Table of Contents: Acknowledgments Introduction: The Area Studies Controversy, Mark Tessler, Jodi Nachtwey, Anne Banda 1. Politics in the Middle East: Opportunities and Limits in the Quest for Theory, Lisa Anderson 2. State-Society Relations: Algeria as a Case Study, John P. Entelis 3. Associational Life: Civil Society in Authoritarian Political Systems, Augustus Richard Norton 4. Explaining Women's Support for Political Islam: Contributions from Feminist Theory, Jodi Nachtwey and Mark Tessler 5. Influencing Public Policy: Banking and the Political Economy of Collective Action, Clement Henry 6. Toward a Theory of International Labor Migration: Evidence from Egypt, Magda Kandil 7. Religion and International Conflict: An Individual-Level Analysis, Mark Tessler and Jodi Nachtwey 8. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Lessons about Diplomatic Initiatives and Negotiations, Laura Zittrain Eisenberg 9. Middle Eastern Alliances: From Neorealism to Political Economy, Laurie Brand 10. International Relations Theory: Contributions from Research in the Middle East, Baghat Korany Contributors Index