Suchergebnisse

This article analyzes the struggle of the Women of the Wall (WoW), a minority group of religious, activist, and feminist women challenging the Orthodox, male, hegemonic status quo at Judaism's holiest site: the Western Wall. Since 1988, the group has been holding prayer services every Rosh Hodesh at the Wall with and without interruptions according to its custom—wrapped in colorful tallitot and reading aloud from the Torah. This article, based on interviews with the major political actors involved and content analysis of primary documents and publications, presents the action strategies of the various parties involved and analyzes the dispute's conflict resolution methods. It explores a series of questions: first, what has enabled legal and public recognition of a minority group's local custom that challenges the hegemonic status quo at the Western Wall? Second, how has a small group of women succeeded over more powerful forces in breaking the status quo in favor of a gender-oriented, pluralistic-religious agenda? Third, what are the implications of these achievements for arrangements at the Wall and other contentious holy places? This case contributes to existing scholarship on religious feminism as well as on shared and divided holy spaces, as the controversy exists not between two religions, but between different streams within Judaism.

"A multi-author undergraduate textbook on conflict studies in international politics. Chapters by leading scholars cover topics like gender, peacekeeping, terrorism, civil wars, nuclear weapons, environmental stresses and conflict, and public opinion. It takes quantitative and qualitative approaches, including case studies on the Ukraine conflict"--

Do societal inequalities limit the effectiveness of democratic regimes? And if so, why? And how? Addressing this question, Bernd Reiter focuses on the role of societal dynamics in undermining democracy in Brazil. Reiter explores the ways in which race, class, and gender in Brazil structure a society that is deeply divided between the included and the excluded—and where much of the population falls into the latter category. Tracing the mechanisms of the profound cultural resistance to genuine democratization that he finds dominant among the elite, his theoretically and empirically rich analysis offers an alternative way of understanding both the nature of Brazilian democracy and the democratization process throughout Latin America

Cover -- Half Title -- Endorsement -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- Learning From the Global South -- The Arrogance of Western Philosophy -- The Centrality of Critique -- The Genius Motive -- Constructing World History Based On the Scantest of Sources -- Making a Difference in the World -- Structure of this Book -- Bibliography -- 1 Decolonizing Epistemology: Fuzzy Logic -- Ontology, Epistemology, Methodology -- Aristotelian Logic -- Conquest and Categorization -- The World Against Aristotle -- Fuzzy Logic Today: Toward an Operationalization of Fuzzy Logic -- Conclusion -- Note -- Bibliography -- 2 Decolonizing Citizenship: Candomblé Nationhood -- Against Western Epistemological Dominance -- Candomblés Da Bahia -- Candomblé Nationhood -- Salvador: City of Women -- Becoming Yoruba: Joining a Nation By Initiation -- Jus Ritualis -- Implications -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- 3 Decolonizing Republicanism: Maroon Republics -- Free Maroon City-Republics: Cimarron Republicanism -- Maroon Political Autonomy in Colombia: Cimarron Republicanism -- The Loss of Autonomy Republican Palenquera -- Cimarron Resistance: the Kuagro -- The Kuagro as the Matrix for Political and Civic Organizing -- Seeking Political Autonomy -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 4 First People of the Americas: Lessons On Democracy, Citizenship, and Politics -- Politics -- The State -- Only Tribes Will Survive: Escaping Wétiko -- The Wintukua - Guardians of the Earth -- Political Leadership -- A Culture of Responsibility -- Conclusions -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 5 The African Origins of Democracy -- Counter-history -- The Timeline -- Against Civilization -- Democracy -- Hunter-Gatherer Egalitarianism and Direct Democracy -- Africa -- Egypt, Phoenicia, Babylon, and Carthage -- Women and Rule -- Kgotla -- Conclusion -- Note.

This book proposes a radical new way of thinking about our democratic future, our ecological survival, and our ways to keep economies fair. It shows that adopting upper limits to wealth and income; replacing elections with local direct democracy and legal duty involving randomly selected citizens; and replacing welfare and redistribution policies with pre-distribution and reparations promises new solutions to political apathy, discontent, manipulation, economic inequality, unfairness, unequal opportunities, and looming ecological disaster. --

In Decolonizing the Social Sciences and the Humanities Bernd Reiter contributes to the ongoing efforts to decolonize the social sciences and humanities, by arguing that true decolonization implies a liberation from the elite culture that Western civilization has perpetually promoted. Reiter brings together lessons learned from field research on a Colombian indigenous society, a maroon society, also in Colombia, from Afro-Brazilian religion, from Spanish Anarchism, and from German Council democracy, and from analyzing non-Western ontologies and epistemologies in general. He claims that once these lessons are absorbed, it becomes clear that Western civilization has advanced individualization and elitism. The chapters present the case that human beings are able to rule themselves, and have done so for some 300,000 years, before the Neolithic Revolution. Self-rule and rule by councils is our default option once we rid ourselves of leaders and rulers. Reiter concludes by considering the massive manipulations and the heinous divisions that political elitism, dressed in the form of representative democracy, has brought us, and implores us to seek true freedom and democracy by liberating ourselves from political elites and taking on political responsibilities. Decolonizing the Social Sciences and the Humanities is written for students, scholars, and social justice activists across cultural anthropology, sociology, geography, Latin American Studies, Africana Studies, and political science.

This case describes an effort to improve quantitative data on interstate wars. Specifically, the effort arose from three concerns about the very widely used Correlates of War data set on interstate wars. First, there are factual errors in the Correlates of War data set. Second, there are inconsistent applications of coding rules within the Correlates of War data. Third, the structure of the Correlates of War data set aggregated information in a manner that concealed important information and in some cases led to inappropriate empirical inferences. These factors led my coauthors and I to create a new data set on interstate wars, the Interstate War Data. That data set attempted to replicate the Correlates of War data, in the sense of using essentially the same coding rules as Correlates of War, albeit with more extensive historical research, more consistent applications of coding rules, and with slightly different structure to provide more information to users. The results of our efforts were quite surprising. We found an error (from flawed historical research or inconsistent application of coding rules) in the coding of at least one consequential variable (whether the conflict qualified as a war, who started the war, who participated in the war, and who won the war) in more than one third of Correlates of War interstate wars. We also found that the structure of how Correlates of War treated some wars, namely, aggregating very complicated multilateral conflicts such as World War II, omitted a tremendous amount of important information about war participation and outcomes. This project demonstrated the critical importance of investing time and energy in maximizing the quality of data.

Die erste umfassende Studie zu den personellen und ideologischen NS-Kontinuitäten in der 1956 gegründeten FPÖ.Nach Kriegsende blieben zahlreiche überzeugte Nationalsozialisten ihrer Gesinnung treu und bewegten sich in einem gemeinsamen sozialen und politischen Erinnerungsmilieu. Viele dieser »Ehemaligen« organisierten sich bald wieder politisch und vertraten selbstbewusst ihre Agenda. In Österreich formierten sie sich vor allem im Verband der Unabhängigen (VdU) und in der 1956 gegründeten Freiheitlichen Partei Österreichs (FPÖ).Margit Reiter zeichnet in ihrem Buch erstmals diesen politischen Formierungsprozess der »Ehemaligen« nach. Die Autorin zeigt die personellen wie auch ideologischen Kontinuitäten zum Nationalsozialismus in der FPÖ anschaulich auf und unterzieht die politische Karriere des Parteigründers und vormaligen NS-Funktionärs Anton Reinthaller einer kritischen Analyse.Die Studie von Margit Reiter gibt einen tiefen Einblick in das Binnenmilieu der »Ehemaligen« und ihren vielfältigen Verflechtungen mit der freiheitlichen Partei. Die erste umfassende Geschichte zur (frühen) FPÖ und ihrem Verhältnis zum Nationalsozialismus füllt nicht nur eine eklatante Forschungslücke, sondern ist auch von hoher politischer Aktualität.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Tables -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Learning in International Politics -- 3. Realism, Balance of Threat, and Alliances -- 4. Cases, Hypotheses, and Variables -- 5. Quantitative Results -- 6. Case Studies: Lessons Heeded -- 7. Case Studies: Lessons Not Learned? -- 8. Political Structure and Learning -- 9. Conclusion -- Select Bibliography -- Index