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Intro -- Contents -- Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 Peripheral Social Formation: Drive for Modernity -- 2 Gender Polity: The Status of Women -- 3 Peripheral State: Politics of Modernization -- 4 Political Mobilization: Women's Struggle for Equality -- 5 Politics of Regression: Women in the Post- Soviet Era -- 6 Women's Empowerment: Prospects for the Future -- Appendix: Bilateral Agreement Between the Republic of Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on the Voluntary Return of Refugees -- Bibliography -- Index.

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of state-society development in the most volatile region of the world. In the Middle East, various anti-systemic movement and radical Islam often clashed and resisted the political, cultural, economic, and military domination of the region by the world's major imperial powers. Emadi investigates state, revolution, and development in the Middle Eastern states of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria in the immediate post-World War II period. Maintaining that the state is an instrument of class domination, exhibiting a certain degree of autonomy in the creation and design of domestic development programs, he details the role of class in an attempt to provide a better understanding of the diverse factors at work. Politics of the Dispossessed provides an alternative analysis of development in regional politics and its context in world politics, aspects that are generally neglected by most mainstream studies. It examines state formation, internal development strategies, and how class conflict and ideology led to class alliance on an international basis, as well as the external interference in the internal affairs of these societies. It also explores the process of political and ethnic integration of the Middle East into the global economic system and the resulting counter-strategies of the nationalist and Islamic resistance to the increasing superpower domination of the international system. -- Publisher description.

This article studies the emergence of radical Islam in the immediate post-World War II period in Afghanistan. It examines how the struggle for political hegemony and cultural domination of the country spurred the resurgence of militant Islamic ideology and politics in the 1960s and 1970s. The article also explores the role of Islamic militancy during the war of national liberation which forced the Soviets to withdraw their forces from Afghanistan after a decade of occupation (1979-1989).Also discussed is the inability of the leaders of Islamic parties to reconcile their philosophical differences and unite around a common political agenda to rebuild the war-tom country. It shows how continued armed struggle for power among various Islamic groups eventually led to the total destruction of the country's infrastructure in the immediate post-Soviet era and suggests what should be done to maintain unity and stability.

This paper examines the process of societal development in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan prior to and during the era of socialist construction in the early 1930s and 1940s. It studies the basis of a shift from popular-based participatory development to a bureaucratic and top-down approach to societal transformation in the 1950s and onward until the demise of the Soviet imperial power and the emergence of the independent republic of Tajikistan.A major focus is the argument that bureaucratization of state and society in Tajikistan in the 1960s and 1970s led to the emergence of anti-establishment discourse as seen in the increasing Islamization in the 1980s and subsequent armed clashes between defenders of the status quo and those of privatization and market economy in the 1990s. The war which resulted in the collapse of administrative and economic activities in Tajikistan, particularly in the Gorno-Badakhshan region, attracted international attention. This paper also analyzes the role of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) in the process of reconstruction, privatization and integration of Gorno- Badakhshan into the world community in the twenty-first century.

The Sino-Soviet rift in the 1950s caused the two countries to take divergent paths in their advocacy of an international communist movement. China's ideological support of anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle was especially well received in Iran, and Maoist organizations there quickly set out to propagate China's revolutionary politics in the region, at the same time diluting that of pro-Soviet organizations. China's alliance with Iran as a counter to Soviet expansion, particularly as it was enhanced by China's improved relations with the United States, gradually took precedence over its ideological support of revolutionary movements in Iran. China's post-Mao policy of expansion of political influence in Iran received its impetus from the U.S.-Soviet support of Iran during the Iran- Iraq conflict. In order to assert its influence in the region China began to strengthen its political and trade relations with Iran as well as with Iran's adversary, Iraq. Directions taken by the present Chinese leadership continue to deemphasize ideological support of revolutionary struggle in favor of more capitalist-oriented policies.

Hindus and Sikhs, longtime minority religious communities in Afghanistan, have played a major role in the social, cultural, and economic development of the country. Their history in Afghanistan has not been faithfully documented nor relayed beyond the country's borders by their resident educated strata or religious leaders, rendering them virtually invisible and voiceless within and outside of their country borders. The situation of Hindu and Sikh women in Afghanistan is significantly more marginalized socially and politically. Gender equality and women's rights were central to the teachings of Guru Nanak, but gradually became irrelevant to the daily lives of his followers in Afghanistan. Hindu and Sikh women have sustained their hope for change and seized any opportunity presented to play a role in the process. Active participants in the social, cultural, and religious life of their respective communities as well as in Afghanistan's government, their contributions to social changes and the political process have gone mostly unnoticed and undocumented as their rights, equality, and standing in the domestic and public arena in Afghanistan continue to erode in the face of continuous discrimination and harassment.

This article studies the role of parliament and parliamentarians in Afghanistan with a particular focus on women during the Constitutional Period 1964-1973, the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the re-establishment of the parliamentary system a few years after the United States toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001 and installed Hamid Karzai as head of the new government. It examines how elements of Afghanistan's political landscape contributed to radicalization of the country's politics and the subsequent mobilization of women as they joined political organizations to advance the cause of women.After the parliamentary elections in 2005 women made concerted efforts todefine their role in the political arena. After securing seats in the parliamentfemale representatives, particularly those with radical political orientations, became even more assertive not only in expressing their views on gender issues but also in challenging the regressive views of their male counterparts during the legislative processes.The role of women in the male-dominated parliament and how they havedealt with traditional cultural and political hurdles as well as vocal oppositionand public insults from their male counterparts in parliamentary debates on sociopolitical and economic issues is the focus of this study.

The situation of Hindus and Sikhs as a persecuted minority is a little-studied topic in literature dealing with ethno-sectarian conflict in Afghanistan. Hindu and Sikh communities' history and role in Afghanistan's development are examined through a structural, political, socioeconomic, and perceptual analysis of the minority populations since the country gained its independence in 1919. It traces a timeline of their evolving status after the breakdown of state structure and the ensuing civil conflicts and targeted persecution in the 1990s that led to their mass exodus out of the country. A combination of structural failure and rising Islamic fundamentalist ideology in the post-Soviet era led to a war of ethnic cleansing as fundamentalists suffered a crisis of legitimation and resorted to violence as a means to establish their authority. Hindus and Sikhs found themselves in an uphill battle to preserve their culture and religious traditions in a hostile political environment in the post-Taliban period. The international community and Kabul failed in their moral obligation to protect and defend the rights of minorities and oppressed communities.

The Baath Party has ruled Syria with an iron fist since the 1960s, curbing civil liberties and imprisoning and executing anyone who dared oppose its rule. A major anti-Baath struggle erupted in the 1980s as Syrians rebelled, trying to topple the repressive regime. The ruling party violently suppressed dissidents and maintained its death grip on power. The 2011 public uprising against the regime was significant in its countrywide scope. Inspired by the fight of people throughout the Arab world, it challenged the authority of the despotic leader. Disenchanted Syrians organized protest rallies, demanding demonstrable change and freedom and an end to decades of repressive rule — a struggle whose successful conclusion depends on the resiliency of oppressed and dispossessed Syrians and the alignment of their cause to the self-serving interests of foreign parties able to lend them support in their struggle against the Baathist rule.