Review by Choice Review
Browers (Wake Forest Univ.), through case studies of oppositional movements in Egypt and Yemen, argues that competing ideologies of opposition in the contemporary Arab region are accommodationist. She further argues that oppositional alliances are "as much a product of, as they are a source for, shifts in ideological debates in the Arab world over the past several decades." The first three chapters demonstrate the rapprochement between Arab nationalists, socialists, and Islamists. Chapter 4 examines the Wasat Party and the Kifaya (Enough) movement in Egypt, while chapter 5 is devoted to a discussion of the intellectual and ideological shift in Yemen's opposition, the Joint Meeting Parties. The book contributes to the "inclusion-moderation" and "cooperation-moderation" debates and concentrates on shifting the focus from structural to intellectual and ideological contexts, and from parties to individuals and networks of individuals that cross or work outside party lines. In the end, "it is often exclusion from, more than inclusion in, formal politics that puts various political actors into contact and conversation with alternative views." Although limited in scope by its two case studies, the book is an excellent addition to the debate on the politics of opposition and accommodation in the Arab world. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. A. R. Abootalebi University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
