The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”
A seminar with Steven T. Brooke on his new book Winning Hearts and Votes: Social Services and the Islamist Political Advantage from Cornell University Press.
About the book
In non-democratic regimes around the world, non-state organizations provide millions of citizens with medical care, schooling, childrearing, and other critical social services. Why would any authoritarian countenance this type of activism? Under what conditions does the private provision of social services generate political mobilization? And in those cases, what linkage does the provision of social services forge between the provider and recipient?
Praise for Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment
"In this dazzling study of healthcare provision by a religiously conservative party in Egypt, Steven Brooke convinces us that service provision does not buy votes so much as it buys esteem. This is a model of empirical sophistication and precision and brings the Egyptian case into dialogue with broader literature on political parties and clientelism. This is comparative politics of the first rank."
- Tarek Masoud, Harvard University
"Steven Brooke’s book will sit comfortably on the shelf next to several recent classics in the political science literature by Egyptian specialists, and will be discussed alongside those by many."
- Daniel Corstange, Columbia University