Susanne Hoeber Rudolph is William Benton Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and director of the South Asia Area and Language centre. She is the coauthor of The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India (1996), In Pursuit of Lakshmi: The Political Economy of the Indian State (1987), and other books on comparative politics. James Piscatori is fellow in Islamic studies at Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and the coauthor of. Muslim Politics (1996), Islam in a World of Nation-States (1986), and numerous books on Middle Eastern politics.