Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T22:03:17.731Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Explaining the Unexpected: Political Science and the Surprises of 1989 and 2011

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2014

Marc Morjé Howard  and
Meir R. Walters
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Political scientists have been caught by surprise by some of the world’s most dramatic political transformations. To assess how the discipline fared in explaining two of the most large-scale and unexpected developments of the past decades, we compare scholarship around the time of popular mobilization in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the Arab world in 2011. We argue that while scholars cannot be expected to predict utterly extraordinary events such as revolutions and mass mobilization, in these two cases disciplinary trends left scholars ill-prepared to explain them. Political scientists used similar paradigms to study both regions, emphasizing their failure to develop politically and economically along the lines of Western Europe and the United States. Sovietologists tended to study the communist bloc as either anomalously totalitarian or modernizing towards “convergence” with the West. Likewise, political scientists studying the Arab world focused disproportionately on the prospects for democratization or the barriers to it, and they now risk treating the 2011 protest movements essentially as non-events if they are not clearly tied to institutional democratic reform. By broadening their research agendas beyond a focus on regime type, political scientists will be better prepared to understand future changes in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Type
Reflections Symposium
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 394 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2005. Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Aday, Sean, Farrell, Henry, Lynch, Marc, and Sides, John. 2010. Blogs and Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace.Google Scholar
Al-Malky, Rania. 2007. “Blogging for Reform: The Case of Egypt.” Arab Media and Society 1, http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=12 (accessed November 26, 2013).Google Scholar
Amalrik, Andrei. 1970. Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Anderson, Jon. 2003. “New Media, New Publics: Reconfiguring the Public Sphere of Islam.” Social Research 70(3): 888–906.Google Scholar
Anderson, Lisa. 2006. “Searching Where the Light Shines: Studying Democratization in the Middle East.” Annual Review of Political Science 9: 189–214.Google Scholar
Anderson, Lisa. 2011. “Demystifying the Arab Spring: Parsing the Differences Between Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.” Foreign Affairs 90(3): 2–7.Google Scholar
Anderson, Lisa. 2012. “Too Much Information? Political Science, the University, and the Public Sphere.” Perspectives on Politics 10(2): 385–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1968 [1951]. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt-Brace.Google Scholar
Armbrust, Walter. 1998. “Terrorism and Kabab: A Capraesque View of Modern Egypt.” In Images of Enchantment: Performance, Art, and Image of the Middle East, ed. Zuhur, Sherifa. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.Google Scholar
Armbrust, Walter. 2002. “Islamists in Egyptian Cinema.” American Anthropologist 104(3): 922–30.Google Scholar
Armbrust, Walter. 2012a. “Dreaming of Counterrevolution: Rami al-I’tisami and the Pre-Negation of Protest.” Cinema Journal 52(1): 143–48.Google Scholar
Armbrust, Walter. 2012b. “Islamically Marked Bodies and Urban Space in Two Egyptian Films.” Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief 8(3): 354–73.Google Scholar
Bayat, Asef. 2010. Life As Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Beblawi, Hazem. 1990. “The Rentier State in the Arab World.” In The Arab State, ed. Luciano, Giacomo. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Beinin, Joel. 2007. “The Militancy of Mahalla al-Kubra.” Middle East Report Online. September 29, https://www.merip.org/mero/mero092907 (accessed November 26, 2013).Google Scholar
Beinin, Joel. 2009. “Workers’ Protest in Egypt: Neo-Liberalism and Class Struggle in 21st Century.” Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest 8(4): 449-54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beinin, Joel, and El-Hamalawy, Hossam. 2007. “Strikes in Egypt Spread from Center of Gravity.” Middle East Report Online. May 9, https://www.merip.org/mero/mero050907 (accessed November 26, 2013).Google Scholar
Beinin, Joel, and Vairel, Frédéric, eds. 2011. Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Beissinger, Mark R. 2009. “How the Impossible Becomes the Inevitable: The Public Sphere and the Collapse of Communism.” November. Social Science Research Council, essay series “Transformations of the Public Sphere.” http://publicsphere.ssrc.org/beissinger-the- public-sphere-and-the-collapse-of-soviet-communism/ (accessed September 21, 2012).Google Scholar
Bellin, Eva. 2004 “The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective.” Comparative Politics 36(2): 139–57.Google Scholar
Bellin, Eva. 2012. “Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Lessons from the Arab Spring.” Comparative Politics 44(2): 127–49.Google Scholar
Bermeo, Nancy. 1991. “Introduction.” World Politics, 44(1): 1–6.Google Scholar
Bialer, Seweryn. 1988. “Gorbachev’s Program of Change: Sources, Significance, Prospects.” In Gorbachev’s Russia and American Foreign Policy, ed. Bialer, Seweryn and Mandelbaum, Michael. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Bialer, Seweryn. 1989. “The Changing Soviet Political System: The Nineteenth Party Conference and After.” In Politics, Society, and Nationality: Inside Gorbachev’s Russia, ed. Bialer, Seweryn. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Bill, James A. 1996. “The Study of Middle East Politics, 1946–1996: A Stocktaking.” Middle East Journal 50(4): 501–12.Google Scholar
Blaydes, Lisa 2010. Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blaydes, Lisa, and Lo, James. 2012. “One Man, One Vote, One Time? A Model of Democratization in the Middle East.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 24(1): 110–46.Google Scholar
Boix, Carles. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Breslauer, George. 1978. “On the Adaptability of Soviet Welfare State Authoritarianism.” In Soviet Society and the Communist Party, ed. Ryavec, Karl W.. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Brown, James F. 1991. Surge to Freedom: The End of Communist Rule in Eastern Europe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Nathan J. 2012. When Victory Is Not an Option: Islamist Movements in Arab Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Brownlee, Jason. 2007. Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brownlee, Jason. 2012. Democracy Prevention: The Politics of the U.S.-Egyptian Alliance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brownlee, Jason, and Stacher, Joshua. 2011. “Change of leader, Continuity of System: Nascent Liberalization in Post-Mubarak Egypt.” APSA Comparative Democratization Newsletter 9: 4–9.Google Scholar
Brumberg, Daniel. 2002. “The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy.” Journal of Democracy 13(4): 56–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brumberg, Daniel. 2011. “The Path to Democracy in Egypt.” The Atlantic, July 13, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/07/the-path-to-democracy-in-egypt/241712/ (accessed November 26, 2013).Google Scholar
Brynen, Rex. 2012. “Arab Uprisings and the Study of Middle East Politics: Semi-Random Observations in Search of a Witty Subtitle.” In Arab Uprisings: New Opportunities for Political Science, Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS Briefings): 11–13. http://www.ssrc.org/publications/docs/POMEPS_Conf12_Book_Web.pdf (accessed September 21, 2012).Google Scholar
Brynen, Rex, Korany, Bahgat, and Noble, Paul, eds. 1995. Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World: Theoretical Perspectives. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, ed. 1969. Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Brzezinski, Zbigniew 1989. The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar
Bunt, Gary. 2009. iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Campante, Filipe R., and Chor, Davin. 2012. “Why Was the Arab World Poised for Revolution? Schooling, Economic Opportunities, and the Arab Spring.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 26(2): 167–87.Google Scholar
Carothers, Thomas. 2002. “The End of the Transition Paradigm.” Journal of Democracy 13(1): 5–21.Google Scholar
Cohen, Stephen F. 1980a. Bukharin and the Russian Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Stephen F. 1980b. “The Friends and Foes of Change: Reformism and Conservatism in the Soviet Union.” In The Soviet Union Since Stalin, ed. Cohen, Stephen F., Rabinowitch, Alexander, and Sharlet, Robert. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Randall. 1986. Weberian Sociological Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, John L., and Comaroff, Jean. 1997. “Postcolonial Politics and Discourses of Democracy in Southern Africa: An Anthropological Reflection on African Political Modernities.” Journal of Anthropological Research 53(2): 123–46.Google Scholar
Cook, Steven A. 2007. Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Della Ratta, Donatella. 2012. “Dramas of the Authoritarian State.” Middle East Report Online. February, http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/dramas-authoritarian-state (accessed November 26, 2013).Google Scholar
Eberstedt, Nick. 1988. The Poverty of Communism. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
Eickelman, Dale. 2005. “New Media in the Arab Middle East and the Emergence of Open Societies.” In Remaking Muslim Politics, ed. Hefner, Robert. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Eickelman, Dale and Anderson, Jon W.. 2003. New Media in the Middle East: The Emerging Public Sphere, 2nd ed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
El-Mahdi, Rabab. 2009. “Enough! Egypt’s Quest for Democracy.” Comparative Political Studies 42(8): 1011–39.Google Scholar
Feshbach, Murray. 1978. “Population and Manpower Trends in the U.S.S.R.” Prepared for Conference on the Soviet Union Today, sponsored by the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, held in Washington DC, April.Google Scholar
Fish, M. Steven. 1995. Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Friedrich, Carl J., and Brzezinski, Zbigniew K.. 1956. Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gandhi, Jennifer and Lust-Okar, Ellen. 2009. ”Elections under Authoritarianism.” Annual Review of Political Science 12: 404–06.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gause, F. Gregory III. 2011a. “The Middle East Academic Community and the ‘Winter of Arab Discontent’: Why Did We Miss It?” In Seismic Shift: Understanding Change in the Middle East . Washington, DC: Stimson Center Google Scholar
Gause, F. Gregory III. 2011b. “Why Middle East Studies Missed the Arab Spring: The Myth of Authoritarian Stability.” Foreign Affairs 90(4): 81–90.Google Scholar
Gilman, Nils. 2003. Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Jeff. 2011. “Why We Were Surprised (Again) by the Arab Spring.” Swiss Political Science Review 17(4): 452–56.Google Scholar
Hafez, Kai, ed. 2008. Arab Media: Power and Weakness. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Hanson, Stephen E. 2003. “Sovietology, Post-Sovietology, and the Study of Postcommunist Democratization.” Demokratizatsiya 11(1): 142–9.Google Scholar
Hayward, Clarissa Rile. 2000. De-Facing Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hechter, Michael. 1995. “Introduction: Reflections on Historical Prophecy in the Social Sciences.” American Journal of Sociology 100(6): 1520–27.Google Scholar
Herb, Michael. 2005. “No Representation Without Taxation? Rents, Development, and Democracy.” Comparative Politics 37(3): 297–316.Google Scholar
Herb, Michael. 2009. “A Nation of Bureaucrats: Political Participation and Economic Diversification in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 41(3): 375–95.Google Scholar
Heydemann, Steven, ed. 2004. Networks of Privilege in the Middle East: The Politics of Economic Reform Revisited. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Heydemann, Steven 2007. Upgrading Authoritarianism in the Arab World, Analysis Paper no. 13. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, October, www.brookings.edu/papers/2007/10arabworld.aspx (accessed November 26, 2013).Google Scholar
Hough, Jerry F. 1972. “The Soviet System: Petrification or Pluralism?” Problems of Communism 21(2): 25–45.Google Scholar
Hough, Jerry F. 1990. Russia and the West: Gorbachev and the Politics of Reform. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Howard, Marc Morjé. 2003. The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Howard, Phillip N. 2010. The Digital Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship: Information Technology and Political Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hudson, Michael C. 1988. “Presidential Address: 1987 Democratization and the Problem of Legitimacy in Middle East Politics.” Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 22(2): 157–71.Google Scholar
Inkeles, Alex. 1968. Social Change in Soviet Russia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Isaac, Jeffrey C. 1996. “The Meanings of 1989.” Social Research 63(2): 291–344.Google Scholar
Ismail, Salwa. 2003. Rethinking Islamist Politics: Culture, the State and Islamism. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Ismail, Salwa. 2006. Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters: Encountering The Everyday State. Minneapolis, MI: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Jamal, Amaney A. 2007. Barriers to Democracy: The Other Side of Social Capital in Palestine and the Arab World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jamal, Amaney A. 2012. Of Empires and Citizens: Pro-American Democracy Or No Democracy at All? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jowitt, Ken. 1992. New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Stathis N. 1999. “The Decay and Breakdown of Communist One-Party Systems.” Annual Review of Political Science 2: 323–43.Google Scholar
Kuran, Timur. 1995. “The Inevitability of Future Revolutionary Surprises.” The American Journal of Sociology 100(6): 1528–51.Google Scholar
Kurzman, Charles. 2004a. “Can Understanding Undermine Explanation? The Confused Experience of Revolution.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34(3): 328–51.Google Scholar
Kurzman, Charles. 2004b. The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lane, David, and O’Dell, Felicity Ann. 1978. The Soviet Industrial Worker: Social Class, Education and Control. London: Martin Robertson.Google Scholar
Langohr, Vickie. 2005. “Too Much Civil Society, Too Little Politics? Egypt and Other Liberalizing Arab Regimes.” In Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance, ed., Posusney, Marsha Pripstein and Angrist, Michele Penner. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Lapidus, Gail W. 1978. Women in Soviet Society: Equality, Development, and Social Change. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lapidus, Gail W. 1989. “State and Society: Toward the Emergence of Civil Society in the Soviet Union.” In Politics, Society, and Nationality: Inside Gorbachev’s Russia, ed. Bialer, Seweryn. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Lerner, Daniel. 1958. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Lewin, Moshe. 1988. The Gorbachev Phenomenon. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lindberg, Staffan I., ed. 2009. Democratization by Elections: A New Mode of Transition. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Bence, Gyorgy. 1994. “Anticipations of the Failure of Communism.” Theory and Society 23(2): 169–210.Google Scholar
Lohmann, Susanne. 1994. “The Dynamics of Informational Cascades.” World Politics 47(1): 42–101.Google Scholar
Lust, Ellen. 2009. “Competitive Clientalism in the Middle East.” Journal of Democracy 20(3): 122–35.Google Scholar
Lust, Ellen. 2011. “Why Now? Micro Transitions and the Arab Uprisings.” APSA Comparative Democratization Newsletter 9(3).Google Scholar
Lust, Ellen. 2012. “Turning to the Local: Potential Opportunities for Research, Scholarship and Programming on Development.” In Arab Uprisings: New Opportunities for Political Science, Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS Briefings). http://www.ssrc.org/publications/docs/POMEPS_Conf12_Book_Web.pdf. Pp. 33–34 (accessed September 21, 2012).Google Scholar
Lust-Okar, Ellen. 2005. Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lust-Okar, Ellen, and Jamal, A. Ahmed. 2002. “Rulers and Rules: Reassessing the Influence of Regime Type on Electoral Law Formation.” Comparative Political Studies 35(3): 337–66.Google Scholar
Lust-Okar, Ellen, and Zerhouni, Saloua, eds. 2008. Political Participation in the Middle East. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Lynch, Marc. 2006. Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today. New York: Columbia University Press,Google Scholar
Lynch, Marc. 2007. “Blogging the New Arab Public.” Arab Media and Society 1, http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=10 (accessed November 26, 2013).Google Scholar
Lynch, Marc. 2011. “After Egypt: The Limits and Promise of Online Challenges to the Authoritarian Arab State.” Perspectives on Politics 9(2): 301–10.Google Scholar
Malia, Martin. 1993. “A Fatal Logic.” National Interest (31): 80.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 2003. “The Middle East in the Past and Future of Social Science.” Berkley, CA: Global, Area, & International Archive (GAIA Books), University of California, February. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/59n2d2n1#page-50 (accessed September 21, 2012).Google Scholar
Odom, William. 1993. “The Pluralist Mirage.” National Interest (31): 99.Google Scholar
Pachirat, Timothy. 2011. Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Parsons, Talcott. 1967. Sociological Theory and Modern Society. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Pearlman, Wendy. 2013. “Emotions and the Microfoundations of the Arab Uprisings.” Perspectives on Politics 11(2): 387–409.Google Scholar
Peters, Anne Mariel. 2012. “The Arab Spring and the Study of Middle East Politics: Big Questions, New Questions, Old Questions.” In Arab Uprisings: New Opportunities for Political Science, Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS Briefings). http://www.ssrc.org/publications/docs/POMEPS_Conf12_Book_Web.pdf. Pp. 48–50 (accessed September 21, 2012).Google Scholar
Pipes, Richard. 1993. “1917 and the Revisionists.” National Interest (31): 68.Google Scholar
Posusney, Marsha Pripstein. 1997. Labor and the State in Egypt: Workers, Unions, and Economic Restructuring. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Posusney, Marsha Pripstein. 2005. “Multiparty Elections in the Arab World: Election Rules and Opposition Responses.” In Authoritarianism in the Middle East, ed. Posusney, Marsha Pripstein and Angrist, Michele Penner. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Posusney, Marsha Pripstein, and Angrist, Michele Penner. 2005. Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1991. “The ‘East’ Becomes the ‘South’? The ‘Autumn of the People’ and the Future of Eastern Europe.” PS: Political Science and Politics 24(1): 20–24.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, Alvarez, Michael E., Cheibub, Jose Antonio, and Limongi, Fernando. 2000. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950–1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Roeder, Philip G. 1993. Red Sunset: The Failure of Soviet Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rostow, Walter W. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Salamé, Ghassan, ed. 1994. Democracy Without Democrats? The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World. London and New York: I. B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Sallam, Hesham. 2013. “The Egyptian Revolution and the Politics of Histories.” PS: Political Science & Politics 46(2): 248–58.Google Scholar
Schaffer, Frederick. 1998. Democracy in Translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Schlumberger, Olivier. 2007. Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Non-Democratic Regimes: Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Schwedler, Jillian. 2003. “More than a Mob: The Dynamics of Political Demonstrations in Jordan.” Middle East Report 226: 18–23.Google Scholar
Schwedler, Jillian. 2005. “Cop Rock: Protest, Identity, and Dancing Riot Police in Jordan.” Social Movement Studies 4(2): 155–75.Google Scholar
Schwedler, Jillian. 2006. Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schwedler, Jillian. 2012. “The Political Geography of Protest in Neoliberal Jordan.” Middle East Critique 21(3): 259–70.Google Scholar
Scott, James. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Shehata, Dina. 2010. Islamists and Secularists in Egypt: Opposition, Conflict & Cooperation. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shehata, Samer. 2008. “Inside an Egyptian Parliamentary Campaign.” In Political Participation in the Middle East, ed. Lust-Okar, Ellen and Magrawi, Saloua. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Shehata, Samer. 2009. Shop Floor Culture and Politics in Egypt. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Shehata, Samer, ed. 2012. Islamist Politics in the Middle East: Movements and Change. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Singerman, Diane. 1995. Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sowers, Jeannie, and Toensing, Chris, eds. 2012. The Journey to Tahrir: Revolution, Protest, and Social Change in Egypt. Brooklyn, NY: Verso Books.Google Scholar
Stacher, Joshua. 2012. Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Walters, Meir R. 2013. “Counterrevolution in an Egyptian Comedy.” Muftah, August 7. http://muftah.org/counterrevolution-in-an-egyptian-comedy/ (accessed November 26, 2013).Google Scholar
Waterbury, John. 1970. The Commander of The Faithful: The Moroccan Political Elite - A Study in Segmented Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Way, Lucan. 2011. “The Lessons of 1989.” Journal of Democracy 22(4): 17–27.Google Scholar
Wedeen, Lisa. 1999. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wedeen, Lisa. 2004 “Concepts and Commitments in the Study of Democracy.” In Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics, ed. Shapiro, Ian, Smith, Rogers M., and Masoud, Tarek E.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wedeen, Lisa. 2008. Peripheral Visions: Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wedeen, Lisa. 2013. “Ideology and Humor in Dark Times: Notes from Syria.” Critical Inquiry 39(4): 841–73.Google Scholar
Wheeler, Deborah. 2006. The Internet in The Middle East. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
White, Stephen. 1979. Political Culture and Soviet Politics. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky. 2002. Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky. 2013. The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Google Scholar
Wiktorowicz, Quintan. 2000. “Civil Society as Social Control: State Power in Jordan.” Comparative Politics 33(1): 43–61.Google Scholar
Wiktorowicz, Quintan, ed. 2004. Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Winegar, Jessica. 2012 “The Privilege of Revolution: Gender, Class, Space, and Affect in Egypt.” American Ethnologist 39(1): 67–70.Google Scholar
Yurchak, Alexei. 2003. “Soviet Hegemony of Form: Everything Was Forever, until It Was No More.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 45(3): 480–510.Google Scholar
Yurchak, Alexei. 2005. Everything Was Forever, until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar