Suchergebnisse

Identities in Crisis in Iran describes how identity, especially when it is faced with fundamental tensions as in the case of Iran, is a phenomenon that is constantly developing via factors involving the private self and common social factors such as the conflict between the Persian culture and the Shi'a religion.

The aim of this note is to present the main results of a survey carried out in 2011 which gathers information on French academics' opinions and attitudes toward politics, economics, religion and ethical beliefs. The sample of respondents is large (N = 2,000) and the survey allows a comparison between academics and the overall French population by replicating questions of traditional surveys (EVS and Dynegal). We observe that French academics are considerably more left-wing, more hostile to free-market economy and more atheist than French citizens. Interestingly, a significant share of academics tends to adopt ethical guidelines that are similar to those of religious people.

Abstract
QAnon is beginning to gain attention in scholarly circles, but these sources often disagree about how to categorize the movement. This amounts to the meta-dispute between those who view QAnon primarily as a religious "cult," and those who grant it greater credibility as a political populist movement. Using quantitative and qualitative methods we test the proposition that QAnon could be a mix of both. Results from both analyses suggest that QAnon is best understood primarily as a political populist movement, but one that utilizes religious rhetoric. The findings thus highlight the asymmetric nature of the conflation of religion and politics in the contemporary American civil sphere.

This volume is a collection of essays on the role of religion in American politics (both domestic and international). It presents an international and interdisciplinary perspective, introducing also a theoretical debate concerning the conceptualization of political science of religion.

In this paper we offer a critical assessment of the politics of the Christian Right and question the degree to which the religious values of the Christian Right are compatible with a democratic political culture. If religious values are equally political values making the separation of religious belief and political action a fraught exercise, then a number of issues arise. Political action inspired by religious faith should not prevent critical scrutiny of the underlying values, or more importantly, their influence in shaping public debate and public policy. If religious values are indeed political values, then do protections of freedom of religious expression privilege forms of faith-based politics over secular forms? And if so, to what end? We argue that a more nuanced analysis of the intersection of religion and politics is required to ensure that public politics is not threatened by particular forms of religious political activism that exhibit totalitarian tendencies. At the very least, close attention needs to be focused on particular policy advocates and the agenda they seek to advance with little accountability or transparency despite claims to represent the public interest. It is to these ends that this paper makes a contribution

In the postmodern world, the so-called 'pre-established' identities have become questionable in the senses of belonging to well-defined communities with stable self-perception and also with recognized codes of behavior. The renewed interest in identity and the construction of knowledge from the 1990s onwards has provoked a shift from considering communities as 'given' to investigating the power relations and discourses by which they are constantly defined and redefined. Substantiating the domain of religion as one where 'magic bullet' explanations are rife, the political connotation of 'identity' vis-à-vis religion also links contemporary religion to identity. In India, the varieties of social collectivities such as castes, religion, clan, communities etc have tended to be shaped in the name of ethnic and social identities. Thus it is high time to study the status of religio-cultural practices in the modern world and to identify their relevance in contemporary society. This paper not only attempts to highlight the 'maile' congregation (annual community gathering) through 'kul-deity' worship as adaptation and continuity of traditional elements in the modern circumstances but also tries to extract the political dimension of the phenomenon.

Malta became a British colony in 1800 and its function was that of a fortress within an imperial network. This influenced all that happened in the colony along the nineteenth century. Not least affected was the sphere of education where a main feature of Anglicisation was the forceful attempt to change Malta's everyday school language from Italian to English. This was no easy task as the Maltese pro-Italian party, the Nationalists, made every effort to impede and overturn any such British attempt. To add to the tension, the British were religiously Protestant and this clashed with the sentiments of the predominantly Roman Catholic native population. Thus the vigilant Catholic Church viewed with suspicion all that was attempted in education by the colonial Government. There was a continuous concern that the British would use schools to convert the Maltese to Protestantism. In such an atmosphere life in schools was by no means easygoing. Teachers bore the brunt of contrasts and concerns without having the space to show their distress. ; peer-reviewed

Scholars in International Relations concerned with religion and its relations to world politics are rhetorically constructing a powerful modern myth. A component of this myth is that religion is inherently violent and irrational unless controlled by the secular state, which is inherently rational and only reluctantly violent. Timothy Fitzgerald discusses how, in this modern myth, 'religion' appears as a force of nature which either assists or threatens the sacred secular order of things, and how religion is portrayed as a kind of universal essence which takes many forms, its recent most danger

The interactions between religion and politics are analyzed at two crucial moments during the development of the Cold War in Guatemala. The first one is that of the October Revolution 1944-1954 and the Counterrevolution, and the second one refers to the years when violence reached its peak during the civil war, specifically 1982-1983, when Efraín Ríos Montt ruled Guatemala. The way in which religion and politics intertwined at both moments had a significant impact on the ongoing disputes around state formation. The arrangements forged between religious elites and the State facilitated processes that established the presence and sociocultural influence of the Catholic Church from the first moment on and of the evangelical churches after the second. ; Las interacciones entre religión y política son analizadas en dos momentos cruciales durante el desarrollo de la Guerra Fría en Guatemala: la Revolución de Octubre 1944-1954 y la Contrarrevolución, y los años de 1982 y 1983 cuando Efraín Ríos Montt gobernó Guatemala y la violencia alcanzó el punto más álgido durante la guerra interna. La manera en que religión y política se entrelazaron en ambos momentos tuvo un impacto significativo en las disputas que estaban en curso en torno a la transformación del Estado. Los acomodos que se forjaron entre elites religiosas y Estado facilitaron procesos que afincaron la presencia e influencia sociocultural de la Iglesia católica a partir del primer momento y de las iglesias evangélicas después del segundo.

The notion of a 'politics of religion' refers to the increasing role that religion plays in the politics of the contemporary world. This book presents comparative country case studies on the politics of religion in South and South Asia, including India, Pakistan and Indonesia. The politics of religion calls into question the relevance of modernist notions of secularism and democracy, with the emphasis instead on going back to indigenous roots in search of authentic ideologies and models of state and nation building. Within the context of the individual countries, chapters focus on the consequences that politics of religion has on inclusive nation-building, democracy and the rights of individuals, minorities and women. The book makes a contribution to both the theoretical and conceptual literature on the politics of religion as well as shed light on the implications and ramifications of the politics of religion on contemporary South Asian and South East Asian countries. It is of interest to students and scholars of South and South East Asian Studies, as well as Comparative Politics.