Suchergebnisse

Elisabeth Özdalga's book is an important introduction to one of the issues that
has been front-page news in Turkey since the 1980s. The most visible and controversial sign of
the increasing participation in public discourse of Islamic revivalists has been the marked increase
in numbers of women in urban spaces and institutions who wear the particular form of dress called
tessetür, a public symbol of a personal commitment to a certain form of Islamic
values. Özdalga's focus is timely and of interest to both a Turkish audience and a
Western one, although it speaks mainly to the latter. The banning of the Islamist Welfare Party
(Refah Partisi) from Turkish politics since the publication of the book, as well as the
internationally noted furor surrounding the election to, and subsequent dismissal of, a
headscarf-wearing woman in Parliament, show that what the author calls Turkey's
"large-scale attempt to integrate Islam within the institutions of a modern, liberal
democratic polity" (p. viii) continues to be a vitally important and controversial subject.
Her book attends both to the symbolic power and legal status of women's clothing in public
debate and to women's actual participation in the re-formations of public and private
definitions of citizenship.

Middle Eastern studies is frequently criticized in the social sciences for being atheoretical and
descriptive. While it is effective in elucidating the complexities of societies, a lack of theory tends
to isolate Middle Eastern studies from social-science disciplines, because it often lacks applicable
frameworks or concepts that can be applied outside the region. A growing group of scholars is
attempting to address this concern by integrating strong empirical area expertise and the rigor of
social-science inquiry to enhance the explanatory power of research.

I am sympathetic to the problem enunciated by Professors Glenn and Stack, viz., "that contemporary American democracy, by constitutionally privileging secularism, offers Catholics in public life a strong inducement to abandon, relativize, or remain silent about, their moral beliefs, insofar as these conflict with secularism. Catholics have to act like, not necessarily be, secularists. That makes it spiritually and politically unsafe, not to say impossible, for Catholics to be democrats now." However, while they have circled in on an important problem—the totalitarian impulse of contemporary liberals—they have not hit the bull's-eye exactly

It is 50 years since the Constitution of the Republic of India came into force. It has stood the test of time better than most of its counterparts in the postcolonial world. One reason for its durability has been its deliberate (& necessary) ambiguity in dealing with potentially explosive issues of religious identity. The interpretation of secularism to suit Indian conditions was an important aspect of this approach. The article examines the debate in the Indian Constituent Assembly to discover how "Indian secularism" found expression & how the arguments made then find their echo in contemporary politics. 1 Table. Adapted from the source document.

It is 50 years since the Constitution of the Republic of India came into force. It has stood the test of time better than most of its counterparts in the postcolonial world. One reason for its durability has been its deliberate (& necessary) ambiguity in dealing with potentially explosive issues of religious identity. The interpretation of secularism to suit Indian conditions was an important aspect of this approach. The article examines the debate in the Indian Constituent Assembly to discover how "Indian secularism" found expression & how the arguments made then find their echo in contemporary politics. 1 Table. Adapted from the source document.

Explores religion's presence and contradictory role in public life, especially in politics, throughout US history, despite the founders' professed secularism and the constitutional separation of church and state, religion in the 2000 presidential campaign, and President George W. Bush's faith-based initiative. Included in a collection of articles under the overall title "After the election: Plan B".

Examines the important place given to religion in cultural, socioeconomic, & political explanations of ethnic conflict; the pervasive presence of religion in most ethnic conflicts of the last decade; & the absence of religion as a factor in Rwanda's recent horrific ethnic conflict. It is argued that the presence of religion in a broad array of conflicts does not mean it is the best explanation for them or even that it is the predominant factor. An exploration of two common methodological problems, a priori underdetermination & posteriori overdetermination, illustrates some of the inadequacies of religion as an explanation of ethnic conflict. A discussion of definitional difficulties calls attention to the confusion that results when the core element of ethnic identity is religious identity, as is the case in contemporary conflicts in Northern Ireland & Yugoslavia. The impact of religious secularization is discussed, along with differences between modernist & postmodernist perspectives of religion, secularization, & ethnic conflict. The potential of religion to help in finding solutions to ethnic conflict is explored. J. Lindroth

ABSTRACT
Scholars have suggested the importance of integrating African democratization process with grassroots institutions for longterm consolidation. However, the major problem remained the inadequacy of secularism in disentangling the religious from the non-religious intertwined in indigenous African institutions. This essay reconsiders the Burckhardtian notion of secularism for a recalibrated definition that embraces a trajectory of transposed values. Debunking the Burckhardtian notion opens up an analytic terrain relegated to the "religious." Thus indigenous African religions are re-conceptualized as civic religions to shed light on their public aspects. The essay then identifies collective ceremonies and the attendant secular/civic rituals as the grassroots institutions "housed" in indigenous African religions. The analysis also locates the disjuncture between independent African states and the grassroots institutions at this level of collective ceremonies, perceived as "sacral" or "irrational." The objective is to harness them as African building blocks for democratic consolidation.