Suchergebnisse

Against the background of defining, theorizing, humanizing, nationalizing, and globalizing religion in South Africa, this essay recalls the diverse ways in which religious fundamentalism has registered in South Africa as an 'inauthentic' claim on religious authenticity. Tracking academic and media attention to religious fundamentalism at ten-year intervals, we find Christian fundamentalism appearing during the 1970s as contrary to the apartheid state, during the 1980s as legitimating the apartheid state, and during the 1990s as resisting the new democratic dispensation. By the 1990s, however, attention to religious fundamentalism, locally and globally, shifted to focus on varieties of politicized Islam. As this brief historical review suggests, the term, 'fundamentalism,' whether applied to Jesus People in Johannesburg during the 1970s or People Against Gangsterism and Drugs during the 1990s, has been a recurring but shifting sign of a crisis of authenticity. In conclusion, South African perspectives on religion, the state, and authenticity can be drawn into analyzing the current crisis of fundamentalism in our rapidly globalizing and increasingly polarized world.

This essay deals with religious fundamentalist movements engaged in democratic politics: a phenomenon still not thoroughly analyzed by comparative political science. First of all, it proposes a definition of religious fundamentalism which can be suitable for political science research (connecting the existing theories about fundamentalism to the literature about collective identities and social movements: particularly the political opportunity structure and resource mobilization models). Later, it takes into account four cases of religious fundamentalist movements in democratic regimes: the Christian right in the USA, the sangh parivar in India, the Jewish religious nationalist movement in Israel, and the Islamist movement in Turkey. In this section, the main features of the movements' mobilization and their political strategies are singled out. The work eventually tries to find out common patterns by comparing the different movements, their relationship with politics, and their impact on public policies. Particularly, it proposes a typology of fundamentalist movements in democracy, according to their political strategies and the ideological orientation of their issues.

The following article will attempt to present characteristics of religious fundamentalism. The task requires addressing terminological and methodological issues, which seem to constitute the weakest link in the overall research of the phenomenon. Even a cursory analysis of the available data points to the fact, that comparative studies are in minority, while an overwhelming majority of all research focuses on particular instances of fundamentalism, most commonly within one speci€c religion. ree preliminary observations can be made. Firstly, usually the case is that of either methodological maximalism or minimalism. The work edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby Fundamentalisms Observed, signi€cant as it was, can serve as a valid example of maximalist approach. The phenomenon discussed therein is viewed in the broad perspective, thus it becomes almost synonymous to traditionalism, nationalism, orthodoxy or communalism.

Religious fundamentalism has risen to worldwide prominence since the 1970s. We review research on fundamentalist movements to learn what religious fundamentalisms are, if and why they appear to be resurging, their characteristics, their possible links to violence, and their relation to modernity. Surveying work over the past two decades, we find both substantial progress in sociological research on such movements and major holes in conceptualizing and understanding religious fundamentalism. We consider these weaknesses and suggest where research might next be directed.

Annotation

This volume explores the relationships between fundamentalist religious belief, political extremism and outbreaks of religiously inspired violence.

The attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the United States of September 11th, 2001 brought the phenomenon of religious fundamentalism to the world's attention.Sociological research has clearly demonstrated that fundamentalists are primarily reacting against modernity, and believe that they are fighting for the very survival of their faith against the secular enemy. But we understand very little about how and why people join fundamentalist movements and embrace a set of beliefs, values and norms of behaviour which are counter-cultural. This is essentially a question for social