There are many publications dealing with the political career of Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989), who transformed the political landscape of Iran and the Middle East after the Islamic Revolution of... Show moreThere are many publications dealing with the political career of Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989), who transformed the political landscape of Iran and the Middle East after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Most of the research conducted in the West is on Khomeini’s political strategies, while the influential role of mysticism in all facets of his life is ignored. This book is the first study examining Khomeini’s poetry, mysticism and the reception of his poetry both in Iran and the West. It investigates how Khomeini integrated various doctrines and ideas of Islamic mysticism and Shiiism such as the Perfect Man into his poetry. Show less
The last ten years has seen the rise of populist forces across the globe from both the right and the left. While often read in the context of the perceived rise of, and reactions to populist and... Show moreThe last ten years has seen the rise of populist forces across the globe from both the right and the left. While often read in the context of the perceived rise of, and reactions to populist and potentially violent Islam, this analysis is excessively focused on observations of the right, and ignores similarities between the populist right and the populist left. By way of an alternative, this article draws together political theology, original ethnography and observations of contemporary politics in the United Kingdom (and to a lesser extent the United States and Canada) to offer a broader lens involving: the rise of liberalism, the consequent construction of politics as technocratic management, and the neglect and resultant disillusionment of ordinary people. In particular, the paper draws on my recent research on the role of myths of solidarity in developing civic engagement. It argues that myths of solidarity have been undermined by the rise of liberalism, and that restoring such myths to the center of contemporary politics is vital to challenging the myths of division that fuel populist politics. Finally, it explores possibilities for restoring myths to the center of contemporary politics, suggesting that while avenues for such reform are emerging, politics as technocratic management remains the dominant paradigm. Show less
This thesis investigated the extent to which types of civil service appointments shape the attitudes and behaviour of civil servants in neo-patrimonial settings, with a focus on the Ghanaian... Show moreThis thesis investigated the extent to which types of civil service appointments shape the attitudes and behaviour of civil servants in neo-patrimonial settings, with a focus on the Ghanaian experience. Despite the theoretical view in public administration literature about the consequences of the type of a civil servants’ appointment on his/her attitude and behaviour, the empirical data is marginal in emerging democracies such as Ghana. Regarding the attitudes and behaviour of concern, the study focused on the level of bureaucrats’ autonomy, loyalty and responsiveness. To investigate this phenomenon, the study adopted a mixed-method approach to understand why civil servants, despite their apolitical cloak, demonstrate varied attitudes and behaviour in contravention with their professionalism and, in particular, determine how their type of appointment influenced such attitudes and behaviour. The findings confirmed the study’s hypothesis that the type of a bureaucrats’ appointment into the bureaucracy indeed influenced his/her attitudes and behaviour. However, further analysis of this finding impugned mainstream discourses regarding the expected impact of types of appointment. For example, the study found that regardless of how merit-based the process of appointing a bureaucrat is, his/her autonomy is limited in Ghana. Secondly, whilst the general theoretical predictions concerning patronage and hybrid appointments’ impact on loyalty and responsiveness were confirmed respectively, the findings also suggest that such loyalties and responsiveness are not absolute, due to regulatory mechanisms and competing interests. Furthermore, this study’s findings support the class of scholars who call into question the orthodox view in bureaucratic politics that patronage is damaging because this study finds otherwise. It therefore adds to discussions on the need to move beyond the monistic conception of patronage as negative to encompass its beneficial outcomes. The study also proposes legal-constitutional and policy reforms that go beyond the merit-principle to embrace patronage and hybrid considerations where necessary. Show less
Chadians’ growing use of social media could prove a boon for the country’s political transition, but it could also fuel violence offline. With donor backing, authorities, civil society, online... Show moreChadians’ growing use of social media could prove a boon for the country’s political transition, but it could also fuel violence offline. With donor backing, authorities, civil society, online platforms and influencers should work to ensure social media remains a space for democratic debate rather than an accelerator of conflict. Show less
This project focuses on the political manifestations that can be found in the Argentinean film productions made after the dictatorship, since 1983 until nowadays. The proposed path relates the... Show moreThis project focuses on the political manifestations that can be found in the Argentinean film productions made after the dictatorship, since 1983 until nowadays. The proposed path relates the works with their socio-political, historical and cultural context, and allows the understanding of the transformations of the links (both ethic and aesthetic) between the filmed world and its referents This tesis posits that the memory of the violence that took place in this country during the 70s imprinted a significant mark in the articulation of discursive worlds as well as in any Argentine artistic production. It also considers the memory as a practice that acts in the Argentine collective imaginary, incorporating more extended historical periods that, in terms of causes and consequences, precede the last dictatorship and extend themselves into the present. Thus, the notion of memory is the focus that links the past events with every specific present, and, simultaneously, it is the hermeneutical frame of a research based on a corpus formed by diverse expressive genres. The specific systems of representation of those political events, whose impact manifested itself in the accounted period, are analyzed. We analyze the (fictional and documentary) film figurations of the myths and narrations of the peronismo (a contradictory political movement) and the ways of social irruption revealed in a climate of popular revolt that accompanied profound economical and institutional-political crisis at the dawning of this century. Show less
Indian agriculture is widely believed to be in crisis. There is broad consensus among scholar, policymakers and activists that economic hardships and the changing climate have made sustaining a... Show moreIndian agriculture is widely believed to be in crisis. There is broad consensus among scholar, policymakers and activists that economic hardships and the changing climate have made sustaining a livelihood through farming increasingly untenable. There is a strong sense that something has to be done to help farmers deal with the crisis, and in recent years agricultural insurance has been presented as a possible fix for rural distress. This dissertation studies how a new agricultural insurance scheme called PMFBY becomes part of everyday social interactions and experiences. Insurance companies often assert that quantified procedures can accurately - and fairly - calculate the extent of agricultural risk, attach a price tag to it and protect against it. Can quantification really be the antidote to crisis? To answer this question I explore how insurance numbers translate to the everyday experiences of rural people in central Maharashtra. I find that, when seen from the perspective of those encountering them in their daily lives, the numbers are anything but straightforward. The effects of quantification were often arbitrary, and despite promises of transparency, they had a tendency to obscure rather than clarify. In short, the numbers turned out to be inconsistent and ambiguous. The dissertation describes how people attempt to make sense of this ambiguity through their moral understandings. It focusses on the (often heated) discussions, the collective pondering such discussions led to, the personal dilemmas it posed as well as the dreams and aspirations numbers became entwined with. I explore how such quandaries unfold and argue that a focus on the morality of quantification brings to light the social life of numbers beyond their 'objective' factuality. Show less
Este libro pretende entender las transiciones y negociaciones culturales entre arte y política -de 1989 a 2020- a través del análisis de una serie de novelas cubanas. La caída del muro de Berlín... Show moreEste libro pretende entender las transiciones y negociaciones culturales entre arte y política -de 1989 a 2020- a través del análisis de una serie de novelas cubanas. La caída del muro de Berlín tuvo un enorme peso simbólico en el mundo, quizás, tanto como la misma Revolución en su día. Las últimas tres décadas –entre la soviética y la postpandémica– podrían pensarse como un entrelugar en la isla, un afuera del tiempo o un presente incómodo de difícil representación, sobre todo si las leemos desde las dos grandes ideologías en juego. A nivel simbólico, estaríamos hablando de una crisis crónica de características particulares, una que se ha hecho evidente en la novelística a partir de la relación entre sujeto y vivencia. Timmer analiza el malestar del sujeto como síntoma de lo social escapando a los binomios de la Guerra Fría y aborda el presente cubano a través de las múltiples subjetividades e imaginarios de su producción cultural, de su literatura. Show less
The introduction to this special issue argues that in many countries in southern Africa a new phase in the entanglement between the religious and the political has set in. Increasingly, activists... Show moreThe introduction to this special issue argues that in many countries in southern Africa a new phase in the entanglement between the religious and the political has set in. Increasingly, activists in political fields are borrowing from religious registers of discourse and practice, while conversely, activists in the religious domain are adopting discourses and practices originating in the political domain. We suggest that this religiopolitical activism is simultaneously the product of a climate of profound social change and an important transformative force within it. In order to do justice to the complex dynamics of southern African religiopolitical activism in its manifold manifestations, we draw on the concept of ‘family resemblances’. This allows us to examine how the boundaries between religious and political registers are made the object of situated social negotiations. The family resemblances explored in this special issue range from religiopolitical activists’ habitus and their communication strategies via religious leaders’ self-positionings in relation to the political, to the creation of specific religiopolitical spaces. Show less
This book examines the role of Persian literature in politics in the tumultuous period of Iranian history from 1950 to 2000, illustrating how intellectuals used poetry, plays, novels and short... Show moreThis book examines the role of Persian literature in politics in the tumultuous period of Iranian history from 1950 to 2000, illustrating how intellectuals used poetry, plays, novels and short stories to comment on socio-political developments. The unique aspect of the book is its strong empirical perspective, as Karimi-Hakkak has participated in the events he is writing about. It analyses how Persian intellectuals dealt with censorship, suppression, imprisonment, exile and even execution for the sake of expression of free speech. Show less
Griekenland beleefde in 2023 historische verkiezingen. Nea Dimokratia (ND) van zittend premier KyriakosMitsotakis behaalde – in twee rondes – een klinkende overwinning, met een niet eerder... Show moreGriekenland beleefde in 2023 historische verkiezingen. Nea Dimokratia (ND) van zittend premier KyriakosMitsotakis behaalde – in twee rondes – een klinkende overwinning, met een niet eerder vertoonde overmacht.De grootste oppositiepartij Sýriza verloor niet alleen veel zetels, maar ook haar politiek leider Alexis Tsipras.Daarnaast keerde extreemrechts terug in het parlement. Toch verliepen de eerste maanden voor de nieuwe regering allesbehalve vlekkeloos. Alle reden om het Griekse politieke landschap weer eens nader onder de loep te nemen. Show less
Dijk, Kees van; Permata, Ahmad-Norma; Zuhri, Syaifudin; et al. 2016
After violent protests across the country had forced President Suharto to step down in 1998, Indonesia successfully made the transition from an authoritarian state to a democracy. For the first... Show moreAfter violent protests across the country had forced President Suharto to step down in 1998, Indonesia successfully made the transition from an authoritarian state to a democracy. For the first time in forty years Islamic parties and organizations – including some inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood – were free to propagate their ways of thinking. The new government also succeeded in negotiating an end to a separatist rebellion in Aceh, making the province the only region in Indonesia permitted to draft its own Islamic legislation. In this book Indonesian scholars affiliated with Islamic universities as well as Dutch researchers investigate what has happened since the transition. They explore what the consequences are of the growing influence of orthodoxy and radicalism, which – while already visible prior to 1998 – has only grown stronger. How did political and religious relations change? How were the lives of women and their legal position affected? Furthermore, what are the ramifications for religious minorities? Show less
This study surveys the theory about 'Christendom' developed by the Anglican theologian Oliver O'Donovan. The author defines 'Christendom' as a state of affairs in which the Christian faith in one... Show moreThis study surveys the theory about 'Christendom' developed by the Anglican theologian Oliver O'Donovan. The author defines 'Christendom' as a state of affairs in which the Christian faith in one way or another gives public direction to society and/or politics. The investigation is positioned within the present debate about the role of religion in Dutch society. The Anglo-Saxon Christendom debate illustrates that the discussions about the societal role of religion should not deny the theological dimension to this question. The Christendom debate of our time has been for the most part initiated by two American theologians, John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas. They take a critical view of Christendom. Besides this option there are four other positions in the Christendom debate: the Christian faith as civil religion, the liberal vision, the theocratic approach, and confessional or principled pluralism. A comparison between them and O'Donovan's theory shows out that the latter has the potential to unite what usually only exists in mutual tension and to open up a fruitful continuation of the 'Christendom' debate as well as the discussions about the role of religion in society. Show less
The rapidly growing transdisciplinary enthusiasm about developing new kinds of Anthropocene stories is based on the shared assumption that the Anthropocene predicament is best made sense of by... Show moreThe rapidly growing transdisciplinary enthusiasm about developing new kinds of Anthropocene stories is based on the shared assumption that the Anthropocene predicament is best made sense of by narrative means. Against this assumption, this article argues that the challenge we are facing today does not merely lie in telling either scientific, socio-political, or entangled Anthropocene narratives to come to terms with our current condition. Instead, the challenge lies in coming to grips with how the stories we can tell in the Anthropocene relate to the radical novelty of the Anthropocene condition about which no stories can be told. What we need to find are meaningful ways to reconcile an inherited commitment to narrativization and the collapse of storytelling as a vehicle of understanding the Anthropocene as our current predicament. Show less
Roger Martin du Gard (1881-1958) (Nobel Prize for Literature in 1937 for the novel cycle Les Thibault in 8 parts, included in the Pléiade edition, Oeuvres complètes, 1955) put, between 1941 and... Show moreRoger Martin du Gard (1881-1958) (Nobel Prize for Literature in 1937 for the novel cycle Les Thibault in 8 parts, included in the Pléiade edition, Oeuvres complètes, 1955) put, between 1941 and 1955, the novel Le Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort (or: Maumort) on paper, his latest work, which remaines unfunished. It was released posthumously in 1983.The thesis covers in seven chapters a number of aspects of Maumort. In Section I the septuagenarian Bertrand de Maumort looks back on his life (the story is in the first person). His childhood spent in a castle in Normandy (Le Saillant) and his studies in Paris, were given the most space. Instead of ‘Mémoires’, the basic form of Maumort could also have been that of letters (Section II). Maumort corresponds with his friend, the doctor Gévresin (by whom he was given shelter for a large part of the war) about everything he experiences after his return to Le Saillant. There are now (only) nine letters (december 1944-January 1945). After that, the correspondence stops. In the Boîte Noire (Black Box)(Section III), about 40 files appear (= folders in which Martin du Gard stored thoughts on specific subjects that he had written); some of them mention Les Thibault, especially regarding the character Antoine Thibault. Show less
