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, profess...

When Bashar al-Asad smoothly assumed power in July 2000, just seven days after the death of his father, observers were divided on what this would mean for the country’s foreign and domestic politics. On the one hand, it seemed everything would stay the same: an Asad on top of a political system controlled by secret services and Baathist one-party rule. On the other hand, it looked like everything would be different: a young president with exposure to Western education who, in his inaugural...