Suchergebnisse

How does political commitment develop when actors are confronted with authoritarian processes? Under a liberal authoritarian regime, even the creation of democratic institutions may mean authoritarian stabilization (contradicting classical transition theories) rather than open an arena for political protest. However, alternative contentious arenas may appear, where resourceful organizations can be partially transformed into a basis for protest with challenging frames of reference. In the Jordanian case, the professional associations (in contravention of corporatism theory) and the Islamist social movement have thus gained oppositional capacity. However, apart from repression, their own economic and social roles, and their integration in the regime frame and limit the kind of political commitment they can lead. Ambivalence arises between challenging and integrated positions and when alternative arenas become so integrated in the regime that they lose their contentious role, radicalization processes appear. Both cases underline the versatility of political arenas and their relational characteristics. These political arenas are also the places where alternative ideologies are produced. At that level, the Islamist movement has a very specific position as a hegemonic ideological producer with no hegemonic power and position. The case thus supports an analytical separation between power position and ideology and confirms the need for less state-centred definition of ideology. Adapted from the source document.

How does political commitment develop when actors are confronted with authoritarian processes? Under a liberal authoritarian regime, even the creation of democratic institutions may mean authoritarian stabilization (contradicting classical transition theories) rather than open an arena for political protest. However, alternative contentious arenas may appear, where resourceful organizations can be partially transformed into a basis for protest with challenging frames of reference. In the Jordanian case, the professional associations (in contravention of corporatism theory) and the Islamist social movement have thus gained oppositional capacity. However, apart from repression, their own economic and social roles, and their integration in the regime frame and limit the kind of political commitment they can lead. Ambivalence arises between challenging and integrated positions and when alternative arenas become so integrated in the regime that they lose their contentious role, radicalization processes appear. Both cases underline the versatility of political arenas and their relational characteristics. These political arenas are also the places where alternative ideologies are produced. At that level, the Islamist movement has a very specific position as a hegemonic ideological producer with no hegemonic power and position. The case thus supports an analytical separation between power position and ideology and confirms the need for less state-centred definition of ideology. Adapted from the source document.

The Jordanian regime's enforcement of extensive supervision of political parties has transformed professional associations into an alternative -- and nearly unique -- site of politicization and mobilization. On the strength of their professional identity and the crucial economic role they play, the latter succeeded in freeing up a space for action and opposition vis-a-vis the regime. This space nevertheless remains very limited and is more a matter of publicly expressing political opinion than genuinely challenging the powers that be. Moreover, the very nature of these organizations -- which are like orders, with membership obligatory for those who wish to exercise professions in which diplomas are required -- tends to reduce the possibilities for social conflictualization. The activist careers studied here show that, while professional associations are the only place where it is possible to pursue political engagement after leaving the university, a social selection takes place that limits mobilization. While such associations do avoid corporatization and manipulation by the powers that be, they also lead to a limited and elitist form of activism. This is in keeping with a more general tendency in contemporary activism to assume an "expert" stance in favor of reforming agendas rather than launching frontal assaults with the support of a strong social movement. Adapted from the source document.

The aim of this article is to explain how suicide attacks, which began as a very specific & limited strategy of Islamist organizations, could become more generalized. The figure of the martyr has become the main figure of the intifada al Aqsa, & the suicide bomber is one, if not the main, incarnation. Through an analysis of the Palestinian discourse of martyrdom, this article demonstrates how the martyr constitutes the figure of the "national hero," a sacralized & exemplary figure. This derives from the double association with a cause, the Palestinian national cause, & with a system of beliefs (faith). The sacralization of this figure of the hero & its integration into religious terms of reference makes it possible to cite the next world, which at the same time authorizes the reference to death & to overcoming death. The reference to death corresponds to the evolution of the Palestinian analysis of the balance of power, to their feeling of being the losers anyway. In this context, commitment to the national struggle can only mean death, so the hero of such a struggle is the hero who dies. But the sacralization of his death & its integration into a religious context of meaning makes it possible to go beyond the level of death, & to create an instrument for victory & a better future: for the personal fate of the shahid, on the one hand, who is promised the rewards of paradise, but also for the national struggle, which each shahid connects a little more with the jihad, the sacred fight in which victory is certain in the long term. The insistence on a sacralized national hero, the martyr, thus allows, through the integration of the national struggle in a religious frame of meaning, a double overcoming: the overcoming of the death of the fighters & the overcoming of the certain failure of the national cause. Now that it is registered in another longer-term temporality, religious atemporality & the eschatological temporality of the jihad, this national fight can again be envisaged as victorious. 55 References. Adapted from the source document.