS and the Swedish Research Council. (See gld.gu.se for further information.)