Content Type: Journal Article / Publication Year: / Topic: Islam

1. El comercio halal y su impacto en las empresas españolas de la industria cárnica

Author:: Juanita Riaño, Emilio Hernández Correa, and Ricardo Gúdel Fernández
Publication Date:: 05-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:: Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:: El mercado halal se ha convertido en una realidad en España. Los procesos de certificación, que en un primer momento se basaron en la confianza entre comerciantes y consumidores, han evolucionado hasta alcanzar un elevado grado de profesionalización. Los productos halal elaborados en España son reconocidos por su calidad y la garantía cumplir con preceptos islámicos. Aunque, la demanda de productos halal todavía es reducida en España, son varias las empresas que han optado por adentrarse en este mercado. El presente artículo analiza la dimensión actual del comercio halal en España, tomando como referencia la adaptación de la industria cárnica a estos procesos. Junto con el análisis de la evolución de la industria y su actual impacto, el artículo profundiza en los métodos utilizados para poder vender productos halal y resalta las ventajas que para muchas de las empresas implicadas ha supuesto el compromiso halal.
Topic:: Islam, Trade, Muslims, Halal, and Meat Industry
Political Geography:: Europe and Spain

2. Religious Accommodation through Non-Territorial Autonomy: Assessing the Relevance of Islamic Doctrine and Traditions in Contemporary Times

Author:: Muhammad Mushtaq
Publication Date:: 12-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Review of Human Rights
Institution:: Society of Social Science Academics (SSSA)
Abstract:: It appears that the growing religious diversity in the developing and developed worlds will pose a serious challenge in the near future. However, religious minorities are surprisingly understudied in the literature on the politics of accommodation. Similarly, far less emphasis has been placed on non-territorial autonomy, which has the potential to deal with territorially dispersed religious minorities. It is argued that the Ottoman millet system based on Islamic values was the first non-territorial arrangement that successfully accommodated religious differences for centuries. Therefore, this paper reviews the Islamic doctrine and traditions pertaining to religious accommodation in general and the Ottoman millet system, in particular, to examine if the case offers any valuable insights into the scheme of religious autonomy in modern times.
Topic:: Islam, Religion, Minorities, Autonomy, Ottoman Empire, Tradition, Accommodation, and Millet System
Political Geography:: Middle East

3. Istanbul Journal of Economics: Volume 72 Issue 2

Author:: Gökhan Karabulut
Publication Date:: 06-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Istanbul Journal of Economics
Institution:: Istanbul University Faculty of Economics
Abstract:: Istanbul Journal of Economics-İstanbul İktisat Dergisi is an open access, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal published two times a year in June and December. It has been an official publication of Istanbul University Faculty of Economics since 1939. The manuscripts submitted for publication in the journal must be scientific and original work in Turkish or English. Being one of the earliest peer-reviewed academic journals in Turkey in the area of economics, Istanbul Journal of Economics-İstanbul İktisat Dergisi aims to provide a forum for exploring issues in basicly economics and publish both disciplinary and multidisciplinary articles. Economics is the main scope of the journal. However, multidisciplinary and comparative approaches are encouraged as well and articles from various social science areas such as sociology of economics, history, social policy, international relations, financial studies are welcomed in this regard. The target group of the journal consists of academicians, researchers, professionals, students, related professional and academic bodies and institutions.
Topic:: Economics, Islam, Religion, Communications, Natural Resources, Finance, Internet, Economic Growth, Macroeconomics, Currency, Unemployment, Sustainability, COVID-19, BRICS, Labor Market, Economic Stability, Consumer Behavior, Rent-seeking, Energy, and Wages
Political Geography:: Europe, Turkey, and Asia

4. From Political Islam to the Politics of Islam

Author:: Nathan Brown
Publication Date:: 01-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:: School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:: With electoral paths blocked or unpromising, the Islamist project is now being transformed from what it was at the beginning of the last decade
Topic:: Islam, Politics, Religion, and Elections
Political Geography:: Global Focus

5. Political Rights of Christian Minority in Pakistan before 1973

Author:: Tooba Ahmad, Ghulam Mustafa, and Rahila Asfa
Publication Date:: 01-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: When Muslim Leaders of the Subcontinent of India were trying to create a different independent state for Muslims, the Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah repeatedly used the phrase “Separate state for the Minorities of India”. He demanded a state where all types of minorities could live freely according to their religious teachings and norms. These demands were very pleasing for all types of religious minorities of the Subcontinent, so few of them supported the idea of Pakistan where anyone could live freely. The Christian community supported the idea of Pakistan and made efforts to become part of it. There are different speeches of Quaid-e-Azam that consist of praises of Christian leaders who were helping the Muslim leadership. Despite the fact that Pakistan’s Objective Resolution and Constitution of 1956 and 1962 gave equal rights to every citizen and religious liberty to minorities, the Objective Resolution and Constitution of 1956 and 1962 are the most condemned document which made Pakistan a theocracy. After liberty and freedom, political rights are the most important rights for any person. This paper will try to find out the answer to the question of how objective resolution, Constitution of 1956 and 1962 dealt with the minority rights and their political rights. For this purpose in-depth study of all three documents occurred along with different articles, news, research reports and books.
Topic:: Islam, Politics, Minorities, History, Christianity, and Hinduism
Political Geography:: Pakistan, South Asia, and India

6. Secularism and the Religious Shift in Palestinian Chicago: Implications for Solidarity and Activism

Author:: Loren D. Lybarger
Publication Date:: 06-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This article analyzes transformations in Palestinian secularism, specifically in Chicago, Illinois, in response to the weakening of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the emergence of Islamic reformist structures since the late 1980s. Up until then, secular community organizations that aligned with the secular-oriented Palestinian political factions constituted the ideological center of this community. Beginning in the late 1980s, however, a discernible religious shift began to take place. The analysis draws from extensive fieldwork (2010–15) to show how secularism has not disappeared but rather transmuted into new, often hybrid forms whose lack of institutionalization reflect the attenuation of secularist structures and orientations. The weakening of the secularist milieu leaves individuals who have become disenchanted with the religious-sectarian shift (at the time of the fieldwork) with few alternatives for social connection, solidarity, and action. They forge their own idiosyncratic paths as a result.
Topic:: Islam, Secularism, and PLO
Political Geography:: United States and Palestine

7. La Guardia de la Revolución Islámica Iraní: análisis de su naturaleza, poder y cometidos (The Iranian Revolutionary Guard: Analysis of its Nature, Power and Tasks)

Author:: Javier Ruiz Arévalo
Publication Date:: 06-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:: International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:: Founded after the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, the Corps of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran has evolved far beyond its original foundations as an ideological guardian of the nascent revolutionary regime. Today, it functions as a socio-political-economic conglomerate, whose influence extends to all areas of Iranian life. Its members have articulated a vision of the Islamic Republic that they feel committed to defending, becoming guarantors of the ideological purity of the regime whose supreme leader rests on its support, while increasingly depending on it to survive.
Topic:: Islam, Ideology, Revolution, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC)
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

8. What Did 9/11 Mean for U.S. Media Coverage of Muslims and Islam?

Author:: A. Maurits van der Veen and Erik Bleich
Publication Date:: 09-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:: Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:: The twentieth anniversary of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks is an opportune moment to review the impact of those attacks on the U.S. media’s coverage of Muslims and Islam. In 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney famously argued that “[i]n a sense, 9/11 changed everything for us.”1 Evidence suggests that—within the U.S. government—“everything” includes how officials perceive Muslims; they became the target of wide, undifferentiated suspicion.2 The picture for the U.S. media is less clear-cut: some have argued that, as within the govern- ment, the attacks “thrust a certain type of Orientalist stereotype firmly back... into our news media, and into the mouths of politicians.”3 Meanwhile, others have found an “increase in sympathetic representations of Arab and Muslim Americans in the U.S. media after 9/11.”4 In our own research, we find two key changes after 9/11: an enduring rise in the number of newspaper articles about Muslims and Islam and a dramatic increase in the share of articles linking Muslims to terrorism or extremism.
Topic:: Islam, Media, News Analysis, and 9/11
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

9. Securitization of Islam: The Lethal Combination of Threat and Identity Politics

Author:: Jocelyne Cesari
Publication Date:: 09-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:: Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:: The work of Samuel Huntington, first presented in a 1993 article in Foreign Affairs and subsequently elaborated upon in his 1996 book Clash of Civiliza- tions, has shaped the perception of the role of religion in general, and Islam in particular, in international conflicts.1 Huntington argued that Islam is uniquely incompatible with and antagonistic to the core values of the West, values which he defines as democracy and equality of individuals. Since Huntington first presented his work, much ink has been spilled by scholars attempting to invali- date his thesis. They show that civilizations are not homogenous or monolithic players in world politics with an inclination to “clash,” but rather that they consist of pluralistic, divergent, and convergent actors and of practices that are constantly evolving.2 Nonetheless, Huntington’s concept of the “Clash” has remained relevant in political discourse and in the media.
Topic:: Islam, Identity Politics, Securitization, and Threat Perception
Political Geography:: Global Focus

10. Religion and Empire: Islam as a Structural Force in the Umayyad and the Ottoman Empires

Author:: Murat Ülgül
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Novus Orbis: Journal of Politics & International Relations
Institution:: Department of International Relations, Karadeniz Technical University
Abstract:: What is the relationship between religion and empire, and what role do religious ideas play in the empire-formation process? This paper focuses on these questions by analysing the role of Islam in the formation of the Umayyad and the Ottoman Empires. Although the literature about these Islamic empires is extensive enough, they generally provide a rich historical narrative without theorization. To fill this gap, I use constructivist theory in the analysis and point out that religion as a structural force helps states to turn into empires over time. Nevertheless, following the agent-structure debate, I also argue that the individual characteristics of these states are essential to understand how religion affected their policies and how they interpreted the religion. The findings show that as the Umayyad Empire was not recognized as legitimate by various sects in religious terms in the seventh and eighth centuries, religion played less of a regulatory role in imperial policies and its rulers did not hesitate to adopt ruthless stratagems and a divide-and-conquer strategy. On the other hand, the Ottoman Empire benefited from religion in its conquests and its policies were primarily restricted by religious norms and values. As a result of this dependence, ruthless stratagems were adopted less often, and Ottoman policies were heavily shaped by religious norms and values.
Topic:: Islam, Religion, Empire, Constructivism, Ottoman Empire, and Umayyad Empire
Political Geography:: Middle East

11. State and Social Movements in Iran: Phases of Contentious Activism

Author:: Sadia Rafique and Khalid Manzoor Butt
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Political Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: Social movements are considered by sociologists as agents of social change. They are not isolated entities but an outcome of prevailing circumstances and at, the same time, result from continuity with the historical roots. Moreover, the mobility of contemporary movements can only be shown in comparison with previous kind of collective actions. Two revolutionary movements within one century (Constitutional Revolution 1905-06 and Islamic Revolution1979), and eight years’ IranIraq war (1981-89) and globalization have significantly contributed to the evolution of distinctive nature of contemporary Iranian society. This makes it an interesting subject for research in general, and particularly the case of social movements and their transformation. The paper aims to give an overview of Iranian social movements from the constitutional movement to the recent Green movement of 2009. The intention is to find out, first, whether there was any continuity in social movements during this period; secondly, to investigate the differences of the recent Green movement from the previous social movements of modern-day Iran. An overview of social structure, the state-society relationship, causes of mobilization and the outcomes of each movement will be studied. Moreover, the complex relation between state and social movements that emerged overall will also be examined. The Touraine/Melucci model has been applied in Iranian milieu
Topic:: Islam, Religion, Social Movement, State, Revolution, Society, and Mobilization
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

12. Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison, Ahmet T. Kuru

Author:: Elizabeth R. Nugent
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The economic decline of the Muslim world and the rise of Western Europe has long captured the attention of scholars across disciplines. Explanations largely focus either on Islam, whether its financial institutions or the essence of its teachings, or on Western colonialism as the culprit. In Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment, Ahmet T. Kuru puts forward a new explanation rooted in class relations. He takes issue with existing approaches, convincingly demonstrating the intellectual and economic vibrancy of the Muslim world between the eighth and twelfth centuries, undermining arguments about Islam’s incompatibility with progress, and asserting that colonialism occurred too late to explain multiple political and socioeconomic crises. Instead, Kuru identifies the eleventh century as a critical juncture when the Muslim world witnessed the emergence of alliances between Islamic scholars (ulema; singular alim) and the military. These alliances persisted through path dependence and gradually hindered intellectual and economic creativity by marginalizing independent intellectual and bourgeois classes in the Muslim world. In turn, the absence of these classes led to the persistence of authoritarianism and the well-documented underdevelopment in the contemporary period.
Topic:: Development, Islam, History, Authoritarianism, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: Europe, Middle East, and North Africa

13. Can Religious Human Rights Discourses Help Integrating Muslim Migrant Communities Across Europe?

Author:: Sonia Boulos
Publication Date:: 05-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:: International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:: The perception of Islam as antithetical to European human rights values is widespread in Europe. Such perceptions complicate the task of integrating Muslim minorities across Europe. While incrementing respect to human rights norms among migrant communities is an important element of any integration policy, this goal should not be perused by forcing migrant communities to adhere to human rights norms based on purely secular grounds. The drafting history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the ultimate proof that human rights can be justified from different political, philosophical and religious perspectives. While European States cannot compromise their commitment to human rights, even in relation to migrant communities, still, they must allow other narratives on the importance and the meaning of human rights to emerge. Muslim migrant communities must be allowed to engage in intra-group religion-based dialogues to reevaluate their stance on human rights and to debate their meaning. After being given the opportunity to engage in internal debates on the significance of human rights, Muslim migrant communities should also be engaged in cross-cultural dialogues with the rest of community to generate a wider agreement on the meaning and the application of human rights. This two-fold strategy is consistent with the principle of subsidiarity, which suggests that for human rights be effective they must be seen as legitimate by all those small groups that are close to the individual. Such legitimacy cannot be imposed from the outside, it must emerge from within these small groups. However, for these intra-group and cross-cultural dialogues to succeed, the separation of religion and State cannot be understood as the complete exclusion of religion from the public sphere. Individuals of different philosophical or religious convictions must have an equal access to public debates on the centrality of human rights in the European legal order.
Topic:: Human Rights, Islam, Religion, Culture, and Integration
Political Geography:: Europe

14. El islam en Rusia: desafíos a la seguridad y respuestas estratégicas (Islam in Russia: Security Challenges and Strategic Responses)

Author:: María José Pérez del Pozo
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:: International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:: El islam forma parte de la historia y de la cultura rusas desde el siglo VII, colaborando activamente en el proceso de construcción del Estado, desarrollando relaciones con otros grupos sociales, con los que ha compartido espacios, historia y políticas de asimilación. Sin embargo, la comunidad musulmana ha tenido un papel asimétrico frente a otros grupos étnicos y culturales del Estado, ocupando, durante largos periodos históricos, una posición periférica en asuntos políticos, militares y económicos. A lo largo de los años 90, la religión se convirtió en un elemento de reivindicación nacionalista contra el poder federal, incentivado por la entrada de un islam transnacional radical importado de los países de Oriente Medio de predominio sunita. Las dos guerras chechenas y la posterior gestión de la zona por parte de Moscú han favorecido la aplicación de un nuevo esquema de análisis basado en la etnicidad-seguridad, que generaliza una interpretación negativa del islam en Rusia. La división de las instituciones religiosas musulmanas tampoco ha facilitado la interlocución interétnica ni la relación con el Kremlin. El estudio de las estrategias rusas frente al desafío del islam se ha orientado tradicionalmente al análisis de la dimensión de seguridad, enfocándose en las respuestas militares de los órganos de seguridad del Estado ruso, ya que, la propia disfuncionalidad del sistema político y la ausencia de políticas basadas en al respeto a los derechos individuales ha impedido la aparición de otras iniciativas que consideren la convivencia interétnica e interreligiosa en un Estado declarado laico. Sin embargo, podemos estudiar también las iniciativas rusas aplicando el enfoque del estudio de la política exterior de los Estados para analizar la utilización de la diversidad religiosa en la obtención de determinados objetivos de política exterior. En este sentido, el trabajo aborda la función de los grupos militares procedentes del Cáucaso, integrados en las fuerzas federales rusas, dentro del conflicto sirio. Finalmente, los programas vinculados a la Prevención del Extremismo Violento (PEV) en el Cáucaso Norte, con sus limitaciones, muestran también un cierto cambio en la implementación y gestión de nuevos métodos para frenar la insurgencia regional.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Security, Islam, and Transnational Actors
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, and North Caucasus

15. Reassessing the Reasons of Democracy Deficit in the Middle East through the Role of Islam

Author:: Ibrahim Karatas
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: There has been a large number of challenges to undemocratic regimes in the Middle East by their populations due to the denial of their participation in decision-making processes. Among many factors, Islamic faith and ruling are regarded to have more role in political conflicts than others. Particularly, the idea that Islam and democracy are not compatible with each other has prevailed and led to the neglect of other reasons in debates. This study analyzes the reasons for democracy deficit in the region such as the environment of mistrust abetting governments to abandon basic human and political rights, hydrocarbon revenues that make regimes independent from populations, the prevalent role of tribalism in government structures which is inherent to traditional Middle Eastern politics, the lack of civil society and the effect of Islam. The study asserts that the role of Islam is unfairly exaggerated since it does not offer a certain political system. Besides, such approaches also underestimate the strong damages other reasons cause. By analyzing the impact of Islam on governance, its use as a tool by political and anti-political Islamists as well as its compliance with democracy, this research aims to reveal to what extent Islam can be attributed to the democracy deficit of the region.
Topic:: Islam, Politics, Authoritarianism, and Sharia
Political Geography:: Middle East and Arab Countries

16. "Key Individuals Management" and the Roots of China's Anti-Muslim Surveillance System

Author:: Emile Dirks
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: China Brief
Institution:: The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:: The repression of Xinjiang’s Uighur population by the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) continues to horrify world opinion. Along with interning an estimated one million people in a network of re-education camps, the Chinese state has built extensive systems of daily surveillance directed at the region’s Muslims (China Brief, March 14, 2017; China Brief, November 5, 2018). Police inspections of local homes, blacklists of suspect Muslims, and biometric data collection are widespread. Previous research has illustrated how such policies have their roots in earlier (and ongoing) repression campaigns against Falun Gong and other religious groups (China Brief, February 1). However, evidence now suggests that these systems of social surveillance and repression also originated in programs directed at wider groups of Chinese citizens, identified as “key individuals” (重点人员, zhongdian renyuan). Systems of “key population management” (重点人口管理, zhongdian renkou guanli) possess many of the features associated with Xinjiang’s security state: profiling, extensive personal and biometric data collection, and location-based tracking.
Topic:: Islam, Science and Technology, Prisons/Penal Systems, and Surveillance
Political Geography:: China and Xinjiang

17. Islamic Countries Engage with China Against the Background of Repression in Xinjiang

Author:: Roie Yellinek
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: China Brief
Institution:: The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:: State-directed repression and harassment directed against Muslims in China has drawn broad international condemnation throughout the Western world. However, what has been the reaction from the Islamic world itself? Although reactions among major states have varied (as discussed below), the reaction throughout the Islamic world has largely been one of deafening silence—and when voices are raised, they have been faint.
Topic:: International Relations, Islam, Prisons/Penal Systems, State Violence, and Surveillance
Political Geography:: China, Iran, Turkey, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Xinjiang

18. Emergence of Sectarian Indigenous Militant Groups in Pakistan and Politicization of Militant Thought

Author:: Maryam Azam
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: The rise of sectarian groups in Pakistan has sprouted many internal challenges for the state as well as for the society. The issue of sectarianism is directly linked with the security and harmony of Pakistani society as it has culminated into a grave internal security challenge causing violence and loss of human life. The institutionalization of these groups and their role in the political landscape of Pakistan reflects their complicated nature, objectives and the overall discourse on which these groups are built. Despite the fact that government in various time periods have banned these sectarian militant groups but they were able to operate in shadows or under the banner of different names and roles. This piece of research aims to explicate their multidimensional roles and their capacity to operate and affect the security paradox as well as society as a whole
Topic:: Security, Islam, Religion, Sectarianism, Sectarian violence, and Violent Extremism
Political Geography:: Pakistan, South Asia, and Punjab

19. Religion and Electoral Politics in Punjab: A Case Study of 2018 General Elections

Author:: Usman Bashir and Iram Khalid
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: This study is focused on the impact of religion on the electoral pattern of the people of Punjab. Religion as a determinant of voting behavior is best expressed in the votes secured by the religious parties. Thus, religious parties vote in Pakistan and Punjab is studied to build an argument. Religion has a strong impact on human life. It influences each act and attitude of the individual especially in developing countries. In Pakistan; religion has a solid affect in shaping the political attitudes and beliefs of the individuals. It is one of the key elements of politics.2018 general elections saw a sudden rise in the vote bank of religious political parties. It witnessed a 2.17 % increase in the religious vote country wide and 1.32% increase in Punjab. Tahreek Labbaik Pakistan appeared on the scene as a radical Sunni Islamic party, it mobilized the barelvi vote bank to great effect. And it emerged as the third largest party of Punjab, in terms of votes polled. 2018 general elections also witnessed the rise of Milli Muslim League which was a political wing of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, who were previously rejecting the parliamentary form of government and were critical of voting in elections. The increase in the influence of the various spiritual gaddi nasheen in the electoral politics of Punjab was also a prominent factor during the 11th general election.
Topic:: Islam, Politics, Religion, and Elections
Political Geography:: Pakistan, South Asia, and Punjab

20. Learning About Islam: From Ignorance to Understanding

Author:: Benjamin Tua
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Efforts to portray Muslims and their faith as threatening diminish our society by stigmatizing a significant American minority. They also can facilitate costly foreign policy blunders such as the 2017 Executive Order banning entry into the US of visitors from several Middle Eastern majority-Muslim countries, an order purportedly based on terrorist activity, technical hurdles to properly document these countries’ travelers, and poor coordination with US officials. Two recent books, “Mohammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires” and “What the Qur’an Meant: And Why it Matters,” take on the task of broadening Americans’ still unacceptably low understanding of Islam. The authors – Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan, and Garry Wills, a Pulitzer Prize winning lay scholar of American Catholicism – approach their subject in distinctly different manners. Yet, their message and conclusions are remarkably similar – namely, that ignorance of and distortions of Islam and what the Quran says both alienate vast numbers of Muslims and have led to foreign policy missteps. The books complement each other nicely.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Islam, Peace Studies, Religion, Judaism, Islamophobia, and Xenophobia
Political Geography:: Iraq, Ukraine, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, North America, and United States of America

21. The Challenges of the Middle East

Author:: Haviland Smith
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: It is clear that there are powerful people both in the United States and in Iran who would like to force a real confrontation between our two countries. What is completely unclear is whether or not those hawks on both sides want a modified Cold War type confrontation, built perhaps on cyber warfare, or an all-out military confrontation. What this situation, with all its incredibly profound dangers and possible disastrous outcomes, has done is once again prompt the question, “what is the United States doing in the Middle East and what precisely are our goals there?”
Topic:: Cold War, Islam, Religion, Terrorism, Minorities, and Ethnicity
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, and United States of America

22. Kashmiri Muslims – the Historical Consciousness and Memory in the Era of Modern Technology

Author:: Magdalena Piech
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Nowa Polityka Wschodnia
Institution:: Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract:: The Valley of Kashimir is a region which has been shaded by the conflict for decades and it is still far from resolution. Actually, it seems we observe its new phase in which the dispute spreads on the virtual space. The historical and social consciousness of the Kashmiris, formed on the occupational background, is a significant if not the most crucial element constituting the Kashmiri Muslim Identity. For last 20 years, local press popularized the claims to preserve tradition and language, or to write down history, which is believed to be presented falsely in the official narration. A need is uttered out loud to change the direction of the Kashmiri discourse which shall be based on oral history or other testimonies from the inside of the conflict reality. The increase in the interest in protecting the unique syncretic cultural heritage is visible in various activities of young generation of Kashmiris, both on the subcontinent and in diaspora. Currently, the main field for their grassroots initiatives became the Internet. By enabling a relatively free flow of information and wide accessibility, it became the space for building and maintaining the historical consciousness of the Kashmiri people. Websites such as “Lost Kashmiri History” and „Kashmir Lit” present how modern technologies serve for the memory preservation. In this paper I would like to present briefly the content of the abovementioned websites. Focusing on the seer idea of their existence, I will try to answer the question what constitutes the historical consciousness of nowadays Kashmiri Muslims. The aim of this research shall be an attempt to present the hardships behind writing about history in conflicted regions such as Kashmir and reflect upon the Internet as a solution to that problems.
Topic:: Islam, Science and Technology, History, Memory, and Identity
Political Geography:: South Asia and Kashmir

23. Societal Rather than Governmental Change: Religious Discrimination in Muslim-Majority Countries after the Arab Uprisings

Author:: Yasemin Akbaba and Jonathan Fox
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:: Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:: This study examines shifts in governmental religion policy and societal discrimination against religious minorities in Muslim-majority states after the Arab Uprisings by using the Religion and State round 3 (RAS3) dataset for the years 2009-2014 and by focusing on 49 Muslim-majority countries and territories. We build on threads of literature on religious pluralism in transitional societies to explain the changes in governmental religion policy and societal discrimination against religious minorities after the Arab Uprisings. This literature predicts a rise in all forms of discrimination in Arab Uprising states as compared to other Muslim-majority states, and an even more significant rise in societal religious discrimination since societal behavior can change more quickly than government policy, especially at times of transition. The results partially conform to these predictions. There was no significant difference in the shifts in governmental religion policy between Arab Uprising and other Muslim-majority states, but societal religious discrimination increased substantially in Arab Uprising states as compared to non-Arab Uprising states. Understanding the nature of religion policies and religious discrimination provides further opportunities to unveil the dynamics of regional politics as well as conflict prevention in the region.
Topic:: Islam, Religion, Minorities, Arab Spring, and Discrimination
Political Geography:: Arab Countries

24. “We Have Captured Your Women”: Explaining Jihadist Norm Change

Author:: Aisha Ahmad
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Security
Institution:: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:: In recent years, jihadists across the world have transformed their gendered violence, shocking the world by breaking from prior taboos and even celebrating abuses that they had previously prohibited. This behavior is surprising because jihadists represent a class of insurgents that are deeply bound by rules and norms. For jihadists, deviating from established Islamist doctrines is no easy feat. What then explains these sudden transformations in the rules and norms governing jihadist violence? An inductive investigation of contemporary jihadist violence in Pakistan and Nigeria reveals a new theory of jihadist normative evolution. Data from these cases show that dramatic changes in jihadist violence occur when an external trigger creates an expanded political space for jihadist entrepreneurs to do away with normative constraints on socially prohibited types of violence. As these jihadist leaders capitalize on the triggers, they are able to encourage a re-socialization process within their ranks, resulting in the erosion of previously held taboos, the adoption of proscribed behaviors, and the emergence of toxic new norms.
Topic:: Political Violence, Gender Issues, Islam, Terrorism, Women, and Gender Based Violence
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Middle East, and West Asia

25. Winter 2018 edition of Contemporary Eurasia

Author:: Ruben Safrastyan
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Contemporary Eurasia
Institution:: Institute of Oriental Studies, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia
Abstract:: SECURITY ISSUES IN EURASIA ARTSRUN HOVHANNISYAN ASIA-PACIFIC THEATER IN FOCUS: COMPARISON OF WEAPONS SYSTEMS OF NEAR-PEER COMPETITORS, CURRENT ISSUES ...........4 TINA KHARATYAN THE MILITARY DOCTRINE OF AZERBAIJAN: ASSESSING THE IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS AND POLICY IMPLICATION ...............21 HRANUSH DERMOYAN THE 2016 COUP ATTEMPT IN TURKEY: A RESULT OF CHANGING CIVIL-MILITARY BALANCE IN TURKEY .........................41 LIANA HAYRAPETYAN RADICAL ISLAM IN RUSSIA: THE CASE OF TATARSTAN ..................61 THE ARAB WORLD IN TRANSITION ARAKS PASHAYAN SAUDI ARABIA-QATAR. FROM COOPERATION TO CONFRONTATION ................................................................................80 GOR GEVORGYAN THE NEW STRATEGY OF THE U. S. MIDDLE EAST POLICY AND EGYPT ..................................................................................90 MUSHEGH GHAHRIYAN THE KURDISH FACTOR IN IRAQ-GULF ARAB STATES RELATIONS .....................................................................100 SOUTH CAUCASUS: REGIONAL CONFLICTS AND CHALLENGES LILIT GALSTYAN RUSSIA AND THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT: SPOILING THROUGH MEDIATION? ...................................................... 114 ZURAB TARGAMADZE CONFLICTS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF NATIONALISM: CASE OF GEORGIA ...................................................................................133 KRISTINE MARGARYAN AZERBAIJAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM ......................................................................................................................146
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Islam, Military Affairs, Weapons, Conflict, Coup, and Civil-Military Relations
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Qatar, South Caucasus, and Asia-Pacific

26. Climate Change: Conflict and Cooperation (Full Issue)

Author:: Meagan Torello, Rafael Leal-Arcas, Caitlin Werrell, Francesco Femia, Carmel Davis, Ziad Al Achkar, Ang Zhao, Buddhika Jayamaha, Jahara "Franky" Matisek, William Reno, Molly Jahn, Therese Adam, Peter J. Schraeder, Juan Macias-Amoretti, and Karim Bejjit
Publication Date:: 09-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:: School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
Abstract:: In the first issue of our 20th volume, the cooperative and conflictual nature of climate change in international relations is explored. Rafael Leal-Arcas analyzes the necessity of a symbiotic relationship between bottom-up and top-down negotiations to implement clean energy consumption. Following, Caitlin Werrell and Francesco Femia begin this issue's dialogue on climate change and security. Carmel Davis discusses the effects of climate change on Sub-Saharan Africa's ability to develop and subsequently mitigate conflict. Similarly, Ziad Al Achkar outlines the economic, environmental, and security threats in the Arctic as its ice continues to melt. Zhao Ang then discusses China's ability and incentives to pursuing a greener economy. Following, Buddikha Jayamaha, Jahara Matisek, William Reno, and Molly Jahn discuss the security and development of climate change implications in the Sahel region. The main portion of this issue proudly concludes with the Journal's interview with former Swiss Ambassador Therese Adam on climate change negotiations and the great potential for civil society engagement. Following the climate change portion of this issue, we feature a special sup-topic: Africa Rising. Here, Peter Schraeder discusses the effects of President Donald Trump's foreign policy in Africa. Juan Macías-Amoretti analyzes the role of Islam in Moroccan politics, while Karim Bejjit concludes with a discussion on Morocco's growing relationship with the AU.
Topic:: Security, Climate Change, Diplomacy, Environment, Islam, Regional Cooperation, Conflict, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:: Africa, China, Europe, Asia, North Africa, Switzerland, Morocco, Sahel, and Global Focus

27. Dealing with Islam in North African Politics: Ideology and Power in Morocco

Author:: Juan Macias-Amoretti
Publication Date:: 09-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:: School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
Abstract:: One of the key factors to understanding contemporary politics in North Africa is the ideological use of Islam in the political sphere.1 Understood as a main foundation of North African cultural background and political identity, Islam has been present in the political discourse since the very emergence of the National states in the post-colonial era. Predating self-government in the form of sovereign states in the mid-1950s, Islam and Islamic law were also used by colonial forces to deal with the local elites and to legitimate their political rule and their economic and military administration. In any case, Islamic history has provided a powerful element of unity to North African societies in the form of Sunni and Mālikī trend, thus contributing to the social, political, and juridical order. Despite the diverse trends and symbolic representations of Islam in the cultural and spiritual fields in North Africa, there is little doubt about the centrality of the Islamic discourse in contemporary politics as it can be stated that Islam is one of the main power resources in the political competition among elites. The case of the ‘Alawī Kingdom of Morocco is especially relevant.
Topic:: Islam, Politics, Religion, and Ideology
Political Geography:: Africa and Morocco

28. Islam y política exterior: El caso de Marruecos

Author:: Miguel Hernando de Larramendi
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:: Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:: Este artículo analiza el papel que el islam ha jugado en la política exterior de Marruecos sosteniendo que ha sido utilizado como un recurso ideológico al servicio de una política exterior cuyo proceso de tomas de decisión es monopolizado por la Monarquía. En las relaciones exteriores Marruecos ha utilizado el islam como un instrumento para ganar influencia internacional a través de tres vías principales: la explotación de la legitimidad religiosa de sus soberanos; la exportación de un modelo de islam caracterizado por su apertura interpretativa; y moderación y la utilización de los lazos mantenidos con el exterior por organizaciones trasnacionales arraigadas en el país como la cofradía Tiyaniyya
Topic:: International Relations, Foreign Policy, Islam, Religion, and Ideology
Political Geography:: North Africa and Morocco

29. The Narrative of Political Islam: Constitutionalism and Human Rights

Author:: Nikola Gjorshoski
Publication Date:: 06-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:: Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:: One of the essential postulates of political orientation and determination for the building of stable societies and a functioning political system in its content recognizes and imposes the need to examine the relation of relevant political actors to constitutionalism and human rights as concepts and preoccupations for any modern society. Also, constitutionalism and human rights and freedoms as its inseparable category manifest the political values and the corpus of essential and common political goals and commitments of a particular political community. Political Islam as an ideological political subject has its own sources and a valuable orientation framework through which prisms and perceptions can be interpreted or extracted by individual axiological determinants to certain issues. This paper analyzes exactly the relations of political Islam with constitutionalism and human rights, and similarly to the so-called framework it draws attention to the concepts of power, the mechanisms of control and compliance with the Sharia regulations. At the same time, the importance of human rights and freedoms in the Islamic narrative, their nature and scope, as well as the differences with the western established documents in this area are emphasized and analyzed.
Topic:: Government, Human Rights, Islam, Constitution, and Sharia
Political Geography:: Middle East, North Africa, and Global Focus

30. Censorship, Geopolitical Time Bombs, and China’s Islamophobia Problem

Author:: Matt Schrader
Publication Date:: 07-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: China Brief
Institution:: The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:: China has a serious and worsening Islamophobia problem. While relations between China’s Muslim minorities and its Han majority have been fraught since 2009’s deadly inter-ethnic riots in the far western city of Urumqi, recent years have seen the normalization of online hate speech directed at Muslims. The rise of Islamophobia inside China is a product both of government action, and of the government’s failure to act. Commentary on the recent death of a prominent Muslim leader in the western province of Qinghai highlights the extent to which the situation has deteriorated, and suggests the ways in which China’s warped online discourse could blunt its efforts to build influence and win friends in countries across the Muslim world.
Topic:: Demographics, Ethnic Conflict, Islam, Geopolitics, and Islamophobia
Political Geography:: China and Gulf Nations

31. Exploring the Image of Muslims in India

Author:: Salma Umber, Muhammad Junaid Ghauri, and Hassan Nawaz
Publication Date:: 07-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: Indian film industry is one of the biggest film industries in the world which produces highest number of movies every year. Indian media and film industry overwhelmingly link Islam and Muslims with terrorism. Especially since 9/11 attacks, the Bollywood have portrayed the Muslims in stereotypically negative way. After the 9/11 incident, Muslims have been constructed as distrustful people, terrorists, and antagonists. The study at hand was set out to identify the overall dimension and nature of portrayal of Indian Muslims in the Bollywood. For the purpose the researcher opted convenient sampling as a tool of data collection and quantitative content analysis along with SPSS was used as data analysis technique. Bollywood movies, released during the year 2016 with Muslims as prominent characters in it, were selected as ample to be studied. The results indicated that majority of the movie contents contained negative and stereotypical image of Indian Muslims. Overall findings evidenced that the Muslims were assigned non-patriotic and antagonistic characters more than the patriotic and protagonist characters.
Topic:: Islam, Mass Media, Media, Film, Representation, and 9/11
Political Geography:: Pakistan, South Asia, India, and Punjab

32. Compatibility between Islam and Democracy

Author:: Khalid Manzoor Butt and Naeema Siddiqui
Publication Date:: 07-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: The word 'Islamic Republic' is debatable among scholars as what meaning and role the word 'Islam' adds to the republic is still not agreed upon. Therefore, there is a need for resolving this ambiguity by explicitly defining and explaining the meaning and role of Islam in an Islamic Republic. Pakistan, too, is an Islamic Republic, which got the name 'Islamic Republic of Pakistan' for the first time in the constitution of 1956. This study intends to comprehend the mentioned issue by highlighting the similarities and differences between democracy and Islamic system of governance. In this qualitative study, iterative analysis of semi-structured interviews of ten doctorate scholars is carried out. The study comes across primary contradictions between the two systems and gives a way out for a system having characteristics of both Islam and democracy.
Topic:: Human Rights, Islam, Religion, History, Governance, Democracy, and State
Political Geography:: Pakistan, South Asia, and Punjab

33. Political and Doctrinal Sources and Valuable Framework of the Political Islam in the Context of Political Ideologies

Author:: Nikola Gjorshoski
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:: Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:: The relation between religion and politics is a field of mutual interaction, as well as source and promoter of many historical, current, and probably future political movements, parties, and organizations. Political Islam represents the old-new dimension in the spectrum of contemporary political ideologies with specific characteristic and own socio-political worldview which pretend to penetrate into countries with Muslim inhabitants. The authors analyze those value’s elements, their first term, and modern interpretation, as well as their indicators for change. Level and dynamic of society’s development in many cases are determinate in political ideologies and Political Islam tries to present itself in this light with the affirmation of its/own postulates of organization and regulation on socio-political living. This paper in addition to analyzing those values’ framework logically offers and reviews of political doctrine sources which concept Political Islam in the whole of its time-space aspects.
Topic:: Islam, Politics, Religion, Ideology, Islamism, and Political Parties
Political Geography:: Middle East, North Africa, and Global Focus

34. Journal of Advanced Military Studies: Superpowers

Author:: Ed Erickson, Christian H. Heller, T. J. Linzy, Mallory Needleman, Michael Auten, Anthony N. Celso, Keith D. Dickson, Jamie Shea, Ivan Falasca, Steven A. Yeadon, Joshua Tallis, and Ian Klaus
Publication Date:: 09-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:: Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:: There are a variety of reasons to study geopolitical rivalries, and analysts, officers, and politicians are rediscovering such reasons amid the tensions of the last several years. The best reason to study geopolitical rivalries is the simplest: our need to better understand how power works globally. Power not only recurs in human and state affairs but it is also at their very core. Today’s new lexicon—superpower, hyperpower, and great power—is only another reminder of the reality of the various ways that power manifests itself. Power protects and preserves, but a polity without it may be lost within mere decades. Keith D. Dickson’s article in this issue of MCU Journal, “The Challenge of the Sole Superpower in the Postmodern World Order,” illuminates how fuzzy some readers may be in their understanding of this problem; his article on postmodernism calls us to the labor of understanding and reasoning through the hard realities. Ed Erickson’s survey of modern power is replete with cases in which a grand state simply fell, as from a pedestal in a crash upon a stone floor. Modern Japan, always richly talented, rose suddenly as a world actor in the late nineteenth century, but the Japanese Empire fell much more quickly in the mid-twentieth century. A state’s power—or lack thereof—is an unforgiving reality. This issue of MCU Journal, with its focus on rivalries and competition between states, is refreshingly broad in its selection of factors—from competing for or generating power. Dr. Erickson recalls that Alfred Thayer Mahan settled on six conditions for sea power, all still vital. Other authors writing for this issue emphasize, by turns, sea power (Steven Yeadon, Joshua Tallis, and Ian Klaus); cyberpower (Jamie Shea); alliances (T. J. Linzy and Ivan Falasca); information (Dickson); and proxies (Michael Auten, Anthony N. Celso, and others).
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, NATO, Islam, Terrorism, War, History, Power Politics, Military Affairs, European Union, Seapower, Cities, Ottoman Empire, Hybrid Warfare, Cyberspace, Soviet Union, and Safavid Empire
Political Geography:: Britain, Russia, Europe, Ukraine, Middle East, Lithuania, Georgia, North Africa, Syria, North America, and United States of America

35. Islam in North-Western Azerbaijan in the Early Medieval Ages

Author:: Aliyev Shirinbey Hajiali Oghlu
Publication Date:: 06-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Nowa Polityka Wschodnia
Institution:: Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract:: This article, which we would like to include in the scientific circulation, deals with the religious situation in the North-Western Azerbaijan in the early medieval ages and presents the stages of the spread of Islam in the conditions of the religious-ideological struggle in the region and its position.
Topic:: Islam, Religion, History, and Ideology
Political Geography:: Central Asia and Azerbaijan

36. Political Socialization in Pakistan: A Study of Political Efficacy of the Students of Madrassa

Author:: Jafar Riaz Kataria and Umbreen Javaid
Publication Date:: 07-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: The Madrassa system has been providing an alternative mean to get education, which is religious in nature, according to the Islamic traditional values and is also affordable. Madrassa system in Pakistan, as a part of education-a social institution, is performing the functions of education institution. Acquisition of political culture and incorporation of political norms is political socialization. One of the important variable to understand the society‟s political socialization is the level of political efficacy. More efficacious the members of the society are, more positive is the political socialization of the society which ultimately leads to the good functioning of political system of the society. The present study aims to study the political efficacy of the madrassa students of the Lahore district of Pakistan.
Topic:: Education, Islam, Politics, and Youth
Political Geography:: Pakistan, South Asia, and Punjab

37. Position of Women in Iran: An Analysis of Pre and Post Islamic Revolution 1979

Author:: Sadia Rafique and Khalid Manzoor Butt
Publication Date:: 07-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: Socio, economic and political involvement of women as half of the total populace is important to reinforce society and state. In every sphere of life, women have been found under-represented one way or the other. The women of Iran are not exempted from this. This paper evaluates women‟s position in two different periods in the history of Iran, i.e., during the rule of the Pahlavi Dynasty, and during the period of the post Islamic Republic. The objective of the paper is, first, to highlight the treatment meted out to women in Iran and shed light on various spheres of social life while comparing the two periods. Secondly, to examine factors that have affected the position of women in Iran
Topic:: Gender Issues, Human Rights, Islam, History, Governance, Women, and Inequality
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, and Asia

38. Sociopolitical Movements and the Development of Non-Violent Civil Resistance: A Conversation with Ches Thurber

Author:: Ches Thurber and Austin Bowman
Publication Date:: 07-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Fletcher Security Review
Institution:: The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:: Ches Thurber is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. He was previously a research fellow at the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism at the University of Chicago and at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. His current book project, Strategies of Violence and Nonviolence in Revolutionary Movements, examines why political movements seeking to overthrow the state embrace strategies of either armed insurgency or civil resistance.
Topic:: Security, Islam, Non State Actors, Sectarianism, Social Movement, Conflict, and Interview
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, Syria, North America, and United States of America

39. Secularist and Islamist Constitutional and Political Concepctions in the Modern Muslim World: The Cases of Kemalist Turkey and Khomeini’s Iran

Author:: Nikola Gjorshoski
Publication Date:: 05-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:: Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:: Modern constitutional and political concepts, in a broad sense, represent an expressed codification of the elements of value that structure the relevant society or the particular group that tries to project or channel them through the existing order. The secularism vs. Islamism dichotomy is a part of such a conceptual framework. The author elaborates and compares both ultimate constitutional and political designs, specifying them through the example of Turkey and Iran, as well as to shows the basic characteristics through the prism of their political legitimacy, the organization of power, the human rights and freedoms, as well as the possibility of political activism. The thesis that the author notes develop in the direction of a warning that the extremes contained in the constitutional provisions in the vividly ideologically divided societies can be a source of conflict and/or can generate instability or suffocation of the pluralism in the political arena.
Topic:: Islam, Politics, Constitution, Islamism, and Secularism
Political Geography:: Iran, Turkey, and Middle East

40. Peshawar School Massacre, Pakistan: A Qualitative Account of Citizens' Perceptions

Author:: Fatima Asim and Muhammad Bilal
Publication Date:: 07-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Political Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: On 16th December 2014, Army Public School and College (APSAC), Warsak road, Peshawar, located in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan, was attacked by more than six militants dressed as Pakistan Army Soldiers which resulted in killing of 149 people, mostly innocent children. After this attack, Government with the collaboration of Military took immediate steps for the eradication of terrorists from Pakistan and announced National Action Plan (NAP). Based on Master’s Fieldwork in Rawalpindi city, this study explores peoples’ reasoning to why such an attack took place? The paper further investigates whether the citizens of Rawalpindi are satisfied with the counter-terrorism steps taken immediately after the Peshawar incident. The locale of the study was Rawalpindi’s Union Council number 30. This qualitative study used purposive sampling techniques to draw a heterogeneous sample of 31 participants in order to conduct In-depth interviews.
Topic:: Islam, Terrorism, Taliban, and Counter-terrorism
Political Geography:: Pakistan and South Asia

41. Socio-Political and Cultural Challenges of Poverty Alleviation: A Comparative Analysis of Pakistan and Bangladesh

Author:: Karim Sajjad Sheikh, Khalil Ahmad, and Ayesha Farooq
Publication Date:: 07-2016
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: This paper attempts to review and analyze important features of Pakistani and Bangladeshi politics, the socio-economic situation and cultural traditions from both historical and contemporary perspectives with focus upon challenges of poverty alleviation. In so-doing, this paper analyses the major issues related to poverty alleviation against the backdrop of sociopolitical and economic structures. The present paper has been extracted from the published PhD work of the first author. The review indicates some of the important features of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Both the countries share similar ranking on human development index. Substantial proportions of populations in both the countries are engaged in primary sector of economy. Gender disparities on socio-economic indicators, ethnic and sectarian divide, political instability and corruption are intertwined with political, economic and cultural structures of the countries. Good governance, increased civic participation, collaboration of Faith-based organizations with NGOs and CSOs can help improve indicators of Human Development Index in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Topic:: Corruption, Education, Islam, Poverty, History, and Political stability
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Asia, and Punjab

42. ARAB STUDIES JOURNAL VOL. XXIV, NO. 2

Author:: Sherene Seikaly
Publication Date:: 09-2016
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Arab Studies Journal
Institution:: Arab Studies Institute
Abstract:: A wedding party walks the shattered streets of Aleppo. A flash mob dances in a public square in occupied Ramallah. These scenes inspire the imaginations of millions as they travel through social media. They are shocking and comforting at once. The Arab world we are accustomed to seeing is one of accumulating catastrophes, multiple wars, occupations, and unprecedented authoritarian and sectarian militarization. By all counts, the conditions of people, as varied as they may be, in places like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, and Palestine appear to only be getting worse before, and if, they will get any better. These conditions target the very possibility of life. Yet despite these hardships and amidst the varieties of dispossession and injustice we are now witnessing, people continue to live, to create, and to love. It is in the spirit of honoring this will to live that we present this issue of Arab Studies Journal. We are proud to feature articles that explore the history of modern Assyrian and Chaldean appellations, contribute a literary analysis of Cairo in a time of intense political change and upheaval, and present a historical study of Arab nationalism in the “Trucial States.” A special section titled “Love in the Arab World” includes a rich body of ethnographic studies on compatibility and marriage in Jordan; Valentine’s Day in Egypt; and the politics of desire in post-uprising Syrian television drama. As always, we are pleased to accompany our articles with a review section that engages a number of recent contributions to the field. Together these pieces testify to the resilience of the everyday and the significance of untold stories that are perhaps best represented in the words of Mahmoud Darwish, “One day I will be what I wish to be.”
Topic:: Imperialism, Islam, Nationalism, Oil, Religion, Statehood, Ottoman Empire, and Identity
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Syria, and Oman

43. The Moroccan Monarchy and the Islam-oriented PJD: Pragmatic Cohabitation and the Need for Islamic Political Secularism

Author:: Abdellatif Hissouf
Publication Date:: 01-2016
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:: Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:: This paper aims to analyze the political relationship between the Moroccan monarchy and the moderate Islam-oriented Party of Justice and Development (PJD), which has been in power since 2011. The research methodology involves an in-depth case analysis and relies on a substantial number of primary and secondary sources such as official speeches, official political statements, journal articles and newspapers. The study finds the relationship between the PJD and the monarchy inconsistent, similar to the PJD’s relationship with other political parties. The paper argues that adopting an approach based on an Islamic political secularism that considers Morocco’s specific political realities may ease tension between the PJD on the one hand and the monarchy and other parties on the other
Topic:: Islam, Politics, Secularism, Political Parties, and Political Islam
Political Geography:: North Africa and Morocco

44. Curbing Extremism through Sufism: A South Asian Perspective

Author:: Shagufta Bano, Muhammad Sohail, and Syed Shahbaz Hussain
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: Sufis are the spiritual guides who aspire for closer union with God. Islam is an exterior edifice in which an entity subsists, whilst the inner exploration for enlightenment belongs to an ambit of Sufi realization. The Sufi approach endeavors to mend a human demeanor and to open up human vistas to the sublime amity that comes from propinquity to God. Sufism is a devotional and spiritual current in the Islamic history. Sufism enlightens society to abstain from spitefulness, barbarianism, bigotry, sadism and discrepancy. Now it has been subject matter to the strain of modernization experienced across the Muslim world and people are faced with terrorism on its peak. The present-day approach of sadism and belligerence calls for a good propel for the message of Sufi Diaspora for the alteration of traumatized mental approach of the populace. The conflict ridden people really have a pursuit for peace. Sufi ideas generously contribute to the harmony and relief. Islam is a great and splendid religion now has become maligned due to atrocities of ‘Jehadis’ in the label of religion. Fundamentalism has amended the motif and spirit of Islam. Pakistan as a soil of Sufis, longs for serenity and harmony. Sufis are the people who believe in tolerance, love and well being of all humanity. It is necessary to follow the doctrine of Sufism in the world of turmoil and tribulations and to address the most serious issues like lack of interfaith harmony, terrorism, exploitation in Pakistan. The intention of this study is to explore the role of major Sufi saints in Sub-continent for preaching religion on the instructions of their sacred mentors and people have faith on Sufi Saints.
Topic:: Islam, Religion, Taliban, Violent Extremism, and Sufism
Political Geography:: Pakistan, South Asia, and Punjab

45. Defeating ISIL Requires US Leadership Now

Author:: Edward M. Gabriel
Publication Date:: 09-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Abstract:: As a member of the Council of American Ambassadors, I have written before in CAA publications on Syria and radicalism in the Levant—once in September of 2013,1 and again in September of 2014.2 Nearly a year later, I am disheartened to see that US leadership continues to be timid in its struggle with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) and Syria, in spite of our warnings and prediction that if the United States didn’t define and lead the effort in this fight, radical elements would take over against our interests. This didn’t have to be the case and doesn’t have to be in the future. However, the problem cannot simply be wished away and we can’t wait two long years for a new administration to take action.
Topic:: Political Violence, Islam, Religion, and Violent Extremism
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, Arab Countries, and Syria

46. A Daunting Triangle: Turkey, the Kurds, and the ISIL Threat

Author:: Buddhika Jayamaha
Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has created an area where Turkish and Kurdish interests overlap: both parties are thoroughly alarmed at ISIL\'s expansion. However, delicate and sensitive cooperation against ISIL has to take place in the broader context of the complicated and evolving Kurdish-Turkish relationship. While Turkey develops its response to the ISIL threat and the Syrian crisis, it is also managing Kurdish relations as part of its effort to redefine the Turkish state and Turkish national identity. On their side, the Kurdish leaders — especially the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq — are compelled to deal with a complex and sometimes competing array of Kurdish organizational alliances and interests that cross international borders, while trying to deepen their relations with Ankara. Despite the complicated nature of the situation, there are reasons to be hopeful.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Iraq and Turkey

47. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis

Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: We are happy to publish Volume 7, Issue 1 (January/ February 2015) of the Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis (CTTA) by the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. From a terrorism and counterterrorism perspective, the year 2014 was particularly significant. This was due as much to the potential impact of drawdown of US and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) from Afghanistan as to the declaration of the establishment of a so-called Islamic Caliphate by the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). While the former has emboldened old and established groups like Al Qaeda Central, the Afghan Taliban, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, among others, the claim of the establishment of the “so called Islamic State” by ISIS seem to have galvanized disparate elements within the Muslim world, drawing fighters in thousands to Iraq and Syria and spurring radicalization and extremism in many countries in an unprecedented scale.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Iraq, Syria, and Singapore

48. ARAB STUDIES JOURNAL VOL. XXIII, NO. 1

Author:: Sherene Seikaly
Publication Date:: 09-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Arab Studies Journal
Institution:: Arab Studies Institute
Abstract:: The rapid changes that the people of the Arab world have witnessed in the last four and a half years have been revolutionary. In its initial instances this wave of change was a euphoric experience. From the far east of the Arabian Peninsula to the far west of Morocco, many transgressed generational, sectarian, gender, and class divides to break the barrier of fear. They unified to publically and collectively call for popular sovereignty. They marched on various squares, neighborhoods, and roads demanding bread, freedom, and social justice. They led us to the unknown territory of hope. As the bids for popular sovereignty became louder and stronger, and people placed their lives and bodies in the line of fire, these Arabs posed a fundamental challenge to what observers had admonished as apathetic and moribund. Politics outside the confines of a militant Islamism and a calcified authoritarianism seemed possible. Perhaps at last, Arabs could step out of the identity debate on authenticity, to demand the basics: economic redistribution and freedom from state brutality. Perhaps at last, observers could finally step out of the closed circle of debate that 11 September 2001 and the war on terror escalated to new heights: essentialism on the one hand and apologetics on the other. In a sense, the ontological non-choice between militant Islamism and militant authoritarianism mirrors the epistemological trap that can do little more than eulogize politics.
Topic:: Islam, Religion, Arab Spring, Christianity, War on Terror, Gulf War, Iraq War, Militant Islam, Nakba, and Orientalism
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, Kuwait, Palestine, Algeria, North Africa, Lebanon, and Kurdistan

49. Knowledge, Repetition and Power in Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Thought: Some Preliminary Comments on Methodology

Author:: Ali Balcı
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:: Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:: This paper’s major motivation is to contribute to the debate on how international relations (IR) scholars can develop an alternative method for studying power. A focus on Islamic Sufi thinker Ibn Al-‘Arabi is suggested to demonstrate the early philosophical conceptualization of power relations in a non-Western context. For Ibn Al-‘Arabi, in a world in which unrepeatability is the rule, creating repeatability and fixation through interpretation is certainly done for worldly purposes. His work suggests that any attempt to understand “the cosmos” is an arbitrary intervention, which strictly reflects power relations among actors. Therefore, Ibn Al-‘Arabi’s work can trigger scholarly questions on not only methodology but also on the sociology of the IR discipline and foreign policy in a non-Western context. His arguments can be utilized in critical and poststructuralist conceptions of power in IR.
Topic:: International Relations, Islam, Power, Knowledge Systems, Ibn al-'Arabi, Interpretation, and Delimitation
Political Geography:: Global Focus

50. Gender, Agency and Vulnerability: The Case of Western Muslim Women Joining the ISIS

Author:: Aamer Raza
Publication Date:: 12-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Review of Human Rights
Institution:: Society of Social Science Academics (SSSA)
Abstract:: In this article I look at the case of Western Muslim women who joined the Islamic terrorist group of ISIS. I deconstruct the generally held assumptions in the main stream Western media about the desirability of an unrestricted life. One of the major questions that I raise through this article is whether or not feminist scholarship should aim at developing a certain standard of emancipation of women. To be more specific, through this study, I want to understand what freedom means for different actors—Western Muslim women, mainstream media, and social media—involved in the debate on young western men and women joining the ISIS.
Topic:: Gender Issues, Islam, Women, and Islamic State
Political Geography:: Global Focus

51. Land Rights in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman State Succession Treaties

Author:: Ilias Bantekas
Publication Date:: 04-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: Ottoman state practice in the field of state succession in the 19th century displayed strict adherence to the European notions of international law. This is evident from the ratification of cession treaties, attention to reciprocity, the use of mediation and reliance on the existing laws of war principles, including the legal effects of occupation, conquest and the rights and duties of belligerents. This article focuses on state succession treaties with Greece since they represented the paradigm for all future treaties, and it examines the Islamic origin of Ottoman land regulation. The Ottomans succeeded in attaching a further condition to their cession arrangements with the new Greek state, namely the latter’s obligation to respect the property rights of Muslim citizens. This arrangement brought into play the application of Ottoman land law, to which Greece was under no obligation to succeed. This body of law, particularly the set of property rights bestowed under it, became a focal point in the ensuing state succession negotiations. It was the actual basis of Muslim property rights – a precursor to contemporary property rights – and a sine qua non element of Ottoman practice in the law of state succession. In this light, Ottoman land law and institutions should correctly be considered to be general principles of law – with origins from the Quran and the early caliphates – as well as regional custom, at least in the territories liberated from Ottoman rule, which continued to apply and enforce it not only among Muslims but also in the property relations of the indigenous ethnic communities.
Topic:: International Law, Islam, Treaties and Agreements, History, and Land Law
Political Geography:: Europe, Greece, and Ottoman Empire

52. The Security Bazaar: Business Interests and Islamist Power in Civil War Somalia

Author:: Aisha Ahmad
Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Security
Institution:: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:: Many intractable civil wars take place in countries with large Muslim populations. In these protracted conflicts, Islamists are often just one of many actors fighting in a complex landscape of ethnic, tribal, and political violence. Yet, certain Islamist groups compete exceptionally well in these conflicts. Why do Islamists sometimes gain power out of civil war stalemates? Although much of the existing research points to either ethnic or religious motivations, I argue that there are also hard economic reasons behind the rise of Islamist power. In this article, I offer a micro-political economy model of Islamist success in civil war that highlights the role of an important, but often-overlooked, class: the local business community.
Topic:: Security and Islam
Political Geography:: Somalia

53. Turkey's Transition to an Immigration Country: A Paradigm Shift

Author:: Franck Düvell
Publication Date:: 05-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: This article argues that Turkey is going through a paradigm transition regarding its migration characteristics and has changed from an emigration to an immigration country. It briefly reviews the history of immigration of mostly ethnic Turks or other Muslims to Turkey, but then concentrates on contemporary non-Turkic and non-Muslim immigrants. In the first part, it distinguishes between flows of travelers and migrants and stock of immigrants. Notably, it illustrates national diversity, assesses the quantitative level of immigration to Turkey, including estimates on irregular immigration, and addresses the geographic dispersal of immigrants across the country. In the second part, it analyzes the macro-level economic, political and social factors and discrepancies between Turkey, its neighbors and other countries in the wider region, which represent the structural determinants of migration. It concludes that immigration to Turkey is still comparably low but that due to macro-level factors, it could grow. In order to develop adequate policy responses, more research must be done.
Topic:: Islam and Immigration
Political Geography:: Turkey

54. Muslims in Modern Turkey: Kemalism, Modernism and the Revolt of the Islamic Intellectuals

Author:: Shaimaa Magued
Publication Date:: 05-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Muslims in Modern Turkey: Kemalism, Modernism and the Revolt of the Islamic Intellectuals presents a comprehensive overview of contemporary Turkish intellectuals' thoughts on Kemalist ideology. With a selection of six intellectuals, the first chapter gives an overview of the Kemalist ideology and its sociocultural impact on both the private and public spheres in the newly-formed Turkish state. In the second, third and fourth chapters, more details are given about the lives and thoughts of the selected intellectuals, followed by a comparison with their counterparts in the Arab/Muslim world and the old Islamic intellectuals in Turkey. Overall, the book compiles the views of Islamic intellectuals regarding the secularization process in Turkey since the conception of the state; however, the book has weaknesses that prevent the ignition of the reader's curiosity and leaves one wondering what the author intended to contribute to existing literature.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Turkey

55. Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey

Author:: Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir
Publication Date:: 05-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Democracy, Islam and Secularism in Turkey, edited by Ahmet Kuru and Alfred Stepan, decribes the so-called “Turkish model” in detail, while trying to avoid unfounded criticism. The book is divided into eight chapters, written mainly by Turkish authors, with the exception of Karen Barney, Stathis Kalyvas, Alfred Stepan and Joost Lagendijk.
Topic:: Government and Islam
Political Geography:: Turkey

56. Turkey Facing East: Islam, Modernity and Foreign Policy

Author:: Anita Sengupta
Publication Date:: 05-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: The relationship between Islam and foreign policy has become the subject of a number of volumes in recent years as scholars seek to understand the role that political Islam plays in determining foreign policy. This is more often than not accompanied by the assumption that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with modernity. Turkey, with its complex history of modernity and the transition from its Ottoman past, remains an interesting case for the study of the causal relationship between the construction of a modern nation state, secular identity and nationalized foreign policy. The rediscovery of Turkey's regional interests and affinities from the 'Balkans to Western China' – areas that had been largely absent from Turkish foreign policy debates since the foundation of the Republic – have emphasized the significance of the state's internal evolution in determining its external policy. In her book, Turkey Facing East: Islam, Modernity and Foreign Policy, Ayla Gol critically analyzes Turkey's engagement with modernity in the course of its transformation from the Ottoman structure into a modern nation state in order to understand Turkey's foreign policy towards its eastern neighbours between 1918 and 1921. This is a clear and important departure from studies that tend to examine this transition period in terms of Turkey's engagement with the West.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Islam, and Politics
Political Geography:: Turkey, Balkans, and South Caucasus

57. Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy: Spring 2014

Author:: Colin Eide, Averell Schmidt, Ibrahim Sharqieh, Matthew Levitt, Denise Natali, Gina A. Zurlo, Todd M. Johnson, Karina Piser, John Strickland, Sarath Ganji, and Nada Zohdy
Publication Date:: 01-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: We are pleased to present the third edition of the Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Pol icy. This volume is being published at a time of rapid transformation in the Middle East and North Africa. The euphoric uprisings of 2011 have met with fierce resistance from resilient autocrats and the complex realities of reshuffled domestic politics. With corruption scandals threatening the long-venerated Turkish model, an Egyptian military reasserting itself in political life, and heated tribal disputes compromising an already fragile Libyan state, which way the region is headed remains altogether unclear. These volatile domestic transformations coincide with regional diplomatic realignments. Nuclear diplomacy between Iran and the West has complicated the relationship between Washington and its traditional allies in Israel and the Gulf. The Obama administration’s hesitance to intervene militarily in Syria has at times further strained these ties. Meanwhile, the unprecedented diffusion of Syrian refugees risks destabilizing neighboring states and igniting a region-wide conflagration. This year’s Journal sheds light on many of the dynamics underlying what we see as a larger regional transformation. Ibrahim Sharqieh opens the Journal with a commentary on the often overlooked plight of Palestinian “double refugees”—those first displaced by conflict with Israel, displaced again by conflict in Syria. Matthew Levitt provides our first feature article investigating the evolving strategic relationship between Hezbollah and Iran. Denise Natali analyzes the dynamics—new and old—of transborder Kurdish politics. Todd M. Johnson and Gina A. Zurlo focus our attention on demographic trends behind the flight of the region’s Christian communities. Karina Piser helps dispel the popular narrative of religion as the sole driver of Islamist political parties in Tunisia, focusing us instead on their internal debates and political acumen. John Strickland points us to an economic transformation with global consequences taking place in the region’s skies: the growth of Gulf airlines. Lastly, spanning the politics of the Palestinian Authority, the political economy of oil and gas, and the underpinnings of the region’s grassroots political movements, this year’s staff interviews offer fresh perspectives on pressing issues.
Topic:: Islam, Migration, Peace Studies, History, Social Movement, Partnerships, Arab Spring, Protests, Christianity, Hezbollah, and Kurds
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, Palestine, Arab Countries, Syria, Jordan, Tunisia, and Gulf Nations

58. Militarist Turkish-Islamic Synthesis: Official Ideology, Official History and Nationalism in the Second Constitutional Period

Author:: Mehmet O. Alkan
Publication Date:: 01-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: The “Promulgation of Freedom” on 23 July 1908 paved the way to the Second Constitutional Period. A clear ideological change occurred in this 10 years period that lasted in 1918. This shift in ideology was a transition from “Islamic-Turkish Synthesis” of Abdülhamid II’s reign to the “Turkish-Islamic Synthesis.” The Committee of Union and Progress could have put into practice “Turkish nationalism” or “militant secularism” as the Republican People’s Party did after 1924 when they took the power after the coup of 23 January 1913. However the Balkan Wars and the World War I enforced them to postpone their will. On the contrary they made use of Islam as a unifying and mobilizing source of power and tried to build Turkish identity between the lines in the education system. That is why, as a result of these circumstances, “Militarist nationalism” and “Militarist Turkish-Islamic Synthesis” came into agenda in the Second Constitutional Period.
Topic:: Islam, Constitution, History, and Ideology
Political Geography:: Turkey

59. Ennahda Islamists and the Test of Government in Tunisia

Author:: Laura Guazzone
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The International Spectator
Institution:: Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:: After winning the 2011 elections, the Ennahda Islamist Party was the majority partner in successive coalition governments, whose poor performance - namely in the economic and security fields - disappointed the people's high post-revolutionary expectations. Opponents accused Ennahda of incompetence, greed for power and double talk. Many of the Ennahda-led governments' failures were due to factors beyond their control, but some did indeed depend on Ennahda's own political weaknesses. Nevertheless, Ennahda contributed positively to the overall development of Tunisia's political transition thanks to its moderation and pragmatism and its contribution remains paramount for the democratic consolidation of Tunisia and other political Islamic actors.
Topic:: Security, Economics, Government, and Islam
Political Geography:: Tunisia

60. Transnational Islamist Networks: Western Fighters in Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria

Author:: Emmanuel Karagiannis
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The International Spectator
Institution:: Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:: Western Muslims have joined jihadi groups in Afghanistan/Pakistan, Somalia and Syria to defend Islam from its perceived enemies. Transnational Islamist networks have played a pivotal role in bringing them to conflict zones by fulfilling three functions: radicalisation through mosques, radical preachers, and the Internet; recruitment which can be conducted either physically or digitally; and identity formation that provides the radicalised recruits with a larger cause to fight for as members of an imagined global community. Transnational Islamist networks are multifunctional entities on the rise.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia

61. Political Culture and National Identity in Conceptualising the Gezi Park Movement

Author:: Tahir Abbas
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: This essay interprets the Gezi Park protests that began as a local resistance to government plans to level a public park but quickly escalated into a national outburst against government policies. How did the local events receive endorsements from different communities with otherwise ideological and cultural conflicts? This paper argues that political disenfranchisement intersected with society's aspirations with regard to dichotomies between conservatism and secularism, localisation and globalisation, and nationalism and majoritarianism.
Topic:: Globalization, Government, Islam, and Culture
Political Geography:: Turkey

62. Military, Political Islam, and the Future of Democracy in Egypt

Author:: A. Kadir Yildirim
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Egypt's democratization efforts require domestic and international considerations: Domestically, the country must focus on the economy at the expense of the military's political role: While military involvement in politics is crucial to democratization, improvements in this area represents an outcome, not the cause, of the process. Discussions should concentrate on protecting lower- and middle classes, generate prosperity and create common ground between democracy and class interests. At the international level, Egypt requires countries to support democratization efforts and condemn extra-democratic actions. Meanwhile, the prominence of Islamists causes concerns for Western governments with regard to the Peace Treaty and Israel's security.
Topic:: Security, Government, and Islam
Political Geography:: Israel and Egypt

63. Debating Security in Turkey: Challenges and Changes in the Twenty-First Century

Author:: Mustafa Kibaroglu
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Interest in Turkey and its foreign and security policies has grown significantly in the political and scholarly circles in the world, especially since the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) came to power with the November 2002 elections. The AKP's electoral success continued in the subsequent elections in 2007 and 2011 with an increasing percentage of votes, which was unprecedented in the history of the Turkish Republic. One particular reason why Turkey attracted much attention in the world was because, in its first years in power, the AKP was easily categorized, both in the media and in academia, mainly in the West, as an “Islamic” party with a hidden agenda that aimed at drifting Turkey away from its mainstream foreign and security policies that have long been anchored in the Western alliance, thereby turning Turkey's face toward the Middle East and the Islamic world beyond it.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Development, and Islam
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, and Gaza

64. A Muslim Mystic Community in Britain: Meaning in the West and for the West

Author:: Ali Murat Yel
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: THE NAQSHBANDIYYA is perhaps one of the widest-spread Islamic religious brotherhoods due to its active involvement in political affairs. Its 'strength' comes from the fact it could trace the sheiks of the order as far back as to the Prophet of Islam through his companion Abu Bakr. The silsila (the chain of transmission) of the order also contains some very important figures in Islamic history, like Salman al-Farisi and Bayazid al-Bistami. Despite the importance of the order and its worldwide expansion, the published works on the subject could fill only a small shelf. The order also has a great number of followers in Turkey, including some prominent political figures. Since Shah Bahauddin Naqshband, the founder of the order, the succeeding sheiks of the Naqshbandiyya tarikat (religious order) have currently been handed to Sheikh Nazim al-Kibrisi al-Haqqani, a Turkish Cypriot. The Sheikh has been given the task of expanding the order to the West, and as a result of arduous efforts he has been able to establish some centers in various European and American cities, with the biggest one being in London. Author Tayfun Atay studied this center for his Ph.D. thesis submitted to London University.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Britain, America, Europe, Turkey, and London

65. Writing Muslim Identity

Author:: Mohammad Siddique Seddon
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: THE CONTINUED and growing presence of Islam and Muslims in the West has produced a plethora of conflicting literature and debates around interpretations on and representation of minority Muslim identity constructions. Incorporated into the configurations of the ever-shifting debates on Muslim identities is the impact of the 9/11 terror attacks and the subsequent re-framing of Islam/Muslims in modern, liberal and increasingly secular western societies. Geoffrey Nash's new book sets about unpacking what has been produced, by whom and why on evolving fictional narratives on Muslims over the last two decades. His survey covers a series of interrelated styles of English writing: ranging from the novel, through memoir and travel writing to journalism, including a wide range of authors and texts.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: United Kingdom

66. The Formative Process of Post-Revolutionary Iranian Foreign Policy: 1979-1982

Author:: Mahmood Shoori
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: The Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran led to serious differences and disputes between the new revolutionary government on the one hand and major world powers as well as countries in the region on the other. Many analysts have, attributed this to the idealism of Iran's revolutionary leaders and their attempts to export the revolution. Often in these works, without paying attention to the events of the years after the revolution, the roots of this aggressive foreign policy are sought in the thoughts and actions of the new revolutionary leaders. This paper, while criticizing this approach, will seek to confirm the hypothesis that the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran was molded principally by actions and reactions that took place between 1980 and 1983 between Iran and the aforementioned nations. In other words, the new foreign policy was not created to be inherently aggressive, but a series of interactive communications, in the outlined time period, have influenced the contours of this new identity.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Government, and Islam
Political Geography:: Iran

67. Continuity and Change in the Construction of Enemy Image in Pre-Revolutionary Iran

Author:: Seyed Ali Monavari and Farhad Atai
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: What paved the way for the establishment of the foreign policy of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran? This paper seeks to analyze the phenomenon of the construction of the enemy image in the diplomatic history of Iran from 1798 to 1921 and assess its historical roots as it can be useful for the understanding of the attitudes of Iranian policy makers towards the West. The authors' proposal is to explain the construction of enemy image in a historical context in the cognitive structure of Iranian political leaders towards the great powers in the 20th century until the advent of the Islamic Revolution in February 1979. In doing so, the authors have proposed the following hypothesis: With the continuation of Iran's diplomatic relations with Western powers (Great Britain and Russia) under the Qajar dynasty in 1798, a process took shape which gradually led to the construction of an enemy image in the cognitive structure of future Iranian statesmen in the Pahlavi era, underpinning their political relationships with contemporary powers. The authors' findings include the notion that the historical process in question under the Qajar Dynasty involved a combination of military domination, political influence and economic exploitation by the aforementioned powers.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Economics, Islam, and Politics
Political Geography:: Britain, Russia, and Iran

68. Gringo Stay Here!

Author:: Andy Baker
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: "Why do they hate us?” This question1, on so many U.S. citizens' minds over the decade following the September 11, 2001, attacks, is often asked about Islamic extremists and even the broader Muslim world. Among the most common responses is that “they” resent U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. When the focus shifts to Latin America, U.S. foreign policy similarly appears to be the principal reason for anti-Americanism. This seems to make sense. One would be hard-pressed to find another world region with greater and more long-standing grievances about Washington's actions. The Monroe Doctrine, Dollar Diplomacy and Cold War Containment were euphemisms for imperial abuses committed against Latin America over the course of two centuries.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Cold War, and Islam
Political Geography:: United States, Middle East, and Latin America

69. The War of Jihadists Against Jihadists in Syria

Author:: Nelly Lahoud and Muhammad al-`Ubaydi
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: CTC Sentinel
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: ON FEBRUARY 2, 2014, al-Qa`ida released a statement declaring that "it has no connection" with the "group" called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The statement further highlighted that al-Qa`ida was not responsible for founding the ISIL and was not privy to the deliberations that led to its establishment. That is why, the statement continued, "The ISIL is not a branch of al-Qa`ida, the latter is not bound by organizational ties to it and is not responsible for the ISIL's actions."
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Civil War, Islam, Terrorism, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:: Middle East, Arabia, and Syria

70. Egypt's Future: Yet Another Turkish Model?

Author:: Robert D. Springborg
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The International Spectator
Institution:: Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:: The Turkish model deemed most relevant to 2011-12 post-Mubarak Egypt was the Islamist-led transformation of the polity and economy that occurred following the rise to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the 2002 general election. As it transpired, this version of the Turkish model lasted but one year before another took its place. That model was the political project of the Turkish military that seized power in September 1980. This thirty-one year old Turkish model of a constitutionally empowered executive body, controlled by the military appears to have trumped the contemporary, Islamist one in Egypt. But the Turkish military coup of 1980 unwittingly and unintentionally laid the groundwork for the transition that ultimately swept it from power and its leaders into jail. The pertinent question then is will Egypt's civilian political and economic actors be similarly and sufficiently astute to exploit the opportunities they inevitably will have even under military rule? Egyptian political forces will inevitably mount serious challenges as they did in Turkey. In Egypt, however, the domestic and regional political and economic contexts are so different from those in Turkey that the outcome of the struggle for power between civilians and the military are likely to deviate substantially from this Turkish model.
Topic:: Economics and Islam
Political Geography:: Turkey and Egypt

71. A Fire in the Minds of Arabs: The Arab Spring in Revolutionary History

Author:: Mark Perry
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Fire is both the symbol of revolution and its most potent weapon. Much like the American Revolution and other key historic events, the Arab Spring began with fire when Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight to protest his treatment by police. Ever since the Arab Spring's onset, experts have debated about its eventual conclusion and concentrated on major forces, including the army and the clergy. The future of the revolutions, however, rests with the masses in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Syria. The uprisings marked deep and irreversible changes in the Arab world and will inevitably entail future repercussions. For onlookers, the best policy is not to interfere, but to let the fire burn.
Topic:: Islam and History
Political Geography:: Yemen, Arabia, and Egypt

72. Finding Mecca in America: How Islam is Becoming an American Religion

Author:: Karen Leonard
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Finding Mecca in America: How Islam is Becoming an American Religion Near the end of this interesting book, the author characterizes his final chapter as “a series of interpretive judgments about the venture of Islam in its American habitat (p.205),” and I find this true of the book as a whole. It began as a doctoral dissertation, and Bilici defines himself a cultural sociologist who takes an agonistic (combative, contesting) approach, an approach that “pays attention to the margins more than the mainstreams, to lived experience more than to floating abstractions (p.21).” Yet, lengthy discussions of philosophy and social theory punctuate the chapters, enabling readers to debate the stated balance. Bilici also characterizes his work as ethnography, and while he draws on his work in Detroit, Michigan, as part of a team project and his internship with the Council of American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, in Washington, DC, the ethnographic material is limited, providing illustrations for various points Bilici wants to make rather than systematic evidence for them. He argues that his topics have escaped attention (or been taken for granted) or are postdiasporic, meaning they have not yet fully appeared above the horizon (p.19), such as Abrahamic discourse and Muslim comedy. He writes that “what should be prized is not the sea of data but the wisdom of elucidation (p.23),” and this personal interpretation is certainly worth reading.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: America and Washington

73. Secularism and Religion-Making

Author:: Nurullah Ardiç
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Secularism and Religion-Making Recent scholarship in the sociology of religion has produced fresh perspectives on the understanding of religion and its inter-relationships with society. Largely influenced by post-structuralist social theory, these new perspectives call for a re-evaluation of existing theoretical and methodological approaches as well as empirical analyses, as reflected in the oft-used terms to describe their projects, including “rethinking,” “imagining” religion and its “invention” and “manufacturing” a là “invention of tradition”. The term “religion-making” is one such concept that questions the traditional ways of studying religion (and its constitutive other, secularism). It refers to the reification by political and intellectual actors (with different motivations) of a religion (its beliefs and practices/rituals) based on certain taken-for-granted (binary) concepts, such as the religious/secular divide, within the discursive field of world religions. The collection of articles edited by Markus Dressler and Arvind-Pal Mandair brings together eleven theoretically-informed and empirically-focused studies on religion-making in different socio-historical contexts. It fits nicely, and contributes to, the above-mentioned recent trends in the sociology of religion and secularism. A strong trend within this scholarship is a critique of the “secular critique” of the Enlightenment-inspired secularization theory, which also implies a critical re-evaluation of the (secularist) notion of a clear-cut distinction between the religious and the secular. This is also a common theme among the articles brought together in this edited volume: each study questions from a post-structuralist angle (but focusing on a different aspect of) the assumption of the 'boundedness' of “religion” and “secularism” and their opposition to one another. The theoretical aim of the volume, according to the editors, is to problematize this dichotomous assumption and demonstrate instead the codependency of “secular” and “religious” discourses. Its empirical aim is to “examine the consequences of the colonial and postcolonial adoption of Western-style objectifications of religion and … the secular, by non-Western elites” (p. 3), but it also contains cases of Western actors. Moreover, the editors' lengthy Introduction contains a useful discussion on the philosophical foundations (from Kant to Heidegger, from Hume to Hegel) and current manifestations (in Taylor, Habermas etc.) of the epistemological hegemony of the religious/secular dichotomy and of the “universalization” of the concept of religion out of Western Christianity. The analyses contained in the volume address the processes of religion-making at three different levels. First, “religion-making from above” refers to the discursive strategy of reifying religion(s) from powerful positions rendering them an instrument of governmentality. This is often undertaken by nation-states in their efforts to reframe existing religious traditions in a docile manner. As the editors note, this strategy is also applied by individual political actors, intellectuals and NGOs, as exemplified by the famous American think-tank RAND Corporation's call for “rebuilding Islam” in a manner that would not constitute a threat to American interests worldwide. The same advice was reiterated in 2004 by Daniel Pipes, a member of the Zionist lobby in the US who was close to the Bush administration, who argued that the ultimate goal of “the war on terror” was “religion-building,” implying the neocon elites' desire to “civilize Islam” (p. 22). These examples show not only the fact that the notion of religion-making from above is extremely relevant to current global geo-politics but also a paradigmatic symptom of the secular-liberal hegemony over religion in Western imagination: all religious traditions are encouraged and/or forced to “fit in” the existing socio-political structures in the form of “protestantization” –i.e. becoming an a-political, “modernized”/secularized and docile religion with no agenda for change in the status quo. Therefore, this hegemonic secular discourse does not so much aim to cleanse the public sphere and politics from religion as to make the latter fit in with the existing system and, if possible, function as a source of legitimization for hegemonic powers.
Topic:: Islam and Politics
Political Geography:: America

74. Full Text Issue

Author:: Arabinda Acharya
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: ISIS is fighting an insurgency deeply influenced by the principles of Maoist protracted political warfare and moreover informed by the successes and failures of previous Al Qaeda movements in Iraq from 2006-2008, and of other jihadist groups attempting to seize and hold territory in countries like Somalia, Yemen and Mali. This analysis argues that, whether it survives or not, ISIS has set a political separatist precedent, the effects of which are yet to be fully understood and addressed by the international community.
Topic:: Islam, Terrorism, Insurgency, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:: Iraq, Arabia, and Southeast Asia

75. Israeli Conceptualization of the Border´s Defensibility: Time for Change?

Author:: Libor Kutěj
Publication Date:: 01-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: The article deals with important aspects determining the defensibility of the State of Israel borderlines and its current conditions. It outlines trends and tendencies in Israeli approach to this burning issue and depicts important political and military - strategic factors concerning Israeli concept for countering military and paramilitary (i.e. terrorist, insurgent etc.) threats in border region. Particular focus is dedicated to the new regional security situation after the outbreak of the Arab Spring and its impact on securing the Israeli sovereignty. Furthermore, it depicts the question whether current unsatisfied security situation in surrounding Arab countries could eventually turn into an outbreak of conventional military conflict and/or whether the State of Israel could possibly face concentrated strain of radical Islamic groups operating in the border area. Last but not least, the article concludes an outline of Israeli doctrinal approaches and examines the impact of budgetary restraints into the development of IDF.
Topic:: Security and Islam
Political Geography:: Israel

76. Authoritarianism and Democracy in Muslim Countries: Rentier States and Regional Diffusion

Author:: Ahmet T. Kuru
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: AHMET T. KURU analyses why most of the 49 Muslim-majority countries are authoritarian. He challenges explanations that point to Islam, the absence of secularism, patriarchy, and Arab exceptionalism as causes.
Topic:: Islam

77. Can the Kurdish Left Contribute to Turkey's Democratization?

Author:: Ödül Celep
Publication Date:: 10-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: The current peace process regarding Turkey's Kurdish question could pave the way for the normalization of politics and democratization in Turkey if the existing opportunities are not missed. The major actors that represent the Kurdish left in Turkey, the PKK and the HDP (formerly BDP), are all equally significant parts of the peace process. The HDP in particular has the potential to turn into a constructive actor for Turkey's democratization in the near future. This article argues that the Kurdish left of the democratic, parliamentary stage, lately the HDP, could contribute to Turkey's democratization if it can fulfill the libertarian left policy space in Turkish politics, which has long been abandoned by all existing political parties.
Topic:: Development, Islam, and Politics
Political Geography:: Turkey

78. Interview: Yves Daccord

Publication Date:: 10-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: In the Middle East today there are armed groups that have no respect for the humanitarian imperative. What challenges does this present to the Red Cross? I see two key challenges. The first one is very basic. We want to maintain a very close relationship with people affected by conflict, and access these days is more complex because we are in a very polarized environment. Look at the Iraq front–the problem is not new but it is exacerbated. The second issue is to be able to engage governments and non-state armed groups on a very pragmatic basis on issues related to people under their control. That normally works rather well. What I have found more complex these days is to engage them on issues related to international humanitarian law and the Geneva conventions.
Topic:: Humanitarian Aid and Islam
Political Geography:: Geneva, Iraq, and Middle East

79. Iraq's religious mix is at risk

Author:: Gerard Russell
Publication Date:: 10-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: Iraq is being denuded of its ancient communities, and both it and the world are the poorer for it. As the jihadists of Islamic State try to entrench their rule, it is an open question whether Iraq's religious minorities will survive, and if so, how they can be protected. There is another, deeper question, however. How did Iraq come to have so much religious diversity in the first place, and what does this this say about the type of Islam that prevailed there until the 21st century?
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Iraq

80. Full Text Issue

Author:: Abdul Basit
Publication Date:: 10-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: The rise of ISIS-like terrorist groups in the Syria and Iraq conflicts and their ability to attract foreign fighters has created new challenges for global peace. While the return of these foreign fighters to their home countries is a threat to be monitored, it is imperative to understand the factors luring them to fight in Syria and Iraq to formulate counter-strategies. The desire to live in and defend the so-called 'Islamic state', participate in the 'end times battle', sectarian motivations and the search for an Islamic identity are some of the factors attracting foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Iraq and Syria

81. Full Text Issue

Author:: Arabinda Acharya
Publication Date:: 11-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, leader of ISIS, which is at centre stage of terrorist movements today, claims to be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. This is however deeply contested as the information on him is mostly from various online sources, the genealogy is unverifiable, and there are inconsistencies in publically shared information. A review of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi's background and atrocities committed by the group under his leadership also show the contrast between ISIS ideology and the real teachings of Islam.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Iraq and Syria

82. Iran's Foreign Policy between the Two Revolutions

Author:: Rouhollah Eslami
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: Does Iran, which is known in political science literature as a developing, oriental and ancient country, have specific, examinable and predictable models in a way that can be applied to foreign policy studies? In this study the author intends to analyze six models of Iranian foreign policy between the two revolutions (from the constitutional to the Islamic); these patterns have been fluctuating dialectically between an idealism embedded in the Iranian grieving ontology and realism as it relates to the international environment. At the beginning, the nostalgic worldview of Iranians that is a reflection of their subjective collective constructs is analyzed. Then counter-scientism and anti-positivism in Iranian epistemology is studies. The outcome of these two is the absence of realism as the most significant paradigm of foreign policy. In order to prove the assumption, six models of Iranian foreign policy will be briefly assessed with the aim of demonstrating how the unconsciousness of Iranian ancient civilization and mystical and severely anti-science and anti-reality covers have given life to an anti-reality which has caused Iranian foreign policy patterns to be infused with unwarranted idealism. The dialectic between the two different atmospheres, however, has given way to creative models; and the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been efficient and taken the initiative in their design, implementation and assessment.
Topic:: Foreign Policy and Islam
Political Geography:: Iran

83. Issue May 2014

Author:: Arabinda Acharya
Publication Date:: 05-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: Assessing extremism requires an understanding of jihadist authority and how it relates to the vanguard role of Al Qaeda. Contrary to conventional thinking, Al Qaeda is not the supreme authority in the hierarchy of Salafi - jihadist doctrine; neither are all significant elements of the jihadist threat, many of which are decentralized, directly associated with Al Qaeda, as is the case with the Islamic State of the Levant (ISIL).
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: United States

84. The Waning Grand Strategy of Democratization: Why a Pivot to the Asia-Pacific Places the United States at Greater Risk of Terrorist Attack

Author:: David Tier
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Connections
Institution:: Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:: Our world is on a trajectory leading to a point where terrorists will eventually acquire a nuclear weapon. It is only a matter of time. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States recognized the lack of effectiveness of its previous intelligence and military efforts in deterring terrorists and sought an alternate way to defuse the radical Islamist threat. By continuing to advocate the use of military force in Iraq after weapons of mass destruction were not found, the U.S. pursued a strategy in line with the idealist school of thought by attempting to plant a democracy in the heart of the Middle East. Iraq became the centerpiece of the United States' ambitions to stop the region from exporting violence and terror, and attempted to transform it into a place of progress and peace. This effort was ambitious indeed, and many argued that these goals were be- yond the United States' ability to achieve. However, this strategy offered a possible solution to the endless cycle of violence across the Middle East and Africa and its continuing threat to U.S. national security. The current administration, in contrast, announced last year a "rebalance toward the Asia -Pacific region," ostensibly to counter the growing strength of China's military power. Like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand, this shift pivots the U.S. away from its true threat and increases the peril its citizens will face. The United States should focus its efforts on supporting democratization in troubled regions, and policy makers must counter those who criticize this strategy, including military-industrial complex advocates of the "pivot."
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: United States, Asia, and Mumbai

85. The Future of the Sinai Peninsula

Author:: Ruben Tuitel
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Connections
Institution:: Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:: The Sinai Peninsula has been a center of conflict for many years, starting with the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. After Israel and Egypt signed the Camp David Accords in 1978, it became a peaceful region, strongly controlled by the military during Hosni Mubarak's rule in Cairo. Now, after several years of non-violence, the Sinai Peninsula is once again the center of a complicated conflict. Heavy protests across Egypt in 2011 forced Hosni Mubarak to step down from the presidency, creating a security vacuum in the Sinai that allowed radical Islamists to almost freely operate in the region. During the months that followed, insurgent groups grew in number, recruiting frustrated Bedouin who have been neglected by the Egyptian government for years.
Topic:: Security, Government, and Islam
Political Geography:: Israel, Arabia, Egypt, and Sinai Peninsula

86. From the Editor, Spring 2014

Author:: Craig Biddle
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Objective Standard
Institution:: The Objective Standard
Abstract:: Welcome to the Spring 2014 issue of The Objective Standard, which begins our ninth year of publication. I want first and foremost to extend an enormous “thank you” to all of our subscribers, donors, and writers, whose material, moral, and intellectual support made our first eight years possible and laid the groundwork for what is to come. Without your initial and sustained support, TOS simply would not exist. With your support, this hub of Objectivist intellectual output is not merely existing, but thriving, expanding, and reaching more and more minds with the ideas on which human life and civilized society depend. From all of us at TOS: Thank you. Now, on to the contents at hand.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Middle East

87. Aristotle Versus Religion

Author:: Andrew Bernstein
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Objective Standard
Institution:: The Objective Standard
Abstract:: Careful observation of history reveals two dramatically different approaches to life on earth. In one approach, we see Islamic jihadists perpetrating murderous terrorist assaults around the world, virtually daily. The attack on 9/11 is the worst Islamist atrocity to date, but many have followed, including a recent attack at a shopping mall in Nairobi, in which Islamists murdered scores of people and wounded hundreds more. Similarly, we see Christians, throughout a full millennium during which they held unchallenged cultural and political power, relentlessly hunting down and slaughtering untold thousands for the “crime” of disagreeing with religious orthodoxy. And we see Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and Sikhs on the Indian subcontinent engaging in a seething inferno of violence in which millions have been slain. In the other approach, we see something utterly different. We see Copernicus, Darwin, and Einstein advancing revolutionary theories in astronomy, biology, and physics. We see Edison, Bell, and the Wright brothers pioneering life-promoting inventions. We see writers from Homer to Ayn Rand dramatizing the heroism and greatness possible to individuals committed to man's earthly existence. Here, then, are two different visions of human life: one driven by faith, the other by reason—one religious, the other secular—one irrational, often violently so; the other, rational, often brilliantly so. Most of Western history has been a struggle between these two contrasting philosophies. Religious mysticism—in this instance, proceeding from ancient Judaism—is a pernicious force in human life. Rational secularism—the creation and legacy of ancient Greek culture—is vital to proper human life. By observing Judaism, Christianity, and Islam relative to the ideas of the ancient Greeks, we can see that the essentially secular approach of Greek culture—especially the rational method Aristotle developed—is responsible for golden ages and renaissances, both in the West and in the Middle East; and that the faith-based approach of religion, when intellectually dominant, is responsible for cultural stagnation and dark ages. A clear understanding of the nature of these opposing forces—and of the struggle between them—is essential to the preservation of civilization. An essentialized survey should start at the beginning. The Greeks Give Birth to Western Civilization What did the Greeks contribute to human life? As the eminent historian Will Durant wrote, “there is hardly anything secular in our culture that does not come from Greece. Schools, gymnasiums, arithmetic, geometry, history . . . physics, biology . . . poetry, music, tragedy, comedy, philosophy . . . ethics, politics, idealism, philanthropy . . . democracy: these are all Greek words for cultural forms . . . in many cases first matured . . . by the abounding energy of the Greeks.” Philosophy is the fundamental value that men inherited from the Greeks, for it seeks to answer life's most important questions: What is the nature of the universe? How do men gain knowledge? What is human nature? What is the good? What is a good society? Philosophy attempts to give rational rather than mythic or faith-based answers to such questions. . . .
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Middle East

88. Is there a Role for Islamic International Law in the History of International Law?

Author:: Nahed Samour
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: Overcoming Eurocentrism is one of the self-proclaimed aims of the editors of The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law. In the following, I shall offer a critique of the Handbook from a largely Islamic international law perspective as (but) one example of a supranational non-European legal system. The depth of the volume covering a variety of times, spaces, and themes provides us with a much awaited tool against the 'gaps' and the 'forgetfulness' of how today's doctrines and practices of international law came about, not shying away from the voices that question the narrative of international law serving peace and justice. The Handbook is therefore laudable for a number of things.
Topic:: International Law and Islam
Political Geography:: Europe

89. Revolution and Reform in Russia and Iran: Modernisation and Politics in Revolutionary States Ghoncheh Tazmini

Author:: David Ramin Jalilvand
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Revolution and Reform in Russia and Iran: Modernisation and Politics in Revolutionary States In her comparative study, Ghoncheh Tazmini investigates the Russian revolution of 1917 and the 1979 Iranian revolution to identify patterns of continuity and change, including attempts at reform. At first, both revolutions might appear entirely different. In Russia, the Tsarist monarchy was replaced by socialism, whereas in Iran political Islam prevailed. However, Tazmini convincingly shows that both revolutions had related roots: the people's opposition to Western-inspired, autocratically enforced modernization that was endorsed by the Russian Tsars and Iranian Shahs. Moreover, in Vladimir Putin and Mohammad Khatami, she argues, both countries saw reformers with a similar outlook. By adopting beneficial Western practices without 'Westernizing' their countries, Putin and Khatami overcame the “antinomies of the past.” After the introduction, chapters two, three, and four discuss the experiences of modernization in Russia and Iran under the Romanov tsars and Pahlavi shahs. Both Peter the Great (in the 18th century) and Reza Shah (in the 20th century) sought to catch-up with developed European countries. To this end, they embarked on ambitious modernization programs, which were continued by their successors. In this context, Tazmini shows that the Russian and Iranian modernization programs only partially followed the European example. While embracing outward signs of modernity such as modern industries, state-society relations remained traditionally autocratic. Tazmini rightly grasps this as “modernization without modernity” in an attempt of “modernization from above.” Modernization from above is described as a “double helix” of economic modernization on the one hand and authoritarian political stagnation on the other hand. She notes, “Whilst both countries aspired to converge with the West by meeting its material and technological achievements, they ended up diverging by retaining the autocratic foundations of the ancient régimes.”
Topic:: Islam, Politics, and Reform
Political Geography:: Russia and Iran

90. Muslim Minorities and Citizenship: Authority, Communities and Islamic Law Sean olive-dee,

Author:: Anne Sofie Roald
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Muslim Minorities and Citizenship: Authority, Communities and Islamic Law In her comparative study, Ghoncheh Tazmini investigates the Russian revolution of 1917 and the 1979 Iranian revolution to identify patterns of continuity and change, including attempts at reform. At first, both revolutions might appear entirely different. In Russia, the Tsarist monarchy was replaced by socialism, whereas in Iran political Islam prevailed. However, Tazmini convincingly shows that both revolutions had related roots: the people's opposition to Western-inspired, autocratically enforced modernization that was endorsed by the Russian Tsars and Iranian Shahs. Moreover, in Vladimir Putin and Mohammad Khatami, she argues, both countries saw reformers with a similar outlook. By adopting beneficial Western practices without 'Westernizing' their countries, Putin and Khatami overcame the “antinomies of the past.” After the introduction, chapters two, three, and four discuss the experiences of modernization in Russia and Iran under the Romanov tsars and Pahlavi shahs. Both Peter the Great (in the 18th century) and Reza Shah (in the 20th century) sought to catch-up with developed European countries. To this end, they embarked on ambitious modernization programs, which were continued by their successors. In this context, Tazmini shows that the Russian and Iranian modernization programs only partially followed the European example. While embracing outward signs of modernity such as modern industries, state-society relations remained traditionally autocratic. Tazmini rightly grasps this as “modernization without modernity” in an attempt of “modernization from above.” Modernization from above is described as a “double helix” of economic modernization on the one hand and authoritarian political stagnation on the other hand. She notes, “Whilst both countries aspired to converge with the West by meeting its material and technological achievements, they ended up diverging by retaining the autocratic foundations of the ancient régimes.” Chapter five examines the people's opposition to the modernization from above, which resulted in the 1917 and 1979 revolutions. Tazmini argues that the contradiction inherent to modernization from above – economic development versus political stagnation – made people lose confidence in their respective state institutions. This provided the ground on which “ideological channels and fateful 'sparks' culminated in revolution” that replaced the Romanov and Pahlavi monarchies with communism in Russia and an Islamic Republic in Iran.
Topic:: Islam and Law
Political Geography:: Russia and Iran

91. he Story of Islamic Philosophy

Author:: Sajjad H. Rizvi
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: The Story of Islamic Philosophy You cannot judge a book by its cover – or even its title. Now and then, a work comes along that forces us to take notice of what the author means by giving his work a particular title. Certainly, those who pick up The Story of Islamic Philosophy might expect a conventional history of the philosophical endeavour in the world of Islam, starting with the translation movement and the appropriation of Aristotelianism and ending with the 'eclipse' of 'rational discourse' in medieval mysticism and obscurantism. The study of philosophy in Islam is rather polarised: the traditional academic field of 'Arabic philosophy' starts with the Graeco-Arabica and is very much in the mould of understanding what the Arabs owed to the Greeks and then what the Latins owed the Arabs. This book is a story of Aristotle arabus and then latinus, and hence it is not surprising that the story culminates with the ultimate Aristotelian, Averroes. Many Arab intellectuals, such as the late Muḥammad ʿĀbid al-Jābirī, have been sympathetic to such readings and wished to revive a sort of Averroist Aristotelianism in the name of reason and enlightenment. In particular, they wished to save the Arab-Islamic heritage from its 'perversion' by the Persians, starting with Avicenna and Ghazālī who initiated the shift from reason and discourse to mystagogy and 'unreason.' The models for this tradition of philosophy are the Metaphysics and the Organon of Aristotle. However, the Greek heritage was always much more than Aristotle – Plato and the thoroughly neoplatonised Aristotle were critical. If anything, a serious historical engagement with the course of philosophy in the late antiquity period, on the cusp of the emergence of Islam, demonstrates that philosophy was much more than abstract reasoning, discourse and a linearity of proof.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Europe and Arabia

92. Principles of Islamic International Criminal Law: A Comparative Search Farhad Malekian

Author:: Aysegul Cimen
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Principles of Islamic International Criminal Law: A Comparative Search As one of the major components of the Islamic state, Islamic law has drawn considerable attention from different scholars both in the East and West. Particularly, comparative studies on the historical evolution of Islamic law and its application in modern legal systems are some of the major topics in the last two decades. Peters' Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from Sixteenth to Twenty-First Century, Millers' Legislating Authority: Sin to Crime in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, Hallaq's Shari'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations, and Naim's Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari'a are some of the prominent books in the field.
Topic:: International Relations, International Law, Islam, and Law
Political Geography:: Turkey

93. Iran and Central Asia: A Cultural Perspective

Author:: Davood Kiani
Publication Date:: 12-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: One of the most important tools utilized by states to maximize their impact in foreign affairs is public diplomacy and to this extent, public diplomacy is considered a source of soft power. The robust use of public diplomacy can enhance and reinforce the soft power of countries. Central Asia is among the regions that have an ever increasing relevance to regional and international affairs in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and is currently considered a critical subsystem for our country. The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards this region is, on one hand, built on the foundation of converging factors in political, economic, and cultural arenas and looking towards opportunities for influence and cooperation. On the other hand, considering the divergent components, it also faces challenges and threats, the sum of which continues to effect the orientation of Iranian foreign policy towards the region. This article will study Iranian public diplomacy in this region and examine the opportunities and challenges, as well as, provide and proper model for a successful public diplomacy in the region of Central Asia, while taking into account the Islamic Republic of Iran's tools and potential.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, Islam, Politics, and Culture
Political Geography:: Iran and Central Asia

94. A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Diplomatic Relations between Iran and the United Kingdom (1989-2011)

Author:: Abuzar Gohari Moqaddam and Hojatollah Noori Sari
Publication Date:: 12-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: Diplomatic relationship between Iran and the United Kingdom is one of the most heated debates in the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic. The pros and cons of these relations have always been subject to argument and controversy among politicians and academics. This article seeks to analyze diplomatic ties between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United Kingdom, applying the cost-benefit analysis method. In this relationship, the costs and benefits are discussed in three situations including the maintenance, downgrading, and rupture of diplomatic relations. The main question answered by the authors is how diplomatic relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United Kingdom can be analyzed according to the cost-benefit analysis method, and what costs and benefits can be brought about for Iran in case of the rupture, downgrading or maintenance of diplomatic relations with Britain. The final conclusion of this research suggests that under the current circumstances, downgrading diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom can lead to fewer costs and further benefits for the Islamic Republic of Iran in comparison to the other two options.
Topic:: Islam and Politics
Political Geography:: Britain, United Kingdom, and Iran

95. Building Community Resilience to Violent Extremism

Author:: Stevan Weine
Publication Date:: 11-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:: Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:: The Obama administration's landmark new approach to countering violent extremism through engaging community partners calls for no less than a paradigm shift in how we understand the causes of terrorism. The shift is away from a pathways approach focused on how push and pull factors influenced one person's trajectory toward or away from violent extremism, and towards an ecological view that looks at how characteristics of the social environment can either lead to or diminish involvement in violent extremism for the persons living there. The core idea of this new paradigm, conveyed in the White House's December 2011 Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States (SIP), is that of countering violent extremism through building resilience. Denis McDonough, former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, expressed this at an Islamic center in Virginia, stating, “we know, as the President said, that the best defense against terrorist ideologies is strong and resilient individuals and communities.” Subsequent White House documents have further unpacked this, for example, in stating: “[n]ational security draws on the strength and resilience of our citizens, communities, and economy.” Resilience usually refers to persons' capacities to withstand or bounce back from adversity. It is a concept derived from engineering perspectives upon the durability of materials to bend and not break. In recent years, resilience has come to the forefront in the fields of public health, child development, and disaster relief. To scientists and policymakers, resilience is not just a property of individuals, but of families, communities, organizations, networks, and societies. Resilience-focused policies and interventions that support or enhance its components have yielded significant and cost effective gains in preventing HIV/AIDS transmission, and helping high-risk children and disaster-impacted populations. Though the present use of resilience sounds more like resistance, today's hope is that such approaches could also keep young Americans away from violent extremism. A resilience approach offers no quick fix, not in any of the aforementioned fields or in countering violent extremism. It depends upon adequately understanding what resilience means for a particular group of persons and how it has been shaped by history, politics, social context, and culture. It also depends upon government establishing and sustaining partnerships with the impacted families, communities, networks, and organizations. Additionally, it depends on government working in partnership to design, implement, and evaluate what interventions can really make a difference in building resilience, a process certain to involve trial and error
Topic:: Security and Islam
Political Geography:: United States

96. Understanding Iran

Author:: John McNeil
Publication Date:: 11-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:: Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:: William Polk, born in 1929, is one of the more successful scholar-diplomats in American life. He has written more than a dozen books, mainly on the modern Arab world, some for trade publishers and some for university presses. He taught Middle East and Islamic history at Harvard and the University of Chicago. He also served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, on the State Department's Policy Planning staff and later as an adviser to McGeorge Bundy, President Johnson's National Security Adviser, charged with handling the aftermath of 1967's Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. His latest book is his first on Iran. He has visited the country from time to time since 1956, and in the 1960s met the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and some of the Iranian political elite. Aware of the stalemate that bedevils U.S.-Iranian relations, and frustrated by what he sees as the narrowness of war-game exercises and the field of international relations, Polk wrote this book “to bring forward what war games omit: in short, what it means when we speak of Iran and Iranians.” He feels American policy-makers pay insufficient heed to the history and culture of Iran and Iranians, and are thereby baffled by what seems to them illogical behavior. If they had adequate grounding in things Iranian, he believes, they would better understand Iran, its government, its policies, and its people. Adequate grounding, in Polk's view, extends back 2,500 years. He maintains that even if the majority of Iranians alive have scant knowledge of the Achaemenid dynasty they are nonetheless influenced by it. Indeed, he writes, “I am certain that the inhabitants of Iran today are largely governed by their past regardless of whether they consciously remember it.” He appeals to Carl Jung's notion of “collective unconscious” and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's “social contract” to make his case.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: America, Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Chicago

97. Late Ottoman Society, The Intellectual Legacy

Author:: Elizabeth H. Ozdalga
Publication Date:: 11-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: STUDIES on late Ottoman society continue to be inviting for historians in many aspects. This period is not only important for historical research into the Ottoman world but also necessary for a better understanding of modern Turkey. This also can be extended to the Islamic world, including many Middle Eastern countries together with the Balkans, North Africa, and the Caucasus regions. Özdalga has made a valuable contribution with this comprehen-sive volume on the intellectual legacy of the period.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, and North Africa

98. Modern Islamist Movements, History, Religion and Politics

Author:: Azzam Tamimi
Publication Date:: 11-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: THIS BOOK is an easy to read textbook that is structured to present readers with an historical overview of some of the prominent Islamic movements active in parts of the Muslim world, specifically in West and South Asia. It comprises an introduction, five chapters, and a conclusion. The first chapter is about Egypt's Islamism with the main focus on the Muslim Brotherhood. The second chapter is on the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel. A summary of the history of the conflict leads to a discussion of Hamas, Palestine's main Islamic group. The third chapter is on Saudi Arabia tracing the roots of Wahhabism to Najd. The fourth chapter is on Pakistan with an emphasis on Mawdudi and Jama'at-I Islami. And the fifth chapter is on Afghanistan and the rise of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and Alqaida.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, Gaza, and Saudi Arabia

99. The Malian Crisis and its Actors

Author:: Dario Cristiani and Riccardo Fabiani
Publication Date:: 11-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The International Spectator
Institution:: Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:: The structural problems characterising Mali interlocked with the dynamics of crisis triggered by the war in Libya in 2011, causing the collapse of one of the few African democracies. The Tuareg rebellion of 2012, the coup d'état and the Islamist takeover of Northern Mali were the three key phases of this crisis, which pushed France - the former colonial patron - to intervene military. After analysing the major local actors involved in the crisis, the article critically analyses the engagement of the EU in the crisis.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Africa, France, and Mali

100. Ful text issue: Volume 8, Number 2, 2013

Author:: Mehmet Karakaş
Publication Date:: 06-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: The construction of identity is one of the determinant factors in constructing a valid individual and social world, for identities are constructed both individually and socially. Identities through the demarcation of political boundaries the internalization of the essential dissimilarity of the other is created and the theoretical underpinning of actual practices is formulated. In addition, it always requires a politicized society. The construction processes of identity in Turkish society have always functioned as a dynamic of political change. In fact, policy formed around identity politics has always been an essential determining factor on political, and in general, on the social structure from Ottoman to modern times. At turning points in the history of societies, changes in the issue of identity also occur. The developments that took place under the partiality for Westernization and in the post-1980 neo-liberal process exhibit variations in the identity construction of the Turkish community. In this study, the politics and sociology of identity will be discussed in relation to the formulations of identity from the time of Ottoman Turkey to the modern Turkish Republic.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Turkey

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