38 research outputs found
Societal Rather than Governmental Change: Religious Discrimination in Muslim-Majority Countries after the Arab Uprisings
This study examines shifts in governmental religion policy and societal discrimination against religious minorities in Muslim-Majority states after the Arab Uprisings by using the Religion and State round 3 (RAS3) dataset for the years 2009-2014 and by focusing on 49 Muslim-majority countries and territories. We build on threads of literature on religious pluralism in transitional societies to explain the changes in governmental religion policy and societal discrimination against religious minorities after the Arab Uprisings. This literature predicts a rise in all forms of discrimination in Arab Uprising states as compared to other Muslim-majority states, and an even more significant rise in societal religious discrimination since societal behavior can change more quickly than government policy, especially at times of transition. The results partially conform to these predictions. There was no significant difference in the shifts in governmental religion policy between Arab Uprising and other Muslim-Majority states, but societal religious discrimination increased substantially in Arab Uprising states as compared to non-Arab Uprising states. Understanding the nature of religion policies and religious discrimination provides further opportunities to unveil the dynamics of regional politics as well as conflict prevention in the region
Religious Discrimination Against Minorities: Theories and Findings
One of the established trends in religion and international relations (IR) scholarship is the awareness of a rising level of religious discrimination against minorities. Although there is variation in rates, religious restrictions are widely observed across the globe, including in Western democracies. Scholarship on the restrictions on religious practices has advanced through seeking answers to the following questions: Who discriminates? Who is discriminated against more? What are the causes of restrictions on religious freedom? What are the forms of discrimination? The purpose of this article is to connect the theories and findings of two religious discrimination studies of IR via the graphic method of systemism. Featured works engage with religious discrimination in a sub-group of states—Western democracies and those with a Christian majority. While one study focused on government-based restrictions, the other one engaged with societal ones. Collectively, these works revealed the fragility of freedom and the importance of understanding the mechanisms that protect it
Understanding ethnoreligious conflict : the state, discrimination and international politics
The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on April 24, 2009)Vita.Thesis (Ph. D.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2006.Literature on religion's role in understanding conflict in international relations is not well developed. This is quite surprising considering the series of events since 1979 Iranian revolution such as the Islamic rebellion in Afghanistan against communism; the civil war in Lebanon; the conflict in former Yugoslavia between Bosnians, Serbs and Croats; and the current tension in Iraq between Shi'is and Sunnis. This study takes an incremental step in moving toward the literature on religious conflict. This project seeks to answer the following specific question: What are the factors that facilitate protest or rebellion of ethnoreligious groups? The answer to this question, as it turns out, will not be fully in accordance with intuition from the major schools of thought. Both annual multiple regressions and time series cross-sectional data analysis has revealed that unlike what is expected, there is a negative relationship between religious marginalization and conflict. Religious discrimination and religious legislation in majority religion discourage mobilization of ethnoreligious groups. This finding contradicts with the Minorities at Risk (MAR) model that simply predicts discrimination as a major determinant of grievances that at the end trigger mobilization.Includes bibliographical reference
Did Secularism Fail? The Rise of Religion in Turkish Politics
Religious movements have long been challenging the modernist and secularist ideas around the world. Within the last decade or so, pro-religious parties made significant electoral advances in various countries, including India, Sudan, Algeria, and the Palestinian territories. In this article, we focus on the rise of the pro-religious Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi- AKP) to power in the 2002 elections in Turkey. Using the Turkish experience with political Islam, we evaluate the explanatory value of Mark Juergensmeyer\u27s rise of religious nationalism theory, with a special emphasis on the failed secularism argument. Our analysis indicates that the theoretical approach formulated by Juergensmeyer has a great deal of explanatory power; however, it does not provide a complete explanation for the success of the AKP. The rise of religion in Turkish politics is the result of a complex process over long years of encounter and confrontation between two frameworks of order, starting with the sudden imposition of secularism from above, when the republic was established. Hence, to understand the rise of religion in contemporary Turkish politics, an in-depth understanding of history, politics, and the sources of tension between secularists and Islamists is essential. The findings of this article have important implications for other countries, especially those that are experiencing a resurgence of religion in politics, and are struggling to integrate religious parties into a democratic system
Protest and Religion: An Overview
After decades-long neglect, a growing body of scholarship is studying religious components of protests. Religion’s role as a facilitator, the religious perspective of protesters, the goals of religious actors as participants, and faith-based outcomes of protests have been examined using quantitative and qualitative methodology. Although it is now a thriving research field, due to recent contributions, incorporating faith-based variables in protest research is a challenging task since religion travels across different levels of analysis; effortlessly merges with thick concepts such as individual and collective identity; and takes different shapes and color when it surfaces in various social contexts across the globe. Therefore, at the religion and protest nexus, there are more questions than answers. Research in the field would improve by investing more on theoretical frameworks and expanding the availability of qualitative and quantitative data
On Campus and Online: Evaluating Student Engagement in the Covid-19 Era
This chapter discusses how student engagement in my classes changed in spring 2020 semester as a result of transitioning to remote learning in three undergraduate courses when the pandemic struck. As an experienced teacher at a liberal arts college, I drew on my past online work to engage some of the best practices during this important period, and both direct and indirect assessment results from my classes suggest that online platforms helped to improve or sustain learning process in the short term. While students prefer to learn in-person, they reported positively on some aspects of their virtual experience. Although the nature of the transition limits our ability to generalize these findings, the pandemic has given us a chance to think about our courses in a way that we have never done before. More specifically, it has presented an opportunity to ask whether traditional approaches are optimal choices for a given student-learning outcome and what are some of the complexities and potential side effects of online learning
Religion and the State: A World Survey of Government Involvement in Religion, Jonathan Fox, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. ix, 388
Religious Discrimination against Muslim Minorities in Christian Majority Countries: A Unique Case?
Previous research on Muslims in Christian majority states either focuses exclusively on Muslims or assesses public opinion concerning Muslims and/or religious minorities but does not assess cross-national trends comparing Muslims and non-Muslims. This study compares the extent of religious discrimination against Muslim minorities in Christian majority countries to the treatment of other religious minorities in the same countries as well as to the treatment of religious minorities in non-Christian countries
Role Theory in the Middle East and North Africa: Politics, Economics and Identity
Since December 2010, a series of uprisings, revolutions, coups and civil wars have shaken up the Middle East and North Africa region. In this chaotic political environment, several countries have been trying to influence this regional transformation. The implications of this transformation are of great importance for the region, its people and global politics.
Using a rich combination of primary and secondary sources, elite interviews and content analysis, Yasemin Akbaba and Özgür Özdamar apply role theory to analyze ideational (e.g. identity, religion) and material (e.g. security, economy) sources of national role conceptions in Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The authors take a closer look at the transformation of these four powers’ foreign policies since the beginning of Arab uprisings, with a specific focus on religion. Each case study is written to a common template allowing for clear comparative analyses.
Written in a clear and accessible style, Role Theory in the Middle East and North Africa offers a thought provoking and pioneering insight into the usefulness of role theory in foreign policy making in the developing world. The perfect combination of theoretically oriented and empirically rich analysis make this volume an ideal resource for scholars and researchers of International Relations, Foreign Policy, Middle East Politics and International Security.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1159/thumbnail.jp
Religious Discrimination and International Crises: International Effects of Domestic Inequality
This paper explores religious discrimination against ethnic groups and foreign policy crisis linkages as part of the broader foreign policy approaches developed by McGowan and Shapiro (1973) and James and Özdamar (2005, 2008). Informed by the literature suggesting that domestic policies of repression and inequality may result in similar patterns of behavior internationally, this study tests whether states characterized by high levels of religious discrimination against ethnoreligious minorities are more likely to initiate or become involved in foreign policy crises with other states in general. A broad range of data sources, including an independently collected religious discrimination index, are used to test the hypothesized relationship between religious discrimination and international crisis during the period 1990–2003. The results suggest that religious discrimination is an important predictor of initiating and becoming involved in international crises