Suchergebnisse

In this article, Sir David Warren, who was British Ambassador to Japan from 2008 to 2012, lays out the historical background to modern Japan, its political and economic structures (and international relationships); explores why we tend not to think of Japan as affected by the populism that we see in other Western democracies; and asks why Japan still presents itself as such a 'different' country. (GIGA/Asian Aff)

Japan is an international giant in economic and industrial terms but remains an insular nation in some other respects, perhaps as a result of a tendency towards requiring its politicians to build a high level of consensus on issues where attitudes and opinions are strongly polarised. The Liberal Democratic Party returned to power in the December 2012 general election, committed to kick-starting the economy with more aggressive spending and monetary policies; there is also speculation that it may prove a more nationalistic government at a time of greater tension in the Japan/China relationship, although so far it is pursuing pragmatism rather than confrontation. (Asian Aff/GIGA)

Yet the paradox is that, despite democracy's universal appeal today, only a minority of the world's population lives under democratic systems of government.

AbstractThis article contributes to an emerging scholarly debate over the support displayed by key Azhari ʿulamaʾ for the 3 July 2013 coup in Egypt and the subsequent massacres of anticoup protesters. I focus on the Islamic legal justifications articulated by the former grand mufti of Egypt ʿAli Jumʿa, which academics have contextualized primarily in relation to quietist precedents from late medieval Islamic political thought or his Sufi background. By contrast, I consider Jumʿa's justifications as representative of a nationalist discourse that has its historical origins in the protonationalism of Rifaʿa al-Tahtawi (d. 1873). My argument has wider implications for our conceptualization of the contemporary Islamic tradition. If, as scholars have argued, the Islamic tradition is a framework for inquiry rather than a set of doctrines, then in the 19th century a concern for the nation and its future became a key part of that framework. I contend that these additions came to redefine the worldview and politics of the ʿulamaʾ in terms of national progress and its horizon of expectations.

This article aims to explore emerging trends for the Sunni religious elite and the Islamic legal tradition in the new context of the Arab Uprisings by focusing on Yusuf al-Qaradawi, arguably the most prominent of these ʿulamāʾ alive today. The article will follow al-Qaradawi's articulation, transmission and reconstruction of the Islamic legal tradition in his own discourse as he has attempted to negotiate the politically fraught contexts of the Arab Uprisings while also maintaining his horizontal commitments to a diverse base of supporters be they the wider Arab Muslim public, the Muslim Brotherhood or indeed the Qatari royal family. The article will focus on al-Qaradawi's highly publicised interventions and fatwas in relation to Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and Syria from the perspective of Islamic studies, and also draw on personal interviews with al-Qaradawi, his personal staff, as well as supplementary media. In so doing, the article will elucidate al-Qaradawi and his colleagues' attempts, ranging from the highly creative to the markedly conservative, to respond to unfolding events through the legal tradition and play an increasingly active role in the public sphere while their own status simultaneously becomes ever more vulnerable and unstable.

Subjects viewed projected slides of a downtown city area and attempted to find on a map the location at which they would be standing to see each view. Plan and oblique maps were used. As expected, performance using the plan map was significantly better when the map was used in alignment with the view than when it was misaligned. This issue is more complex with the oblique map, because S often has to choose between using the map in alignment with the view and using the map in its upright orientation. Performance was significantly better when the map was used in map-view alignment. However, Ss preferred to use the map in an upright-but-misaligned orientation rather than a non-upright-but-aligned orientation, despite the fact that their performance was much worse in the former case.

Research methodology is discussed in the context of the nature of the knowledge that is needed about visually impaired children. Traditional "average-oriented" research designs are criticized, as are designs which compare visually impaired and sighted subjects. Emphasis is instead placed on multivariate designs, oriented to individual differences. A "hierarchical" research model is proposed for future research, involving integration of etiological, evaluative, and functional levels. Finally, the argument is made for the need for an intensive longitudinal developmental study of visually impaired children.