The Call for Dignity, or a Particular Universalism

Although the many difficulties of Tunisia’s democratic transition have received significant attention over the past six months, there has been relatively little commentary regarding the claims and attitudes that made the winter mobilizations so unique. The movement’s so-called lack of leadership, the proliferation of parties, the economic and financial crisis, the risk of a supposedly Islamist threat—all these themes have been discussed at length by analysts in Tunisia and abroad. Consequently, rather than engaging in yet another attempt to assess the movement’s success, or predict its failure, this paper examines an aspect of the mobilization that has attracted surprisingly little attention, namely, the Tunisian protestors’ call for dignity (karama) and respect (ihtiram)

La réception française de l’œuvre de Saba Mahmood et de l’asadisme

- Piété et capacité d’agir - L’obsession française pour la question du voile et la polarisation du débat public - L’enthousiasme des jeunes chercheurs pour les thèses de Mahmood et l’intégration aux recherches sur l’islam - L’asadisme et la sociologie française du religieux, des généalogies intellectuelles parallèles - La méfiance des sciences sociales du religieux envers la tendance théoriciste et le rejet de l’essentialisation de l’être musulma

The U.S. Coptic Diaspora and the Limit of Polarization

After briefly presenting the main characteristics of the Coptic diaspora in the United States and of its attempts at gaining political clout since the 1990s, the article examines the impact of the election of President Obama and of the 2011 Egyptian revolution on the rhetoric and strategy of the main Coptic organizations in the United States. I also examine the changing relation between Copts in Egypt and Copts in the United States

La transition tunisienne : du compromis démocratique à la réconciliation forcée

Célébrée comme le seul succès du Printemps arabe, la Tunisie a réussi à faire face à de nombreux défis de la période post-révolutionnaire grâce à la capacité des principaux acteurs politiques et sociaux à formuler des compromis. Il faut toutefois examiner de façon critique les multiples formes de compromis qui caractérisent la transition tunisienne et leurs implications pour le pluralisme démocratique. Cet article analyse les transactions politiques institutionnelles qui ont eu lieu depuis 2011 en montrant qu’elles ont été marquées par deux façons d’envisager le compromis, l’affrontement raisonné et l’endiguement. Ce faisant, il cherche à montrer comment, entre 2011 et 2015, l’opposition tant débattue entre islamistes et sécularistes a été remplacée par une autre opposition, plus déterminante, entre adeptes du pluralisme démocratique et partisans du consensus forcé.The Tunisian Transition: From Democratic Compromise to Forced Reconciliation Celebrated as the only success of the Arab Spring, Tunisia has managed to deal with numerous challenges in the post-revolutionary period, thanks to the ability of the main political and social actors to frame compromises. However, the numerous forms of compromises that have characterized the Tunisian transition as well as their implications for democratic pluralism should be examined critically. The article analyses the institutional political transactions that have occurred since 2011 and shows that they have been marked by two different ways of envisaging compromise : reasoned confrontation or containment. It shows how, between 2011 and 2015, the much debated opposition between islamists and secularists has been replaced by a different, more decisive opposition between the partisans of democratic pluralism and the supporters of forced consensus

Le discours des néoconservateurs sur l’adhésion de la Turquie à l’Union européenne (2000-2005)

Le discours des néoconservateurs américains sur l’adhésion de la Turquie à l’Union européenne manifeste une certaine ambivalence. Les néoconservateurs défendent l’idée d’adhésion avant tout pour des raisons stratégiques telles que le maintien de la stabilité au Moyen Orient. Cependant ils craignent également qu’une Turquie européenne ne devienne anti-américaine, notamment sous l’influence de la « Vieille Europe ». Ainsi le choix des néoconservateurs en faveur de l’adhésion turque n’exclut-il pas les débats et les désaccords. Le point de vue politique des néoconservateurs ne relève pas uniquement de considérations d’ordre stratégique ou de real-politik. Il se fonde également sur une théorisation de l’exceptionnalisme turc, qui puise dans les arguments d’Edmund Burke, de Bernard Lewis et d’Albert Wohlstetter.Neoconservative Discourse on Turkey’s Admission to the E.U.U.S. neoconservative discourse on the admission of Turkey into the European Union is ambivalent. On the one hand, the neoconservatives favour its admission for strategic reasons, particularly with a view to maintaining stability in the Middle East. On the other hand, however, they fear a European Turkey might become anti-American, especially under the influence of “Old Europe.” So underneath the veneer of a neoconservative consensus lie disagreements and dissension. Their “official” yes to Turkish accession is based not only on strategic considerations of realpolitik, but also on theories of the Turkish exception, using arguments drawn from Edmund Burke, Bernard Lewis and Albert Wohlstetter

Grape Seed and Skin Extract Mitigates High Dosage Garlic-Induced Oxidative Stress in Rat Heart

Garlic is a commonly used spice in folk medicine which could exert adverse health effects when given at high dose. Grape seed and skin extract (GSSE) exhibits a variety of beneficial effects even at high dose. In the present study we evaluated the toxicity of high garlic dose treatment on heart and the protective effect of GSSE. Rats were intraperitoneally (IP) administered either with garlic extract (5 g/kg bw) or GSSE (500 mg/kg bw) or a combination of garlic and GSSE at the same doses daily for one month. Data showed that high garlic dose induced heart toxicity and a pro-oxidative status characterized by increased MDA, NO, carbonyl protein, LDH, H2O2, free iron, and calcium. Unexpectedly garlic increased catalase and peroxidase but had no effect on superoxide dismutase. GSSE alone or in co-treatment with garlic had an opposite role and counteracted almost all garlic-induced deleterious effects to near control level. In conclusion, high garlic dose induced a pro-oxidative state into heart via the Fenton reaction between H2O2 and free iron, and GSSE exerted antioxidant properties

Les Lumières juives ou la réforme de l’islamologie

Le premier regard positif et moderne sur l’Islam émerge en Europe centrale et en Allemagne, au xixe siècle, chez deux penseurs juifs, Abraham Geiger et Ignaz Goldziher. La réflexion de ces deux savants se fonde, non pas sur la tradition anticléricale des Lumières françaises et anglaises, mais sur la tradition germanique de l’Aufklärung et plus précisément sur la tradition des Lumières juives, de l’Haskala

Does Innovation Promote Performance? Evidence from Developed Economies During Crises

This study examines the relationship between firm performance and innovation levels of Information Technology and Communication (ICT), covering 886 firms from five developed countries during the period 2000-2020. The results indicate a positive association between the accessibility and/or the use of ICTs and firms’ innovation performance. More precisely, the positive relationship between ICTs and firm performance is highly pronounced in small-sized firms and strongly related to R&D decisions in large firms. However, during the recession period, the relationship between performance and innovation level is affected differently by the financial crisis, leading to contradictory results. Interestingly, the pandemic crisis has had a positive impact on the firm’s performance-innovation relationship. Despite high rates of ICT diffusion, the results of performance and innovation cannot be considered universal due to the significant differences between countries. Our findings may contribute to the literature by highlighting how variations in ICT impact firms’ innovation performance across countries, particularly during crises. Keywords: Information and Communication Technology, Performance, Innovation, Financial Crisis, Pandemic Crisis. DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/14-19-03 Publication date: November 30th 202

The Politics of Islam in Europe and North America

There has traditionally been a wide divide between the study of the politics of Islam in the Middle East and in the West. Middle East-focused research in American political science has focused in great depth on issues such as political mobilization, social service provision, electoral performance, and Islamist ideologies. American research on Islam in the West, by contrast, has often focused on cultural conflicts, immigration, terrorism, and anti-Islamic campaigns. Today’s European scholarship on Islam distinguishes itself by a wide spectrum of methods, topics, and fieldworks, with a trend toward strong ethnographic research. Over the last two decades, a prolific and pluralist field of scholarship on Islam and Muslims in Europe and the U.S. has emerged and brought to the fore innovative perspectives and understudied topics. On June 28, 2018, POMEPS and Sciences Po CERI convened a workshop with a dozen scholars of Islam and politics in Europe and North America to engage with these various perspectives. Their work in POMEPS Studies 32: The Politics of Islam in Europe and North America illustrates the richness of the field of the politics of Islam in Europe and the U.S.Introduction, Marc Lynch, Nadia Marzouki French Muslim authorities as social troubleshooters, Margot Dazey What makes “Muslim representatives” representative? The public policy attempts to build a representative Muslim organization in France, Fatima Khemilat The Hajj from a French perspective: The effects of the pilgrimage on collective identities, Leila Seurat Constraining Muslim Mobilizations in France. Symbolic Repression and Disqualification as Demobilization Practices, Julien Talpin Mosques and Political Engagement in Europe and North America, Aubrey Westfall The Politics of ‘Tradition’ and the Production of Diasporic Shia Religiosity, Avi Astor, co-authors Victor Albert Blanco, Rosa Martínez Cuadros The Islamic Deathscapes of Germany, Osman Balkan “Do We Need a Minaret?”: Challenging Urban Contexts and Changing Islamic Theologies, Sultan Tepe Approaching the Security-Integration Nexus, Andrew Aguilar Towards an autonomization of Jihadism? The ideological, sociological and political permeability between contemporary quietist Salafism and Jihadism in France, Mohamed-Ali Adraoui Sunni Jihadism and Religious Authority: Its Transformative Character and Effects, Tore Hamming The Effects of Discrimination on European Muslim Trust in Governmental Institutions, Mujtaba Ali Isani He’s Not an Imam, lol He’s a Postal Worker: Locating the Imam in the USA, Nancy Khalil Trust and Giving for the Sake of God: The Rise of the Bureaucratic Non-Profit in American Muslim Charity, Katherine Merriman Art and activism of the ‘war on terror’ generation: British Muslim youth and the politics of refusal, Bogumila Hal