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The Islamic Welfare State explains the relationship between government legitimacy, everyday security, and lived Islam in Pakistan-a major Muslim-majority country. Its humanitarian spirit makes Islam a compelling, community-strengthening faith that motivates people to provide essential services to the needy, to foster moral sentiments that build social solidarity, and to thereby challenge the legitimacy of government with its focus on 'protecting Islam' and 'national security' rather than enhancing the lives of ordinary people. The book surveys four kinds of Islamic charities-traditional, professional, partisan, and state. The focus is on ground realities, on the activities of welfare workers and beneficiaries, mostly patients and students from low-income families. The attention to the different political sentiments that different kinds of charity foster allows us to better understand politics and political change in Pakistan and across the Muslim world.

Draghici contends that the advent of assisted reproductive technologies has given rise to new fundamental, albeit not unqualified, rights. They include the right to use medically assisted procreation (e.g. artificial insemination, in vitro fertilisation, potentially gamete donation, posthumous conception or surrogacy) in order to become a parent (typically where natural procreation is hindered by infertility, sexual orientation, relationship status or adverse life events), the recognition of intention-based parenthood in relation to donor-conceived children jointly planned and raised with the genetic parent, and the right to pursue the conception of a healthy child (e.g. through recourse to preimplantation genetic diagnosis and embryo selection to avoid severe illness in future offspring). To substantiate this claim, the book relies on a comprehensive analysis of international case-law on procreative autonomy, contextualised by a discussion of highly divisive bioethical controversies, from the status of embryos to the morality of genetic screening and third-party reproduction.

This Element aims to build, promote, and consolidate a new social science research agenda by defining and exploring the concepts of turbulence and robustness, and subsequently demonstrating the need for robust governance in turbulent times. Turbulence refers to the unpredictable dynamics that public governance is currently facing in the wake of the financial crisis, the refugee crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the inflation crisis etc. The heightened societal turbulence calls for robust governance aiming to maintain core functions, goals and values by means of flexibly adapting and proactively innovating the modus operandi of the public sector. This Element identifies a broad repertoire of robustness strategies that public governors may use and combine to respond robustly to turbulence. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

For the duration of Myanmar's experiment with electoral democracy, why did some women run for political office, and not others? What role did gatekeepers such as party leaders play in those decisions, and using what criteria in selecting candidates? How did experience of domestic violence or harassment affect women's likelihood to participate in politics, especially beyond the local level? And what implications might these earlier patterns have for a post-coup Myanmar, should meaningful elections be restored?The contributors to Putting Women Up: Gender Equality and Politics in Myanmar answer these questions by examining the internal politics of nine political parties in Myanmar and both men's and women's attitudes towards and experiences of political leadership. Drawing on extensive interview, survey, and focus-group discussion data collected from across Myanmar in 2017 and 2020, this book offers a mixed-methods approach to explain how factors from party rules to formative personal trauma to patriarchal biases to ethno-religious context shape women's and men's likelihood to join local and national politics. The findings expand on culturalist insights on gender inequality to provide context-sensitive, evidence-backed policy recommendations to promote women's political leadership, despite militarization and violence in post-coup Myanmar.

The concept of political fandom, the state of being fans of a politician or of a political party, played a crucial role during Thailand's General Election in 2023. Fandom contributed to the popularity on social media of politicians, such as Pita Limjaroenrat, the Move Forward Party's leader and prime ministerial candidate.The strategies involved in achieving celebrity status for politicians are varied. This paper provides a case study of the factors behind the success of Pita and the Move Forward Party and contrasts these with reasons why Pita's key political opponents were less effective.It argues that the digital age and the transcendence of politics into pop culture, where celebrity status and fandom can drive electoral outcomes, signify a profound shift in democratic participation, political engagement and the very fabric of Thai politics.While fandom has become a stream in participatory democracy, it also highlights the polarized and temperamental nature of Thailand's contemporary hyper-partisan political scene.

The emphasis on cultural connectivity in China's growing presence and involvement in Southeast Asia highlights the importance China places on people-to-people exchanges as part of its global engagement strategy.The remarkable ascension of China over the recent decades has precipitated a proliferation of anti-China sentiments, particularly galvanized within the crucible of a 'discourse war' with Western powers, as expressed in the latter's 'China threat' narrative.In response to such challenges, China has made substantial investments in cultural diplomacy, to augment its soft power through orchestrated global outreach initiatives.This article examines Chinese cultural diplomacy in the realm of entertainment, specifically 'The Melody of Spring: Transnational Spring Festival Gala' hosted in Nanning, Guangxi, and disseminated globally each Chinese New Year.Against the legacy of China-Indonesia bilateral relations as well as Indonesia's treatment of its Chinese minority, this study explores China's cultural diplomacy and soft power in contemporary Indonesia. Through the case study of the 'Transnational Spring Festival Gala', this article posits that China's cultural dissemination as an instrument of soft power has yielded little influence on the Indonesian public and has limited impact on the formation of a transnational imagined community.

After more than a decade of deliberations, ASEAN leaders agreed on 11 November 2022 in principle to admit Timor-Leste as the eleventh member of the regional organization and to grant Timor-Leste observer status to attend all ASEAN meetings. Timor-Leste has demonstrated positive developmental progress, and fact-finding missions across the three ASEAN Community pillars have returned generally optimistic results.Timor-Leste has put in place institutional structures and implementing agencies for advancing cooperation with ASEAN. It is also moving towards harmonizing its laws with ASEAN instruments. However, its capacity remains in question due to a lack of substantive knowledge and technical expertise among government officials, as well as inadequate infrastructure, logistics and facilities for hosting ASEAN meetings.Strengthening human capital will be a top priority for Timor-Leste. This includes not only enhancing its personnel's knowledge and technical expertise on ASEAN processes and procedures but also skills such as English language proficiency and negotiation. Coordinated capacity-building assistance from ASEAN and dialogue partners will be important. These efforts must also be met with economic diversification and growth of its nascent private sector.Apart from bridging gaps, ASEAN needs to grapple with its reservations that Timor-Leste's economic limitations may slow down the realization of the ASEAN Economic Community. There are also concerns that Timor-Leste's membership may entrench differences within the bloc, particularly with regard to geopolitical issues, and dilute the organization's effectiveness or further complicate the consensus-based decision-making process.

This paper discusses Chinese President Xi Jinping's flagship global initiatives' normative implications for the world order.It argues that the Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI) and Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), which are key pillars of China's proposal to build a community of common destiny for mankind, are driven by Beijing's desire to cultivate authority in the international system.Analysing the speeches by Chinese leaders, policy documents, media and analytical discourse in China, along with policy decisions, this study provides an assessment of the Chinese leadership's worldview. It places the launch of GDI, GSI and GCI within this context, before detailing the elements of each initiative and offering a critical analysis.This study concludes that through GDI, GSI and GCI, the Chinese leadership hopes to shape an external environment that not only ensures regime security but is also favourable to China's development and security interests. In doing so, however, it is reshaping key norms of global governance towards a fundamentally illiberal direction.

Power and empowerment are critical topics for social change. This handbook maps out ways that people can collectively engage with, influence, and change systems that affect their lives, particularly the systems that maintain inequality and oppression. It includes in-depth examinations of a variety of approaches to building and exercising community power in local organizations, institutions, and settings. Each chapter examines a particular approach, critically engaging with contemporary research on how and when collective action can be most effective at producing change within communities and societal systems. By examining a range of approaches in diverse contexts, this book provides new insights for scholars, practitioners, and engaged resident-leaders aiming to be more precise, strategic, and innovative in their efforts to build and sustain community power. It is the ideal resource for those working with community groups to build more just and equitable systems.

Understanding human behaviour, thoughts, and emotional expressions can be challenging in the global context. Due to cultural differences, the study of psychology cannot be de-contextualised. This calls for unearthing of the explanatory systems that exist in Africa to understand and account for behaviour, emotions, and cognition of Africans. This call is addressed through the emergence of African Psychology (AP) or Indigenous Psychology in Africa (IPA) as a legitimate science of human experience. This Element discusses the motivations for AP, centrality of culture, demarcations of AP, and the different strands within AP. It highlights issues related to African philosophy, African cultural anthropology, African philosophy of science, and suitable methodological approaches for AP research. It also discusses some selected theoretical contributions and applications of AP. The Element concludes that AP researchers and practitioners need to pursue interdisciplinarity and avoid meaningless rejection of good ideas from other cultural settings.

One Health emerges from the contingent scientific, social, and political realities of environmentalism. The concept mixes the land, sea, and sky with geopolitics on the global stages of the United Nations and World Health Organization. It inspires new investment in conservation and public health, motivates interdisciplinary collaboration, and in practice implicates green economies and animal law as well. This Element does not tackle all of this but attempts to situate One Health in the catastrophe of COVID-19; a socio-ecological upheaval prophetic of the inevitable next pandemic evolving from planetary climate crisis of our own making. One Health Environmentalism argues that humanity's future depends upon extending an olive branch to biotic communities, by being less speciesist and less blind to the rights in nature.

All children deserve access to the conditions and opportunities needed to thrive, including unbiased accessible healthcare and high-quality learning opportunities; safe, toxin-free communities and stable housing; access to nutritious meals; and secure, warm, available, and loving caregivers. Historic and contemporary injustices in US society have created inequities in opportunity and access to resources for Black, Latine, Asian, American Indian and Alaska Native, and other children of color, children with disabilities, children in poverty, and other marginalized children; these have contributed to stark disparities across child development outcomes. This Element overviews inequities in economic, educational, and health systems through historical and contemporary perspectives and describes how these inequities impact children and families. Solutions to address these inequities are considered for a fairer US society, starting with its youngest residents, where all families have what they need to thrive. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Learning is critical for our capacity to govern the environment and adapt proactively to complex and emerging environmental issues. Yet, underlying barriers can challenge our capacity for learning in environmental governance. As a result, we often fail to adequately understand pressing environmental problems or produce innovative and effective solutions. This Element synthesizes insights from extensive academic and applied research on learning around the world to inform both research and practice. We distill the social and structural features of governance to help researchers and practitioners better understand, diagnose, and support learning and more adaptive responses to environmental problems.

The clean energy transition momentum is gathering pace globally, and in Southeast Asia as well. The transition is dependent on an uninterrupted supply of critical minerals and metals that are essential for the production of low-carbon technologies.The supply of critical minerals is impeded by several constraints. First is the dominance of a handful of countries in both the upstream and downstream parts of the supply chain. Second is the current geopolitical race to secure supplies leading to greater protectionist behaviours, exhibited through export bans and trade impediments.This study focuses on four selected critical minerals which are important to the region. Two criteria are used in determining a mineral having high significance: (1) There are significant deposits of it which can be tapped on to bolster Southeast Asia's strategic position in the supply chains; and (2) It is an essential input in industries and sectors of importance in Southeast Asia. The four critical minerals examined in this study are: copper, nickel, bauxite (alumina), and rare earth elements (REEs).,br>The study makes thre#e recommendations to enhance ASEAN's role in the critical minerals supply chains. The first addresses the insufficiency of investments in early-stage exploration and exploitation of critical minerals. The second appeals for investments at all stages, including in technology to tap into downstream activities beyond refining and purification, and in the manufacturing of component parts. The third calls for improvements in sustainability management in the mining sector, which is generally extremely environmentally and socially damaging to communities.

Developing Africa? New Horizons with Afrocentricity aims to contest the Eurocentric narrative of an African development discourse. This book deploys the theory of Afrocentricity as an intellectual standpoint from which African thinkers should interrogate and reconceptualize the discourse of development in Africa. Particularly, the book argues in favour of the Afrocentric re-interpretation of African history, African culture and assertion of African agency as the core building wedge in the reconceptualization of the ideal African development trajectory.