No region in the world has been more hostile to democracy, more dominated by military and security institutions, or weaker on economic development and inclusive governance than the Middle East. Why have Arab states been so oppressively strong in some areas but so devastatingly weak in others? How do those patterns affect politics, economics, and society across the region? The state stands at the center of the analysis of politics in the Middle East, but has rarely been the primary focus of systematic theoretical analysis. Making Sense of the Arab State brings together top scholars from diverse theoretical orientations to address some of the most critically important questions facing the region today. The authors grapple with enduring questions such as the uneven development of state capacity, the failures of developmentalism and governance, the centrality of regime security and survival concerns, the excesses of surveillance and control, and the increasing personalization of power. Making Sense of the Arab State will be a must-read for scholars of the Middle East and of comparative politics more broadly.

Much more is known about the past that is interesting, valuable and and relevant to our problems than any one of us can ever know. Making Sense of History proposes we focus on Five Zones of Priority: Livelihoods, Protection from violence, Freedom, Relationships, and Ideas. Partington examines some perennial problems, such as Progress or Regression, Bias, Prejudice and Moral Judgment, Depth versus Breadth and the ongoing fabrication of myths, and accusations of genocide and cannibalism. Partington warns against looking to history for the certainties that physics or mathematics provide. We have free will and make decisions rather than react uniformly to external forces. Historical understanding is more like proverbial wisdom writ large than the theorems of Pythagoras or Einstein. A more serious problem is the ideological capture of much history teaching in countries like Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Partington does not advocate vainglorious national pride but defends the achievement of those countries in making a better, though imperfect, balance between freedom and security than has been made at almost every other time or place.

"From anti-Reagan riots in West Berlin to pictures of revolutionary Nicaragua, it is often impossible to grasp social protest movements of the 1980s without referring to how they imagined "the Americas". This edited volume is aimed at historicizing the representations of the United States and of Latin America among Western European protesters around that decade. By researching dominant interpretation patterns, practices and symbols within these movements, this book offers a fresh and compelling look at protest in the second half of the 20th century."--Page 4 of cover.

Fear of death, the regeneration of life, and the choice between good and evil are universal themes for humanity. This book challenges Christian dogma surrounding these themes. It argues that the concept of ‘a fall’ is an invention based on an incorrect interpretation of what drove the behaviour of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The evidence demonstrating life after death does not necessarily depend on faith alone. We observe the afterlife within the laboratory of life that nature has provided. The proof of death and resurrection is right before our eyes – every species holds a unique blueprint enabling perpetual regeneration. ‘The seed within itself’ has always held the key to everlasting life (Genesis 1:11, 12). Most biblical scholars continue to teach that humanity is subject to intrinsic sin due to a ‘fall’. This book demonstrates that Eve’s transgression was a life-affirming choice which moved humanity from a state of innocence to acknowledge good and evil and understand the concept of choice. That most of us choose good over evil validates Eve’s original decision. We are shown how man-made laws and the earthly trappings of the established churches are constructs aimed at entrenching the authority and power of church hierarchies. These constructs have come to diminish the power of the gospel and obscure the beautiful simplicity of Jesus’ teaching that ‘Christ is within all’ whether a believer, unbeliever, agnostic, or atheist. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all (Colossians 3:11).

"Book Abstract: The sociology of the Middle East has been an expanding field of inquiry since the aftermath of WWII when phenomena as diverse as urbanization, internal and international migration, and peasant societies attracted the attention of scholars working on the region. The Middle East became central in key sociological debates on modernization theory and the critical responses. The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East connects this historical trajectory with the emergence of the sociology of Islam, inspired by Max Weber. It explores how within the global community, the Middle East has become a terrain of heightened concern within the post-Cold War context, where the promising rise of civic (and often religiously-inspired) sociopolitical movements in the 1980s and 1990s has been slowly overwhelmed by the affirmation of jihadist networks, authoritarian states, and complex supranational security apparatuses. This foundational volume starts by engaging in a critical examination of the field itself, starting with a historical sociology of the making of the idea itself of the Middle East and linking it with the legacy of colonialism and the evolving dynamics of global power. In repurposing the sociology of the Middle East within a growing interdisciplinary multifield, the Handbook develops the critical argument that the exploration of social dynamics in the Middle East cannot be disjoined from the analysis of culture and politics. By connecting the vexed state-society relations in the region with movements of transformation and the affirmation of rights and creativity in the public arenas, it provides a comprehensive perspective to investigate longstanding regional and new transregional and global dynamics and their impact on the life of people in the region. Keywords: sociology of the Middle East, sociology of Islam, Max Weber, historical sociology, Middle East and North Africa region, MENA"--

African Thought in Comparative Perspective showcases how adept Ali Mazrui, the most prolific writer on Africa today, is at using complex conceptual apparatuses to categorize and synthesize Africa’s political and social thought. This book, thus, offers an original interpretation of the knowledge that has been accumulated over the years, and which is of timeless relevance. It covers such themes as the legacy of the African liberation movements, the convergence and divergence of African, Islamic and Western thought, nationalist ideologies in Africa, the role of religion in African politics, and the impact of Ancient Greek philosophy on contemporary Africa.

The first English language political history of Kuwaiti parliament, this book provides an unprecedented holistic treatment of grassroots contemporary Kuwaiti politics in English in over two decades, incorporating the country's political dynamics into broader debates about the limits of authoritarianism and the practice of democracy in the Arab world, particularly in oil-wealthy states. Author Courtney Freer uses the lens of parliamentary elections as a means of understanding the political ideologies that have dominated in Kuwait since independence. As such, it situates the dynamics of Kuwaiti politics within broader political science debates about whether democratic institutions in "hybrid regimes" are meaningful arenas for popular contestation or only serve to enhance autocratic rule. Given the varying portrayals of Kuwait as robust authoritarianism, "upgraded" authoritarianism, or a noteworthy site of democratic participation, The Resilience of Parliamentary Politics in Kuwait: Parliament, Rentierism, and Society focuses on the ideologies that have mobilized political blocs, rather than solely focusing on the institutions of political power themselves. Freer includes extensive fieldwork and the use of Arabic and English primary sources to assess and examine the institutional setting that Kuwait presents and traces the dominant ideological strands in the country, considering the comparative mobilizational potential of ascriptive identities like tribe and sect.