Counting Islam

Tarek Masoud is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His writings on political Islam, Egyptian politics, and US foreign policy have appeared in the Journal of Democracy, the Washington Quarterly, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. He is the co-editor of Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics (Cambridge, 2004) and Order, Conflict, and Violence (Cambridge, 2008). He was named a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and received the 2009 Aaron Wildavsky Prize for best dissertation in religion and politics from the American Political Science Association. He is a recipient of grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation, and the Harvard Medical School, and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds a PhD from Yale University and an AH from Brown University, both in political science.

'This book provides the most compelling explanation yet for why Islamist parties have stunned autocrats and oppositionists across the Middle East. With a breathtaking set of data collected in the field, Tarek Masoud demonstrates that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood won elections through a combination of luck and political savvy, not sermons or social services … Lucidly written for scholars, students, and policy makers, Counting Islam offers unparalleled insight into the maelstrom of repression and faith engulfing the Arab Spring.' Jason Brownlee, University of Texas, Austin, and author of Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization and Democracy Prevention

• Introduction: Islam's steady march; 1. Explaining Islamist dominion; Part I. Elections under Authoritarianism: 2. Clientelism and class: the tragedy of leftist opposition in Mubarak's Egypt; 3. The Islamic machine?; 4. Winning in the 'well-run casino'; Part II. After the 'Arab Spring': 5. God, mammon, and transition; 6. Islam's organizational advantage?; 7. Conclusion; Epilogue: requiescat in pace?