Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online Volume 1, Issue 1 | Page 65

2/2/2016

Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online

lens of state ownership and rightly point out that outside social media platforms, much of the electronic media follows the dictates of state owners.
At the same time, they admit that where the media is concerned, “[n]othing compares to Al Jazeera’s coverage of the popular uprisings that swept
across the Arab world in 2011” (p. 238). Finally, they deal with the persistence of external attention to the region which allows many regimes to
stay in power without needing to pursue serious efforts at reform. They conclude that a troika of external alliances, rents, and coercive apparatus is
essential to resisting democratic change in these states: “where one or more have been wanting, they have faced challenges” (p. 278).
This book is a timely summary of the fount of wisdom coming out of studies of Middle East politics in the run-up to the Arab Spring. It does
particularly well at updating the reader on the state of knowledge in the discipline of Middle East politics. Indeed, it would thus serve as an
excellent summary for graduate students preparing for comprehensive exams. As an assessment of the roots of the Arab Spring, it does not do quite
as well. There are times when the work reads like an extended literature review rather than a causal contribution to our understanding of the Arab
Spring. Indeed, in some chapters the Arab Spring is something of an afterthought. As a result, the promise of the title, going beyond the Arab
Spring, is not entirely fulfilled, paralleling the expectations of many reform-minded Arabs.
The authors are particularl