This paper reports a comparative cross-national test of Durkheim's theory of egoistic suicide, involving indicators of religious, family, and political integration. Linear and nonlinear multiple regression analysis showed that the relationships between religious integration and suicide and between political integration and suicide are inverse exponential functions of the form Y = aebx, while the relationship between family integration and suicide is linear. The relationships between the independent and dependent variables are strong and highly significant. Together, our indicators of religious, family, and political integration explain about 76 percent of the variation in international rates of suicide.Durkheim's theory of suicide has seldom been subjected to rigorous empirical test, and only a few attempts have been made to test the theory with international data-most research has been based on single-nation samples such as census tracts. In addition, the recent comparative work that has been done centers primarily on Durkheim's theory of anomie and independent variables such as rate of economic growth, urbanity, and industrialization (Krohn, 1978; Stack, 1978). In contrast, recent noncomparative research on Durkheim's theory of suicide has focused on Durkheim's integration variables (Danigelis and Pope, 1979;Marshall, 1981;Stark et al., 1981). Comparative work on Durkheim's theory of suicide that employs indicators of social integration is virtually nonexistent. In the present paper we test Durkheim's theory of egoistic suicide with international rates of suicide and indicators of religious, family, and political integration for forty-two countries. TheoryDurkheim's Suicide presents a theory specifying four types of suicide according to the nature of social causes in them: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. Durkheim employed two explanatory variables, integration and regulation, such that in social circumstances in which integration is low, egoistic suicide results; when integration is high, altruistic suicide results; when regulation is low, anomic suicide results; and when regulation is high, fatalistic suicide results. We concentrate on Durkheim's theory of social integration, and in particular the theory of egoistic suicide. We ignore Durkheim's theory of regulation, and within the theory of integration, altruistic suicide. Durkheim argues that altruistic suicide obtains in primitive societies and the military. This part of his integration theory is not amenable to comparative test. In addition, we exclude the theory of regulation, 01982 by The Sociological Quarterly. All rights reserved. 0038-0253/82/1400-0321$00. 75 The authors acknowledge H. M. Blalock and Rodney Stark for helpful advice and encouragement. Thanks are also extended to Kevin Welch for computer assistance. K. D. Breault's address is Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637.

This article explores the relationship between religion and politics in the context of the recent debates on Islam and religious fundamentalism. I argue that too much attention is paid to the theological issues of Islam, and that we should rather focus on the historical conditions that tend to produce religious tolerance or intolerance. I use the Ottoman Empire as an example of a polity that succeeded in maintaining religious and ethnic toleration for the tremendous diversity it encountered within its frontiers. I analyze the specific relationship between the Ottoman state and Islam, the subordination of religion to the state, the dual role of religion as an institution and a system of beliefs as well as the intricacies of the millet system. I conclude that the particular relationship that was forged between religion and politics during the first four centuries of the empire promoted religious openness and toleration.

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Comparative work on the state, in terms of both new cases and general theoretical frameworks, has proliferated in the last decade. In this new work, traditional categories of differentiation such as structural-functionalism, Marxism, and pluralism have lost relevance and have been replaced by common conceptual strands that infuse every subfield of research on the state. In this review we select the most important conceptual strands and examine new research in state formation, the state's role in economic development, and the state's relation to social movements and ethnic identity formation. Despite the frequent criticism that the state is the only explanatory variable in these studies, we find that the literature has always recognized that state society relations are critical to understanding state action.

This book is a comparative study of imperial organization and longevity that assesses Ottoman successes as well as failures against those of other empires with similar characteristics. Barkey examines the Ottoman Empire's social organization and mechanisms of rule at key moments of its history, emergence, imperial institutionalization, remodeling, and transition to nation-state, revealing how the empire managed these moments, adapted, and averted crises and what changes made it transform dramatically. The flexible techniques by which the Ottomans maintained their legitimacy, the cooperation of their diverse elites both at the center and in the provinces, as well as their control over economic and human resources were responsible for the longevity of this particular 'negotiated empire'. Her analysis illuminates topics that include imperial governance, imperial institutions, imperial diversity and multiculturalism, the manner in which dissent is handled and/or internalized, and the nature of state society negotiations.