Democratization and the Diffusion of Shari'a Law: Comparative Insights from Indonesia

The democratization of politics has been accompanied by a rise of Islamic laws in many Muslim-majority countries. Despite a growing interest in the phenomenon, the Islamization of politics in democratizing Muslim-majority countries is rarely understood as a process that unfolds across space and time. Based on an original dataset established during years of field research in Indonesia, this article analyzes the spread of shari’a regulations across the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy since 1998. The article shows that shari’a regulations in Indonesia diffused unevenly across space and time. Explanations put forward in the literature on the diffusion of morality policies in other countries such as geographic proximity, institutions, intergovernmental relations and economic conditions did not explain the patterns in the diffusion of shari’a regulations in Indonesia well. Instead, shari’a regulations in Indonesia were most likely to spread across jurisdictions where local Islamist groups situated outside the party system had an established presence. In short, the Islamization of politics was highly contingent on local conditions. Future research will need to pay more attention to local Islamist activists and networks situated outside formal politics as potential causes for the diffusion of shari’a law in democratizing Muslim-majority countries

A response to Jacob Zenn on Boko Haram and al-Qa'ida

A recent special issue of Perspectives on Terrorism, published in December 2017 (Volume 11, Number 6, pp. 174-190), included an article by Jacob Zenn entitled "Demystifying al-Qaida in Nigeria: Cases from Boko Haram's Founding, Launch of Jihad and Suicide Bombings." (URL: http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/666/1326 ) The article makes problematic claims that we - as specialists who have done research on Boko Haram - believe merit a response

A response to Jacob Zenn on Boko Haram and al-Qa'ida

A recent special issue of Perspectives on Terrorism, published in December 2017 (Volume 11, Number 6, pp. 174-190), included an article by Jacob Zenn entitled "Demystifying al-Qaida in Nigeria: Cases from Boko Haram's Founding, Launch of Jihad and Suicide Bombings." (URL: http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/666/1326 ) The article makes problematic claims that we - as specialists who have done research on Boko Haram - believe merit a response

Building a Database for the Historical Analysis of the General Chemistry Curriculum Using ACS General Chemistry Exams as Artifacts

As a discipline, chemistry enjoys a unique position. While many academic areas prepared “cooperative examinations” in the 1930s, only chemistry maintained the activity within what has become the ACS Examinations Institute. As a result, the long-term existence of community-built, norm-referenced, standardized exams provides a historical artifact about the nature of content coverage in courses that stretches over decades. This work reports efforts to capture information and formulate it into a database about general chemistry content coverage over the past 20 years. Roughly 2000 items have been characterized in several ways, including (i) content, using an Anchoring Concepts Content Map; (ii) item construct, such as the presence of symbolic or visual information; and (iii) cognitive processing required, in terms of recall, algorithmic, or conceptual thinking