MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

In the closing decades of the twentieth century, successive crises and cataclysmic events in the Middle East, though obviously not unique to this region, have been widely publicized by the American mass media. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the subsequent oil crisis, the civil war in Lebanon, the Iranian revolution of 1978–1979 and the ensuing hostage crisis, the Iraq-Iran War of 1980–1988, the Intifadah in the West Bank and Gaza, the Gulf War, the continued bombing of Iraq, the Oslo Agreement between Palestinians and Israelis, and the World Trade Center bombing have increased Americans' awareness of the Middle East but not necessarily their understanding of its culture and society. Unfortunately, the ways in which the media describe and interpret these events have created negative stereotypes about this region which are reinforced by movies such as The Siege. On the other hand, extensive research by anthropologists, historians, and political scientists has provided many insights into Middle Eastern societies and cultures that help counteract these stereotypes. What has been the contribution of sociologists?

More than twenty years ago, a review of a few sociological journals led me to conclude that "with the possible exception of demographers, the scholarly output of American sociologists on the Middle East is still very modest" (Sabagh 1976, p. 523). For the period 1963–1973, of the twelve articles on the Middle East published in the American Sociological Review and the American Journal of Sociology, eight were on Israel, three on Egypt, and one on Turkey. For the same period Sociology and Social Research had even fewer articles on the Middle East, but they were more evenly distributed (two on Israel, two on Turkey, two on Iraq, and one on Israel and Jordan).

One interpretation of this situation, which is still valid today, is that "as long as the research findings tend to be area-oriented rather than hypothesis-oriented they are not likely to be published in American sociological journals" (Sabagh 1976, p. 523). Is the state of Middle Eastern studies in sociology today any better than in the early 1970s? The objective of this review is to assess the changes that have occurred since the mid-1970s, more particularly in the 1980s and the 1990s. Four topics will be considered: (1) an overview of the salient socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of Middle Eastern countries and their implications for sociological analysis, (2) trends and distributions in the number of sociologists in the United States specializing in the Middle East, (3) a brief review of the main substantive or methodological concerns of these sociologists, and (4) some of their theoretical contributions studies to American sociology. Contributions to the sociological study of Islam will not be reviewed here since they are extensively discussed in the article "Sociology of Islam."

SOCIOECONOMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MIDDLE EAST

The Middle East includes Iran, Israel, Turkey, and the Arab countries of North Africa and southwest Asia. As shown in Table 1, countries in this vast region vary greatly, not only in population but also in levels of income, education, urbanization, and stages of demographic transition. The most telling differences are those between rich and poor countries, unmatched by the experience of any other Third World region. The range in gross national product (GNP) per capita in 1997 was from $169 for Somalia to $17,360 for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to $22,110 for Kuwait, which approaches the figure for the United States. This gap was even greater before the decline in oil prices in the mid-1980s. The least-populated countries (Kuwait, UAE, and Qatar) have the highest incomes, exceeding $10,000, and two of the most populous countries (Egypt and Iran) have lower incomes, in the range $1,000–$2,000 This income differential is in part responsible for a massive labor migration from the poor Arab countries, particularly Egypt and Yemen, to the rich Arab countries (Amin and Awny 1985; Owen 1989). One measure of the importance of this migration is provided by the figures on the share of workers' remittances in the GNP of labor-exporting countries. In 1992, net workers' remittances constituted 19.5 and 16.5 percent of the GNP of Jordan and Egypt, respectively. Estimates of the size of the Arab labor migration streams vary widely (Amin and Awny 1985; Ibrahim 1982), but it increased rapidly in the 1970s and was substantial in 1980. For Egypt alone, one estimate places the number of workers abroad at over one million in 1980, compared with around 400,000 in 1975 (Amin and Awny 1985; Fergany 1987). There was also a considerable migration from the poor countries of southern Asia and eastern Asia to Gulf countries, with an estimated 700,000 contract workers migrating in 1987 (Stahl and Asam 1990). Prior to the Iraq-Kuwait War in 1990, there were an estimated 2.6 millions migrants in these two countries, but at least 1 million of them left within two months after the outbreak of this war (United Nations, 1996, p. 209). In addition, there was a massive exodus of Yemenis from Saudi Arabia, leading to a sharp drop of net worker remittances for Yemen within a fairly short period. There is no doubt that this massive exodus of labor migrants from Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia created new economic problems for Arab labor-exporting countries.

The characteristics and implications of the massive labor migration of Middle Easterners and Asians to the rich Arab oil-producing countries have been analyzed by a few American demographers and sociologists (Arnold and Shah 1984; Sabagh 1993; Sell 1988). These and other studies (Amin and Awny 1985; Fergany 1987) have contributed to the analysis of (1) the process of migrant settlement in countries with stringent legislation against settlement, (2) the impact of this migration on social mobility, and (3) the consequences of labor migration on countries of origin.

While a few North Africans and Turks emigrated to the Gulf, most were attracted by expanding economic opportunities in the European community. In 1996, there was an estimated 2.6 million Turks, 1.1 million Moroccans, and about 1 million Algerians and Tunisians in Europe (OECD 1998, p. 34). Most of the Turks were in Germany, and most of the Algerians and Tunisians and half of the Moroccans resided in France.

Migration streams from the Middle East to the United States go back to the 1980s, but political

upheavals such as the Iranian revolution, the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, and the Lebanese civil war as well as changes in American immigration legislation in the 1960s have led to substantial and more recent immigration to the United States. Thus, of the 1.3 million persons of Middle Eastern origin (including those of Arab, Armenian, Assyrian, Iranians, Israelis, and Turkish origins) in the United States in 1990, half were immigrants and 325,000 were very "new" immigrants who had arrived between 1990 and 1990. (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1993). As indicated by Bozorgmehr (1998, p. 5) "The Iranian revolution and its aftermath have contributed to the growth of the Iranian diaspora worldwide," so that by 1990 the United States had 285,000 Iranians "defined as persons born in Iran or Iranian ancestry." This represents a substantial growth from "small beginning of perhaps no more than 15,000 individuals in 1965" (Bozorgmehr and Sabagh 1988, p. 32).

In almost all Middle Eastern countries, rates of population growth of urban areas are higher, and in some cases much higher, than total population growth. This means that rural-urban migration constitutes an important feature of both rich and poor Middle Eastern societies. This rural exodus is most marked in some of the poorest countries but tends to be lower in poor countries with substantial international labor migration. Differences in secondary school enrollment levels are as wide as income differences. Enrollment ratios in secondary schools in 1996 varied between a minimum of 6 for males and 4 for females in Somalia to a maximum 91 for males and 98 for females in Bahrain, almost equal to the United States (Table 1). While Bahraini's high enrollment ratios could be partly attributed to its relatively high income, wealth is no guarantee of higher education. For Kuwait, which has the highest income level, male secondary enrollment is noticeably lower (65) than it is for Egypt (80) and the Islamic Republic of Iran (79), which have much lower income. The ratios for females are about the same for these three countries, but the female-male gap is greater in Egypt and Iran. It should be noted that in 15 of the 25 Middle Eastern countries in Table 1, the female-male gap in secondary enrollment ratios is10 percent or less. In Bahrain and Lebanon, females have a higher secondary school enrollment. These findings suggest gender equalization in education. Nevertheless, in some countries, notably Somalia, Yemen, and, surprisingly, Turkey, the gender gap is substantial. Since educational opportunities are fewer in rural areas, particularly for women, this gap could partly reflect the greater importance of these areas. Even in Middle Eastern countries where the educational gender gap is almost nil, women are still much less likely to have gainful employment outside the home than men. Nationwide data on women's employment, however, have to be interpreted carefully, since they include rural areas and also reflect different definitions of employment. Women in Israel, Turkey, and Morocco are the most likely to be employed, but even in these countries the ratio of women's to men's employment is in the range 50–60 percent (Table 1). The ratios between 40 percent and 50 percent in Kuwait, Tunisia, and Mauritania and between 30 percent and 40 percent in seven other Middle Eastern countries. By contrast, with the noticeable exception of Kuwait, in the rich Arab oil-exporting countries with little or no gender inequality in access to education, the ratio is much lower and is mainly around 15 percent. Increasing gender equality in education combined with continued gender inequality in employment in the Middle East have many consequences for women's roles and have been the subject of many analyses (Hatem 1994; Moghadam 1995; Obermeyer 1996). These analyses reveal the complex ways in which family structure, religious tradition, economic development, and state policies affect the education and employment of women.

It should be noted that even in countries with high labor-force participation by women, there is a glaring gender gap in earned income. Thus, in the United States, while there are 82 gainfully employed women for every 100 gainfully employed men, these women receive only 40 percent of men's earnings. The comparable figures are 50 women and 22 percent for Israel, 57 women and 35 percent for Turkey, and 53 women and 28 percent for Morocco. Surprisingly, this lag in working women's income is less marked in some Middle Eastern countries than in the United States (for sources, see Table 1).

During the last twenty years, fertility and mortality trend in the Middle East indicate that parts of in this region have experienced a rapid demographic transition. In 1980, all countries in this region, except Israel, Lebanon, and Turkey, had total fertility rates (TFR) of 5 or more children per women, often reaching a level above 6 children. Mortality had already declined but was still relatively high. By the end of the twentieth century, life expectancy for males had increased to about 63 years at birth and, even higher, to 74–75 years in Kuwait, Israel, and the UAE, equal to that of the United States (Table 1). There was a similar trend among females, most of whom outlive men by as much as 6 years. In nine Middle Eastern countries there was a marked decline in TFR to fewer than 3.5 children per woman, reaching as low as 2.5–2.7 in Israel, Lebanon, and Turkey in 1997 (Table 1). This is only slightly higher than the TFR for the United States. Clearly some Middle Eastern countries are rapidly undergoing a demographic transition to noticeably lower fertility and mortality, but in some other countries, even though mortality is low, fertility remains high. This is a challenge to the demographic transition theory and has been extensively analyzed by demographers and sociologists (Obermeyer 1992 and 1995).

Clearly, the Middle East is a region worthy of consideration in any analysis of the social and demographic impact of economic modernization and rising levels of income. The sudden increase in the wealth of some Arab countries is part of what Ibrahim (1982) has called the "new Arab social order," which involves the appearance of new social forces, new values, and new behavior patterns. This has resulted in a great deal of social chaos and the emergence of new social problems. Partly as a result of this social chaos, there have been significant political and social movements and revolutions that need to be analyzed from a comparative sociological perspective.

By making systematic and comparative analyses of various features of Middle Eastern societies, American sociologists could provide a foundation for a better understanding of these societies. This assumes, however, that these sociologists have incorporated the history and experience of Middle Eastern countries into their substantive concerns and theoretical models. The sections that follow will review the trends in the number of sociologists of the Middle East and in the United States, and the substantive focus of their work.

NUMBER OF SOCIOLOGISTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST IN IHE UNITED STATES

It is significant that an American sociologist, Monroe Berger of Princeton University, was active in the formation of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) in 1964 and was elected its first president. Nevertheless, in the mid-1970s there were only nine sociologists teaching courses on the sociology of the Middle East in American departments of sociology (Sabagh 1976, p. 524). While growth was slow, the 1980s and 1990s were marked by a noticeable increase in sociologists teaching or doing research on the Middle East. Sociologist members of MESA, including students, increased from 12 in 1968 to 25 in 1972, 37 in 1984, 52 in 1986, 90 in 1990, and 121 in 1998 (Sabagh 1976; Bonine 1986; MESA 1998; and special tabulation by MESA). Not all these sociologists, however, resided in the United States. In 1986 only 3 percent of MESA members were sociologists, compared to 32 percent who were historians and 21 percent who were political scientists (Bonine 1986, p. 159). In the mid-1980s Bonine could still state that "compared to Latin America, for instance, there are few sociologists and demographers specializing on the Middle East" (1986, p. 160).

While an increasing number of Middle Easterners have come to the United States to obtain Ph.D.'s in sociology, most of them have gone back home; but, as a result of the Iranian revolution and its negative effect on the teaching of Western-type sociology in Iran, many Iranians who obtained Ph.D.'s in sociology have remained in the United States as intellectual exiles. The Iranian revolution also provided a real impetus for Iranian students to major in sociology so as to gain a better understanding of the revolution.

Dr. Anne Betteridge, executive secretary of MESA, and Nancy B. Dishaw, also of MESA, kindly provided a special tabulation of the countries of birth of 1998 MESA members who indicated sociology as their discipline. There were 62 members who were residents of the United States or Canada with Ph.D.'s in sociology, of whom 44 had received their degrees since 1980, indicating a noticeable increase in the number of sociologists actively interested in Middle East studies. Most of this increase, however, may be attributed to sociologists born in the Middle East, whose numbers more than doubled, from 10 to 25. A comparison of the later and earlier Ph.D. cohorts shows that the number of sociologists born in Iran quadrupled from 3 to 12, the number of those born in Turkey increased from 0 to 7, and the number born in the United States increased more slowly from 8 to 15. By contrast, the number of sociologists born in an Arab country decreased from 7 to 6. The creation of the Association of American University Graduates in 1967 may be partly responsible for this decline.

About half of the 62 sociologists who are members of MESA and who reside in the United States or Canada are in graduate departments of sociology. By contrast, nearly all the 24 sociology student MESA members are in graduate departments of sociology. Not all sociologists with a research or teaching interest in the Middle East are members of MESA. A search of the Guide to Graduate Departments of Sociology of the American Sociological Association (ASA) (1999) shows that there were at least 12 who were not members of MESA.

SUBSTANTIVE FOCUS OF SOCIOLOGISTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST

It is safe to assume that sociologists who belong to MESA will focus some of their research and theoretical interest on the Middle East. The directory of ASA members (ASA 1990) provides information on fields of specialization. Unfortunately, there are no tabulations available that would allow comparisons with all sociologists or sociologists who have an interest in other world areas. There were 26 nonstudent and 9 student members of ASA in 1989 who were also members of MESA. Of the 26 nonstudent members, 15 were in graduate departments of sociology. Members were asked to check four substantive or methodological areas of sociology in order of priority, of which the first and second are below.

The three most important areas of specialization are (1) development and social change, (2) comparative sociology/macro, and (3) political sociology. Next in importance are (1) demography, (2) race/ethnic/minority, (3) sociology of sex roles, and (4) social movements. Unfortunately, no questions were asked about the extent to which sociologists focused on a given region, country, society, or community. For this, it would be necessary to analyze the publications and papers of the 35 scholars who were members of both the ASA and MESA. A survey was made of publications and papers by these scholars that were cited in Sociological Abstracts for the period 1985–1990. The three most frequent substantive or theoretical topics were (1) the Iranian revolution, (2) historicalsociological analyses of Turkey and Iran, with an emphasis on dependency or world system approaches, and (3) Iranian immigrants in the United States. Other topics included (1) Egyptian international migration, (2) social distance in Egypt, (3) child nutrition, (4) a review of Arab sociology, and (5) the Intifadah. It is likely, however, that there are many more contributions to Middle Eastern studies by sociologists who are not members of MESA. The task of assessing this literature is clearly beyond the scope of this article. One way to obtain this information is through a survey of these sociologists. In 1983–1984 such a survey was carried out for Arab sociologists or sociologists studying the Arab world (Sabagh and Ghazalla 1986). Ten of the sociologists residing in the United States considered social change and development and the role of Islam to have the highest priority for research on the Arab world.

One issue that needs to be considered is the extent to which sociological research on the Middle East is cited in major American sociological journals. An analysis was made of articles on the Middle East cited in Sociological Abstracts for the years 1985–1990 and published in the general and more specialized sociological journals. Since the number of papers on Israel was substantial, they were left out of the analysis. The results of this analysis showed that the situation was even worse now than it was in the period 1963–1973 (Sabagh 1976). On the other hand, in the 1980s a substantial number of articles on the Middle East were published in the newer or more specialized sociological journals.

An analysis of Sociological Abstracts for the period 1985–1990 showed that 31 specialized journals had published 104 articles pertaining to the Middle East or to Middle Easterners. The distribution of articles by country or region (exclusive of Israel) was as follows: Iran, 31; Turkey/Ottoman Empire, 14; Arab world/Middle East, 15; Egypt, 14; other Middle Eastern countries, 19; Palestinians, 5; Arab and Iranian immigrants in the United States, 6. The large number of articles on Iran may be explained by the analyses of the Iranian revolution and by the increasing number of Iranian sociologists in the United States. One issue of State, Culture, and Society (1985) included 8 articles devoted to "The Sociological and Ideological Dimensions of the Iranian Revolution." There were four articles on the Iranian revolution (or comparing the Iranian revolution with other revolutions) in Theory and Society. Five specialized journals published 10 articles on marriage and the family and the status of women, 5 of which were on Iran. The period 1985–1990 was also characterized by a substantial number of articles on the Ottoman Empire and Turkey published in the Fernand Braudel Center's Review. The winter 1985 issue of the Review included 3 articles on "From Ottoman Empire to Modem State," and the spring 1988 issue was devoted to the "Ottoman Empire: Nineteenth-Century Transformations." These articles present critical analyses of the process of incorporation of the Ottoman Empire/Turkey into the world economy. Clearly, sociologists whose research focuses on the Middle East or Middle Easterners have a better chance of getting their articles accepted in specialized sociological journals than in the major and mainstream sociological journals.

In 1996, the editor and board of Contemporary Sociology decided to "make a greater effort to cover sociology around the world" (Clawson 1997, p. vii). As a consequence, this journal published assessments of the development of sociology in Egypt and the Arab World (Ibrahim 1997; Naim-Ahmed 1998), Turkey (Oncu 1997), Israel (Ben-Yehuda 1997), and Palestine (Hammami 1997). Earlier, in a section of Contemporary Sociology entitled "Journals in Review," Mirsepassi (1995) presented an analysis of Middle Eastern journals. This is perhaps the most promising development of the 1990s, and it is hoped that it will lead to a greater impact of Middle Eastern studies on American sociology in the twenty-first century.

Although the numbers are still small, there has been a surprising increase in articles devoted to the Middle East (excluding Israel) published in the 1990s in the three major sociological journals. From 1990 to 1997, there were 7 articles, all of them devoted to Iran or the Ottoman Empire, in the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, and Social Forces. This compares to only 1 article in the same journals in the 1980s.

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES TO SOCIOLOGY

There are two major ways in which Middle Eastern studies can contribute to sociology: (1) dramatic events in the Middle East, such as wars and revolutions, present a puzzle to sociologists studying such events, and (2) sociologists specializing in Middle Eastern studies focus on substantive issues that have consequences for sociological theory and methodology. Examples of both types of contributions will be given and discussed.

The Iranian Islamic revolution is clearly one of the most dramatic events of the last decades of the twentieth century. For Arjomand, it is a "cataclysm as significant and as unprecedented in world history as the French revolution of 1789 and the Russian revolution of 1917" (1988, p. 3). As could be expected, American sociologists of Iranian origin have contributed many important insights into the causes and consequences of this revolution, and these insights have been and will be incorporated into sociological theories about revolutions (see, e.g., Arjornand 1988; Ashraf and Banuazizi 1985; Ashraf 1988; Dabashi 1984; Moghadam 1989; Parsa 1989). For other sociologists who have studied the nature and sources of revolution, the Iranian revolution presents a real challenge. This is expressed as follows by Theda Skocpol:

The recent overthrow of the Shah, the launching of the Iranian revolution between 1977 and 1979, came as a sudden surprise to outside observers. . . . All of us have watched the unfolding of current events with fascination and, perhaps, consternation. A few of us have also been inspired to probe the Iranian sociopolitical realities behind those events . . . . Its unfolding . . . challenged expectations about revolutionary causation that I developed through comparative-historical research on the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions. (1982, p. 265)

Skocpol applied her earlier structural analysis of the causes of revolutions to the Iranian case, pointing to the involvement of urban masses in this revolution, the role of the rentier state, and the structural consequences of Shia Islam. When challenged by Nichols to the effect that she is "ready to concede the potentially revolutionary content of traditional religious teachings" (1986, p. 182). Skocpol replied that "far from offering a 'subjectivist' or 'ideational' analysis, I point out that Shi'a religion had the cultural potential to facilitate either a rebellion against or passive acquiescence to secular authority" (1986, p. 193). Arjomand criticizes Skocpol for not recognizing the normative factor of legitimacy" (1988, p. 191).

Arjomand, Ashraf, and other sociologists indicate the importance of analyzing the 1977–1979 revolution by considering its historical roots, particularly the structural, ideological, and leadership factors in previous uprisings and rebellions. Thus, for Ashraf, "The urban uprising of 1963 combined the leadership of a militant charismatic leader, the political resources of the bazaar-mosque alliance, and the sympathy of activist university students . . . a prelude to the Islamic revolution of 1977–79" (1988, p. 550). Arjomand (1988) points to the involvement of "high-ranking members" of the Shiite "clergy" or hierocracy in the constitutional revolution of 1905–1906. Arjomand (1984a, 1984b, 1988) not only traces the history of the relationship between the Shiite hierocracy, the state, and other social groups but also places his analysis of the Iranian revolution in a comparative perspective. With passage of time, on might expect a decline in the number of sociological analyses of the Iranian revolution. In fact, the opposite is true, and this revolution continues to fascinate some American sociologists challenged by its implications for theories of revolution, social protests, and social movements. There is also increasing interest in the consequences of this revolution. Kurzman (1994) uses the material about the Iranian revolution to raise some important theoretical questions about resource mobilization theory. In a later paper (1996) he also uses this revolution to challenge the theory about structural and perceived opportunities. His argument is based on a number of interviews he carried out with Iranian expatriates in Turkey. Moaddel (1992) uses the Iranian revolution to test a the role of ideology, suggesting that ideology is a language that is used to express ideas about social problems and their solution. What is probably the first quantitative analysis of events preceding the Islamic revolution was carried out by Karen Rasler, in which she tests a number of hypotheses about the effects of governmental repression and concessions on the umber of political protests from December 1, 1977, to February 14, 1979 (1996, p. 138).

Studies of other political protest movements and revolutions in Iran have been brought together in a book edited by John Foran (1994). This book includes analyses of the Tobacco Movement of 1890–1892, the constitutional revolution of 1905–1911, the nationalist movement in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan of 1941–1946, the oil nationalization movement of 1939–1953, and social conflict in the 1960s. American historians of Iran such as Nikki Keddie and Ervand Abrahamian are, of course, very familiar with these events, but the book should inform and hopefully challenge sociologists interested in social movements and revolutions. In one chapter Foran provides an analysis of the 1977–1979 revolution, showing the importance of comparing it to those that occurred in other countries. He concludes that "its deep causes are to be sought in the same processes of dependent development, state repression, political cultures of resistance, economic downturn, and world-systemic opening that underlay other successful revolution in Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua" (Foran 1994, p. 181). Foran and Goodwin (1993) and Parsa (1995a) have published studies comparing the Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions. Parsa (1995a) shows that ideological conversions and tactical considerations explain the support that entrepreneurs and workers gave to the Iranian and Nicaraguan revolution. In another paper, Parsa (1995b) presents a critical analysis of the role of the bourgeoisie in supporting the process of democratization in Iran under the shah and in the Philippines under Marcos. Moaddel (1996) analyzes the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran and Syria. Sohrabi (1995) has carried out an extensive comparative analysis of the constitutional revolutions in Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia in the early 1990s. Systematic comparisons between the Iranian and other revolutions and their outcomes are the most promising development of the 1990s.

One interesting development of the last twenty years has been the application of the world system theoretical model to the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. An early issue of the Fernand Braudel Center's Review includes three articles on the Ottoman Empire and the world economy, one of which provides a program of research delineated by Immanuel Wallerstein (1979). The objective of this program was to analyze the process of incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the world economy, the consequences of this incorporation, and the degree and nature of the peripheralization of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. This program was carried out by the Research Working Group on the Ottoman Empire and was coordinated by Caglar Keyder and Immanuel Wallerstein. The work of Kasaba (1987, 1988); Keyder and Tabak (1986); Keyder (1988); Pamuk (1988); and other sociologists, economists, and historians with a world-system perspective has documented the timing and the process of incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the world economy, the role of the Ottoman bureaucracy, and the emergence of a minority non-Muslim bourgeoisie. Kasaba (1987, p. 842) argues that "between ca. 1750 and ca. 1820 the Ottoman Empire as a whole was incorporated into the capitalist world-economy . . . [and] the history of the Ottoman Empire after the 1820's was that of its peripheralization" (Pamuk's p. ). However, analysis of various indexes of foreign trade and investment (1988) shows that until 1914 the degree of integration of the Ottoman Empire into the world economy was noticeably lower than that of Latin America or that of Algeria and Egypt. Also, within the Ottoman Empire different sectors of the economy were incorporated in different periods (Cizakca 1985).

One consequence of the process of incorporation into the world economy was the emergence of a new bourgeois class of non-Muslim merchants (Kasaba 1987; Keyder 1988). While there was a social class conflict between these merchants and the Ottoman bureaucracy, this conflict "appeared on the Ottoman agenda to be acted out as Moslem-Christian ethnic-religious conflict" (Keyder 1988, p. 162). The periphery-core status of Safavid Iran and the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century is analyzed by Foran, who concludes that these states "were far too strong to be colonized and dominated by the core, and yet too weak to compete with Europe in the new peripheries of Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa, not to mention Latin America" (1989, p. 113; italic in original). Thus, these states were neither core nor periphery.

The Fernand Braudel Center Review continues to publish studies of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey with a world-system perspective. Of particular interest to sociologists interested in the application of this model to urbanization is the special issue of the Review (fall 1993) devoted to the role of port cities in the process of incorporation of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century. Included are studies of Izmir by Kasaba, Trabzon by Turgay, and Beirut by Ozveren. Keyder's study of Istanbul in the 1940s (1993) was also published in Review, later in the same year.

One important theoretical and methodological addition to the socio-historical studies of the Ottoman Empire is the research by Karen Barkey on conflict and contention in Turkish villages in the seventeenth century (1997). Barkley statistically analyzes court records about contentions pertaining to taxes and land. She argues that "local and small, are the most basic and common form of contention, closely linked to discontent, often preceding and underlying collective form of discontent (1997, p. 1346).

Studies of Arab immigrants in the United States provide important insights into the process of ethnicity maintenance among immigrants, showing, for example, the importance of minority status in the country of origin, religion, and entrepreneurship in the United States (Abu-Laban 1989; Abraham et al. 1983; Hagopian and Paden 1969; Sawaie 1985; Sengstock 1982; Suleiman and Abu-Laban 1989; Swan and Saba 1974). Pulcini (1993) provides a detailed review of this extensive literature.

The recent immigration from Arab countries, from Israel, and particularly from Iran, documented above, has stimulated sociological studies of the adaptation patterns of these immigrants Bozorgmehr and Feldman (1996) edited Middle Eastern Diaspora Communities in America, which includes chapters on all Middle Easterners, Iranians, Israelis, and Arab Muslims. It is significant that a volume edited by Waldinger, Der-Martirosian, and Bozorgmehr, which is devoted to analyses of the social and economic trajectories of major immigrant groups in the Los Angeles metropolitan region, includes a chapter entitled "Middle Easterners: A New Kind of Immigrants" (Bozorgmehr et al. 1996). It is also notable that Iranian Studies, which publishes only articles on Iran, devoted an entire recent issue, edited by Bozorgmehr, to the "Iranian diaspora" (1998). The articles by Bozorgmehr, Ali Modarres, Hamid Naficy, Shideh Hanassab, and Ali Akbar Mahdi cover a wide range of topics, including demographic and socioeconomic trends, patterns of settlement, music videos, sexuality and dating, and ethnic identity.

The high socioeconomic status of Iranian immigrants in the United States and their ethnoreligious diversity provide a theoretical challenge for the study of the process of immigrant adaptation. Iranian immigrants include Christian Armenians and Assyrians, Baha'is, Jews, Muslims, and Zoroastrians. A challenge for the sociological analysis of immigrant adaptation is the fact that some of these groups have their non-Iranian religious counterparts in the United States. This diversity was the focus of the first extensive study of the adaptation of Iranian immigrants in Los Angeles, which has the largest concentration of Iranians in the United States (Bozorgmehr and Sabagh 1989). Bozorgmehr (1997) has developed the concept of "internal ethnicity" for the analysis of the process of adaptation of ethnically diverse immigrant groups. This concept is applicable not only to Iranians but also to many other early and recent immigrant groups. He shows that the neglect of internal ethnicity in the literature has led to the simplification of a complex process of immigrant adaptation.

Bozorgmehr's recent comprehensive review of the studies of first- and second-generation Iranians (1998) shows the wide range of topics covered by this literature, including comparisons between immigrants and exiles, ethnicity and ethnic identity, professionals and entrepreneurs, gender, and assimilation. As the sons and daughters of Iranian immigrants are reaching adulthood, it is time for "research to direct its attention" to this second generation (Bozorgmehr 1998, p. 26). It is also time to compare the experiences of the Iranian second generation to the sons and daughters of other immigrants with equally high human and social capital, whether they are from the Middle East or from other regions of the world.

CONCLUSION

One unexpected consequence of the Iranian revolution has been an increase in the number of Iranian sociologists in the United States who have developed extensive and theoretically relevant analyses of this revolution—which, analyses in turn, have stimulated other sociologists to study this revolution. Studies of the Iranian revolution are now appearing in the mainstream sociological journals.

The world-system theoretical model has greatly benefited from extensive studies of the Ottoman Empire, especially by sociologists of Turkish origin. Ottoman archival documents are also being used to test other theoretical perspectives.

The rapid growth in the numbers of Middle Eastern immigrants in the United States in the last twenty-five years has led to the development of new concepts and insights that help us better understand the adaptation of high-status immigrants.

Still, there is much progress to be made. A continuing need exists for incorporating the experiences of this region into sociological models of wars and revolutions, of social and demographic change, of social movements, of gender roles, and the impact of religion on society. As suggested by Miresepassi (1995, p. 324), accomplishment of this work should also lead to the sociology of Middle Eastern studies becoming more relevant.

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