December 5–6, 2019

This conference is closed to the public.

Studies of Muslim societies have largely been absent from broader debates in the social sciences, although in recent years this has been changing. The primary aim of the volume is to take advantage of the opportunity made possible by real-world events and newly available data over roughly the past decade—as well as emerging research—to more fully integrate the study of politics in Muslim societies into mainstream comparative analytical frameworks, while recognizing the important role of Islam as both a religion and set of institutions. More specifically, we seek to explore the extent to which theories about core topics of inquiry in political science apply to Muslim societies and what the study of these societies contributes to broader social science debates. Our focus interrogates rather than presumes whether and how Islam and Muslims are distinct from other religions and religious communities. To the extent that there are important differences, we will also investigate whether and how these differences matter in terms of their influence on individual attitudes and behavior, regime change, social and political mobilization, economic development, and governance. Despite the growth of research that integrates work on the Muslim world into mainstream social science, there is no single volume that brings together the many contributions from the various subfields and multiple areas of study in this vein.