Suchergebnisse

Why does religion sometimes increase support for democracy and sometimes do just the opposite? In this book, political scientist Michael Hoffman presents a theory of religion, group interest, and democracy. Focusing on communal religion, he demonstrates that the effect of communal prayer on support for democracy depends on the interests of the religious group in question. For members of groups who would benefit from democracy, communal prayer increases support for democratic institutions; for citizens whose groups would lose privileges in the event of democratic reforms, the opposite effect is present. Using a variety of data sources, Hoffman illustrates these claims in multiple contexts. He places particular emphasis on his study of Lebanon and Iraq, two countries in which sectarian divisions have played a major role in political development, by utilising both existing and original surveys.

Despite the growing recognition that military identity and veteran identity are interrelated, there is scant literature that seeks to describe or define military culture—perhaps an indication of the degree to which veterans and civilians alike take military culture for granted as a factor in veteran identity. One important factor in veteran identity is relationship: relationships amongst veterans and between veterans and civilians. In the latter case, trust is often wanting, and that lack of trust seems to be connected to the experience of military service. To explore a possible connection between military culture and veteran experience, in-depth interviews were conducted with a diverse group of veterans to develop an understanding of the phenomenon of relationship, or relationality, within military service. Close attention was paid to the daily routines and rhythms of military life. Veterans were given wide latitude to discuss both the positive and negative relationships that they regarded as key to their military experience. The results, presented here as case studies, suggest that relationships of trust in military service often develop out of routine training experiences and are grounded in unique military expectations regarding the public performance of common skills. This phenomenological study is a first step in developing a more comprehensive understanding of the many ways that military experiences may become veteran expectations with respect to relational ideas such as trust.

Does religious behavior always promote hostility toward members of other faiths? This article suggests that the relationship between personal religious behavior and religious tolerance is not so simple. Even in the Arab World, frequently cited as a center of religious piety and intolerance, different forms of religious behavior have markedly different effects on attitudes toward minority sects. Using both observational and experimental data from across the Arab World as well as an original nationally representative survey conducted in Lebanon in 2013 and 2014, I argue that while communal religious practice does indeed tend to promote intolerant attitudes, personal prayer has precisely the opposite effect. These findings indicate that the traditional assumption that piety invariably leads to intolerance should be rethought. Even in one of the most sectarian environments in the world, private religious behavior can have a substantial pro-tolerance effect.

Does religious behavior always promote hostility toward members of other faiths? This article suggests that the relationship between personal religious behavior and religious tolerance is not so simple. Even in the Arab World, frequently cited as a center of religious piety and intolerance, different forms of religious behavior have markedly different effects on attitudes toward minority sects. Using both observational and experimental data from across the Arab World as well as an original nationally representative survey conducted in Lebanon in 2013 and 2014, I argue that while communal religious practice does indeed tend to promote intolerant attitudes, personal prayer has precisely the opposite effect. These findings indicate that the traditional assumption that piety invariably leads to intolerance should be rethought. Even in one of the most sectarian environments in the world, private religious behavior can have a substantial pro-tolerance effect.

"Government Legitimacy and Religion" published on by Oxford University Press.

This article maintains that an unwarranted extension ofour ideas about the Western European Medieval world has led to several problems in many recent treatments of the historical emergence ofanthropological inquiry. Utilizing Byzantine sources, it suggests that the postulated Medieval break in the Western intellectual tradition is non‐existent and the result of an over‐emphasis on Western European developments at the expense of the larger socio‐cultuml milieu which constitutes the basis of that tradition. The broader anthropological position that emerges from this study involves a realization that interest in cross‐cultural behavior is basic to at least some individuals in every society and takes on added significance in state‐level systems.