Much has been written recently about Middle Eastern politics. Yet, surprisingly, the international politics of the Middle East has not been closely examined. The International Politics of the Middle East aims to rectify this by familiarizing those working in Middle East politics with the International Relations (IR) perspective, and vice versa. The book is provocative, yet suggestive. It reveals where mainstream IR theories both fail and succeed to illuminate practices, and suggests pragmatic approaches to action and inquiry in the Middle East. Hinnebusch's work is a theoretical attempt to make sense of states’ behaviors in the Middle East and, at the same time, seeks to illuminate internal dynamics of the region. His “complex realism” (1) employs a fair amount of significant historical work intended to provoke a change in discourses and practices current in Middle Eastern studies, while also providing some creative theoretical work that might be of interest to disciplinary scholars.

The book's ten chapters discuss the historical and conceptual connections between international politics and the Middle East through the lens of IR theories. Hinnebusch categorizes his research into three problematics (22). He argues that the first problematic – the emergence of the Middle East as a unique regional system – is a result of core-periphery relations, and the conflict between identity and sovereignty. Chapters Two and Three deal directly with this problematic. The second problematic addresses the various determinants of Middle Eastern states’ international behavior. Hinnebusch sees state formation, in Chapter Four, and states’ foreign policy processes, in Chapter Five, as two important elements of state behaviors in the region. In Chapter Six, using historical sociology as a theoretical base, Hinnebusch analyzes variations in foreign policy decisions across states. Hinnebusch's third problematic seeks to identify the patterns of state behaviors that lead to war or to stability. Chapters Seven and Eight explore past conflicts in the region, whereas the Arab uprisings and their consequences for the state and the state system are the central issues in Chapter Nine.

In each problematic, Hinnebusch pays attention to the schools of thought that potentially exert the most influence on efforts to analyze Middle Eastern political dynamics. He argues that although hardnosed realism has explanatory power in Middle East studies, several realist assumptions fail to explain the three key problematics of the book (2). For example, for the first problematic he uses structuralism and constructivism to understand the place of the Middle East and North Africa in the global pecking order of state relations and to illuminate why identity matters in the region. For Hinnebusch, a key deficiency of the realist school in explaining states’ behavior is that it neglects state formation. Thus, he aims to examine state formation with the help of foreign policy analysis and historical sociology. For the last problematic, Hinnebusch gives more credit to variant forms of realist IR theories, as well as hegemonic stability theory, than to any other IR theory.

Hinnebusch refers to many different IR theories in his book. However, to establish an eclectic theoretical approach, there should be solid foundations. In The International Politics of the Middle East Hinnebusch points to two such foundations. The first is that in a cohesive Westphalian system each sovereign entity will pursue its own national interest, and any conflict is the byproduct of the state system's anarchy (5). The second foundation is that states’ international behavior is determined by both the inter-state system and integral micro structures, like the identity-sovereignty dynamic in a largely unchanging international system (7). Though the realist school may have proposed answers to much-debated regional problems, Hinnebusch's aim is neither to repeat those debates nor to answer them. His goal is to mark the distance between a notion of conflict that is characterized as inevitable and another that foregrounds the complexity behind conflicts and what he argues are the unique characteristics of inter- and intra-state dynamics in the region. Indeed, Hinnebusch not only makes an important contribution regarding the shortcomings of IR theories in explaining regional politics but also suggests both the politics of the Middle East and IR theories’ account of the subject are integrally related to the Middle East's historical development, its social structures, and its complex state formations. Whereas some, like Adam Hanieh, who explains capitalist development in Gulf States with a Marxist framework (Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), might dismiss a complex realist approach, the foray Hinnebusch makes into the topic of the international politics of the Middle East opens new horizons for IR theories.

Hinnebusch's multivariate framework (293) brings a well-developed, richly layered exposition of the international politics of the Middle East into the field. In a sense, this is precisely the core of his argument: that is, international politics is more important than regional struggles in understanding the Middle East. At the same time, it is worth noting some of the book's limitations, both intentional and otherwise. The consideration of only big-name IR theories sometimes diminishes the persuasiveness of the arguments. Literature on IR theories has expanded toward non-mainstream conceptions and methodologies, and, except for a few mentions of neo-Gramscianism, this book does not refer to them. Nonetheless, The International Politics of the Middle East seems well-suited to the historical moment and the state of the field. It serves as a bridge between regional specialists and political analysis and establishes the foundations for wider debate as the fields of international politics and Middle Eastern studies evolve. As noted in the conclusion, Hinnebusch seeks to broaden the discussion and introduce scholars to theoretical frameworks outside their regular remit rather than to provide a final and definitive study. Accordingly, creating an eclectic theoretical framework is appropriate. While the book is limited by its reliance on mainstream IR theories, as a whole, it represents an impressive effort and succeeds in opening up new frontiers of theoretical cross-disciplinary exchange. Among its many potential audiences in the field of Middle East studies, this book is well suited for undergraduate students, who will likely find it provocative, persuasive, and difficult to put down.