Suchergebnisse

Identifies shared interests and outlines actions which could improve bilateral relations. Demographic factors, promoting democracy, pluralism and secularism, regional security and global power balance, international drug traffic and terrorism, economics and trade, nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and relations with Pakistan.

Describes the transformation of ethno-nationalism into a more cosmopolitan and less divisive political identification, as a result of the urbanization, industrialization, and secularization of society, 1950s-1980s.

Explores history of civil-military relations with its tradition of military intervention at times of economic and political crisis, whether the military has permanently disengaged from politics since the 1983 victory of Turgut Özal's Motherland Party, the president's role, and changing military attitudes towards secularism and Islam.

CAPITALISM HAS ALWAYS BEEN about the destruction of community. The removal of communities of aboriginals and peasants from their land and craftsmen from their tools and their skills were crucial conditions for the development of early industrial capitalism. The triumph of capitalism required a cultural revolution, for, as E.P. Thompson has written, "there is no such thing as economic growth which is not at the same time, growth and change of a culture."1 New ideologies of possessive individualism, secularism and scientism were part of this far‐reaching cultural revolution, which accompanied and legitimated an economy that for the first time in history was conceived and justified as operating according to its own rational laws, independent of community.

SPECULATION ABOUT THE EMERGENCE OF CONDITIONS FOR A POTENTIAL REALIGNMENT OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM AWAY FROM THE ESTABLISHED PARTIES HAS LED TO A GROWING INTEREST IN THE CURRENT STATUS AND PROSPECTS OF MINOR POLITICAL PARTIES AND INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES. IN THIS PAPER THE AUTHORS EXPLORE THE SOCIAL AND ATTITUDINAL BASES OF SUPPORT FOR MINOR PARTIES AND INDEPENDENTS IN RECENT FEDERAL ELECTIONS. FOCUSING IN PARTICULAR ON THE AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRATS AND THE GREENS. THE SOCIAL PROFILES OF THESE POLITICAL GROUPS ARE NOT ESPECIALLY DISTINCTIVE, ALTHOUGH HIGHER EDUCATION AND RELIGIOUS SECULARISM EMERGE AS SIGNIFICANT PREDICTORS OF THE VOTE FOR BOTH DEMOCRATS AND GREENS. THE STRONGEST PREDICTORS, HOWEVER, ARE PARTISANSHIP AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS POLITICAL LEADERS AND, NOT UNEXPECTEDLY, PRO-ENVIRONMENTALIST ATTITUDES FOR THE GREENS.

Are Citizens at the Heart of the Public Sector ?
Roland Gaillard
Our trade union insists upon the fact that administrative reform, passing through renovation of the public service, has now arrived at State reform, without at any stage allowing the citizens of this country to be consulted on the consequences in the area of the institutional organisation of the "unitary and indivisible" Republic and with regard to the mode of operation of our democracy as developed by our culture and our history. Are the govemment's proposais capable of responding better to the aspirations of ail citizens and of reinforcing democracy within our country ? Can they better ensure social cohesion and national solidarity ? Can they better promote the principles of equality and secularism of the Republic ?

The Hindu diaspora is being written through the lines—the techno-informational lines of electronic bulletin boards. These "nets" provide a space for South Asian Hindus to construct and contest identities that are doubly marked by the nightmare of all the dead generations—what we diasporics remember as India—and by the always deferred promises of this new land of opportunity—what is imagined as America. To be able to annotate this double movement, one must see these subaltern counterspheres (Fraser) as crosshatched by contradictions, by the heterogeneous strands of Third World secularisms and centuries-old yet constantly changing religions, all of which coexist and intermingle "in an apparently eclectic fashion with the original elements of common sense" (Chatteijee, "Caste" 172). This essay interrogates the dynamics of this diasporic public sphere in the context of the events in Ayodhya, India, on 6 December 1992.

Among The Forerunners of Modernism in Nineteenth-Century Iran Mirza Fath 'Ali Akhundzada was probably the most outspoken in his defense of secularism and his attack on religion as the chief obstacle to social progress. His writings on these subjects, his advocacy of an improvised script—a lifetime preoccupation—and his plays with distinct social messages, have already been subjects of study. In their treatment of Akhundzada most writers have satisfied themselves with cursory content analyses of his social ideas and literary achievements. Yet the question remains: to what extent was his socio-religious criticism—what he calledqirītīka(Persianized rendering of the Russiankritika)— the outcome of his exposure, directly or indirectly, to modern European thought? To what extent, on the other hand, was his blend of theological skepticism and social disquietude rooted in exposure to the lingering Perso-Islamic "esotericism"(bāṭinīya)of his time.