The studies in this volume originated from an international conference on ‘Community, Identity and the State’ held at Tel Aviv University in 2001. The first two chapters examine whether modernisation, Westernisation and democratisation are identical, and whether democracy is connected to a certain, specific type of social structure. The third examines similarities in the political, economic and social development of ‘Second World’ and ‘Third World’ countries, while the fourth discusses the relationship between criminal and ‘normal’ structures in Russian society. Subsequent chapters focus on nationalism, using case studies from Argentina, Syria and Morocco, on the ‘Ulama and national movements in the Middle East, on Islamic nationalism in Iran and on the discourse between pan-Africanism and Islam. The final two chapters examine the effects on tribal politics of the exploitation of oil in Abu Dhabi, and the problems of the Kurds in northern Iraq.