A wide-ranging, innovative, and essential exploration of the politics of today’s Middle East.

Power, Resistance, Ideology and the State: Charles Tripp and the Comparative Politics of the Middle East seeks to present a new understanding of a region of unprecedented volatility, where postcolonial projects of state-driven development have now expired, old ruling elites have been delegitimized, and political Islam discredited. The work of Charles Tripp, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) for over three decades, has shaped a distinct approach to the study of Middle East politics with an analytical sensibility that is empirically rich, theoretically insightful, and historically sensitive. This volume brings together contributions from ten political scientists and historians from across Europe, the United States, and the Middle East, each of which takes Tripp’s work as an intellectual point of departure for studying Middle East politics. 

Against this background, the contributors explore the contemporary developments that have emerged to fill the intellectual and material shortcomings created by the systemic failures of economics and politics in the region. 

The contributions focus on four themes that are central to an understanding of Middle East politics—power, resistance, ideology, and the state—to examine political trends in cases ranging from Iran and Iraq to Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Each chapter combines extensive field research and a knowledge of regional politics with methodological and philosophical reflexivity to produce a collection of papers at the cutting edge of contemporary Middle East Studies.
 

Ali Ansari is professor of modern history with reference to Iran at the University of St Andrews. His books include Iran, Islam and Democracy: The Politics of Managing Change and The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran. Toby Dodge is professor of international relations and Kuwait Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His books include Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied and Iraq: from War to a New Authoritarianism. Daniel Neep is a non-resident fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University. He is the author of Occupying Syria under the French Mandate: Insurgency, Space, and State Formation. His research has been published in International Affairs, New Political Economy, and the Journal of Historical Sociology. He has taught Middle East politics at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Exeter.

Preface – Eberhard Kienle

1.‘Symbolic Politics and Secular Logics in the Middle East and North Africa: Charles Tripp as Social Theorist’ – Daniel Neep

2.‘States, Elites, and the Management of Change in Beirut’s Post-Civil War Reconstruction’- Hannes Baumann

3.‘Digital Entrepreneurs and State Resilience under Sanctions in Iran’ - Evaleila Pesaran

4.‘My Dream and My Country Walked Away from Each Other”: Youth, Education and Political Agency in Asad’s Syria’ - Aurora Sottimano

5.‘Performing the Jordanian State: Intervention, Aid Dependence and Eternal Reform’ - Benjamin Schuetze

6.‘Unpacking Governance in Akkar: Producing the “Weak” state in Lebanon?’ - Jamil Mouawad

7.‘Charles Tripp, Pierre Bourdieu and the Writing of a Modern History of Iraq’ - Toby Dodge

8.‘The British Empire, the Modern State and the Institutionalisation of Sectarian Difference’ - Toby Mathiesen

9.‘Myths of the Iran-Iraq War and the Development of the Praetorian State in Iran’ - Ali Ansari

10.‘The Middle East and International Relations: History Lessons Not Learned’ - Louise Fawcett

Bibliography