This concise and important book deals with the dimensional change in international
conflicts and security pertaining to the power of ideas: Do ideas and/
or political ideologies threaten the security of regimes and states in ways that
differ from those conventionally attributed to the mere balance of military
power? By studying the role of religious or transnational ideology in the Middle
East in particular, the study aims to advance an understanding of “how,
why, and when ideology affects threat perception and state policy” (p. vii) via
two aspects, one related to ideational threat perception and the other to
ideational balancing.
American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences