The study of Middle East politics, 1946-1996: A stocktaking

This essay postulates that political scientists in the United States have made little progress in the past 50 yeats in understanding and explaining Middle East political systems. Hampered by the complexity of the subject matter, limited interdisciplinary collaboration, inadequate research skills, counterproductive intellectual rivalry, the small number of outstanding senior scholars, the tendency for single country expertise, and the stifling proliferation of instant experts, US political scientists have largely failed to grasp the complexities of Middle East politics. Despite this undistinguished record, the future seems brighter, partly because of the increasing recognition of the problems of the past.