Suchergebnisse

Regardless of the significant social reform, the deep-rooted caste system prevails in the landscape of Kerala. The extreme oppression that the Dalit community faced forced them to seek a new identity with religious conversions. However, the caste considerations straddled the religions and followed the converts. Moreover, the conversion failed to compensate for their material deprivations, and the converted identity denied the rightful privileges of Dalits, which hampered their social mobility. This article analyses the social inclusion of a Pulaya (a Dalit community) family converted to Christianity in Kerala. The analysis of the qualitative data collected through relational interviewing revealed the issues with the social inclusion of the converted Christians, despite the high moral code they adopted. Furthermore, the quantitative comparison of welfare programs and reservations for the Dalit community and the converts gives insight into the trending deconversion in Kerala.

Brown reviews 'Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples' by V. S. Naipaul.

This article examines whether the judges of the French Constitutional Court demonstrated partisanship when ruling on the validity of the elections to the lower house of the French Parliament between 1958 and 2005. It uses a new dataset on the decisions of the Constitutional Court which takes into account the characteristics of the controverted parliamentary elections. The rulings of the Constitutional Court are found to be biased against far-right candidates. However, the judges are also found to display some form of independence vis-à-vis the government since they do not favor candidates from the ruling party when they render their decisions.