Histories of authority in the African Great Lakes: trajectories and transactions

Africa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 90 (5) ◽  
pp. 952-971
Author(s):  
Marie-Eve Desrosiers ◽  
Aidan Russell
Keyword(s):  
Great Lakes ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
African Great Lakes ◽  
The Past ◽  
The 1960S

AbstractThis article reflects on how scholars have engaged with the past and with notions of authority in the African Great Lakes. A dominant ‘presentist’ perspective on the region mobilizes historical knowledge in an uncritical fashion, reducing authority to a set of historical clichés and building on a familiar focus on crises and the state. Bridging history and political science, we propose two concepts to analyse histories of political authority to unsettle presentist biases: trajectories and transactions. To illustrate the contribution these alternative lenses make, we present two historical vignettes. First, we revisit the 1973 coup in Rwanda as an ambiguous trajectory of authority-making and unmaking. Then, we consider languages of praise and petitioning in Burundi in the 1960s, to show how authority is lived, manifested and challenged through local transactional relations.

Curriculum and Civil Society in Afghanistan

2009 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adele Jones
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Educational Practices ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Regime ◽  
The 1960S

Although research has traditionally discussed the ways in which societies in conflict develop educational practices, only recently have scholars begun to examine the role of education in creating or sustaining conflict. In Afghanistan, changing regimes have had an impact on state-sanctioned curricula over the past fifty years, drastically altering the purpose and ideology of education. In this article, Adele Jones traces the changing nature of Afghan curricula since the 1960s, highlighting the conflict surrounding curricula during the Soviet regime. She posits that resistance to statesanctioned curricula was seen as resistance to the state regime, often putting schools at the center of conflict. This continues today, as Taliban groups resist the Western-influenced curricula of modern Afghanistan. Jones argues that understanding this cycle of resistance is critical for Western agencies aiming to support educational efforts in the country.

Reply to Historicism

Philosophy ◽  
1946 ◽  
Vol 21 (80) ◽  
pp. 245-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. H. Heinemann
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Urgent Problem ◽  
Human History ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Sequence Of Events

History has become a real and urgent problem. It harasses us in a double form, theoretical and practical, corresponding to the double meaning of the term “history” as either “a sequence of events in time” or “our knowledge of past events”. The first concerns our attitude to human history. We somehow suffer from “historical indigestion”. We may have mastered Nature, but we have certainly not yet mastered History. Therefore it threatens to dominate us. The mass of past events is too much for us and for our memory, too many dates, too many facts, too many interesting or indifferent happenings. We cannot even keep pace with, or realize, all the important events which fill our own times, like world-wars, revolutions, counter-revolutions, inflation and deflation, with all the misery they imply. Consciously or unconsciously we feel ashamed of the human record, of the amount of cruelty, destruction, murder, and martyrdom inflicted on innocent beings. In spite of all this we cannot escape History. All the great events affect every human being. Moreover, historical knowledge permeates our education and is disturbingly growing from year to year, more in detail and in specialization than as a co-ordinated whole. We may react to this situation in one of three ways: (1) by filling our brain with this unco-ordinated mass of historical knowledge, and submerging our personality in it, (2) by becoming specialists and disregarding problems other than our own, (3) by ignoring the past altogether, and falling back into the state of nature and barbarism. We have witnessed all these solutions and their disquieting results.

HISTORY AND THE HISTORICAL IN AN ERA OF CHANGE

2021 ◽  
pp. 12-19
Author(s):  
Aleksandr R. Akramov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Knowledge And Attitudes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Cultural Structure

The article is an attempt by the author to address the basic issues of the development of history and historical knowledge in the era of turning points and changes. The article discusses the issue of actualizing historical knowledge during periods of changes in the social, political, cultural structure of the state. The author defines the characteristic features for the development of history and historical knowledge in the era of turning The article is an attempt by the author to address the basic issues of the development of history and historical knowledge in the era of turning points and changes. The article discusses the issue of actualizing historical knowledge during periods of changes in the social, political, cultural structure of the state. The author defines the characteristic features for the development of history and historical knowledge in the era of turning points. He singles out fear of the past as the first and one of the main elements of comprehension and rethinking of the past. The past, according to the author, at such moments has the property of becoming a landmark in the developing the social and political forces. The denial of history and the historical is also one an element in the development of history in an era of change. A return to indefinite values charac- terizes the era of transitions, and a number of additional questions arise related to the acceptance of ideas or their interpretations in the present. The author is inclined to believe that during the changes there is arise in the understanding and concept of that the present is a projection of our past, what to a greater extent affects the increase in the relevance of the object under study. The mechanisms of actualizing historical knowledge and attitudes towards history have been little studied in the scientific literature and require addi- tional involving the historians researchers into the theme since that directly affects our present.

The relationship between religion and the state: the institution of ‘Commandment of the Faithful’ in Morocco†

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-81
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al Khamlichi
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship

The term ‘Amir al-Mou'mineen’ (Commander of the Faithful) and ‘caliph’ were first bestowed on Omar Bin al-Khattab who became the successor of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) two-and-a-half years after he passed away. By virtue of the political and religious connotations of the term, the title conveyed overarching political authority – a kind of absolute power. The notion of Commander of the Faithful facilitated oppression of those who held different views, directly or indirectly, through employing fatawa, that is religious interpretations and edicts, in addition to mobilizing religious followers and devotees. This excess of political power is based on the definition of Imarat al-Mu'mineen (Commandment of the Faithful) or the Caliphate common in religious jurisprudence. This definition was coined by Ibn Khaldoun, and may be translated as: ‘making people abide by the view of Shar (the Law of God in Islam) regarding their temporal and afterlife interests’. Morocco has been no different from the rest of the Islamic world over the centuries, and now two distinct phenomena are apparent. First, the emergence of different groups, each with its own ideology and claims to be defending religion and pursuing its implementation. Such groups consider all other ways of thinking as apostasy that must be eliminated; while juxtaposed to them, there exist intellectual currents calling for the continued separation of religion and the state and its laws. During the past two decades this phenomenon has led to tragic situations in a considerable number of Islamic states, whose prospects now seem very gloomy. Second, a tight regulation of state institutions, together with constitutional guarantees of individual rights and freedoms, can prevent the manipulation of the state in the name of religion, and its use for tyranny and the oppression of individuals and minorities, be it in the name of Commandment of the Faithful or any other term. It seems that Morocco is aware of the power of these two phenomena, especially after it faced social unrest in 1992 and 2001, which almost destroyed its stability.

scholarly journals 楊德昌的殉道英雄與歷史反思：重看《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (36) ◽  
pp. 197-222
Author(s):  
謝世宗 謝世宗
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
The State ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
The Past ◽  
Moral Ideals ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Historical Reflection ◽  
The Cost

<p>楊德昌的《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》（1991）由於研究材料取得上的困難，二十五年來的研究論文仍然相當有限。不同於形式分析、女性主義、後殖民理論與心理分析的角度，本文以新批評的細讀與敘事學的方法，釐清電影如何透過角色的類比與對比，包含政治的現實主義者、道德的理想主義者與勢利的弄權者之間的妥協與衝突，在舞臺上架構出一齣殉道者的道德悲劇。其次，透過《牯嶺街》作為一部歷史電影，脈絡化上述的人物角色與道德衝突，探討1960年代的國家機器如何形塑了一群道德的理想主義者，而他們理想主義又為何必然與整個時代產生矛盾與衝突。</p> <p>&nbsp;</p><p>Due to its inconvenient access, Edward Yang’s masterpiece A Brighter Summer Day, for the past twenty five years, has ellicited very few research articles. To make a contribution to this premature scholarship, this article focuses on the subject matter of the film and employes the method of narratology to argue that through the devices of similarity and contrast, Yang presents an ambitious moral tragedy on the cinematic stage where the heros attempt to realize their moral ideals even at the cost of their inclinations, self-interests and lives. Viewing the film as Yang’s historical reflection on the 1960s, the article then unravel the ways by which the state apparatuse interpellates some individuals into moral subjects and explicate why these moral idealists are doomed to confront and conflict with the millieu. </p> <p>&nbsp;</p>

scholarly journals NEGARA HUKUM DAN POLITIK HUKUM ISLAM DI INDONESIA: CATATAN KRITIS ATAS PEMIKIRAN NURCHOLISH MADJID

Asy-Syari ah ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Undang Hidayat
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Muslim Scholars

Many muslim scholars believed that the idea and model of legal state had exsited since the first hijriya Islamic century ago, when the prophet of Muhammad SAW declared Madina State, including with all instruments and its requirement of the state such as territory, constitution, society, and declaration. This view is also admitted by the Western Scholars who stated that the Prophet of Muhammad SAW had successfully implemented the bases of political authority and the model of the strongly modern state with the spirit of democracy in the past.

Political Science at the Crossroads

1927 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Deborah Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Metaphysical Theory ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Political Character ◽  
Past Half

Political science is at the parting of the ways. Its foundations have been undermined by the claims of law and jurisprudence, into whose hands it has been deliberately surrendering itself for the past half-century or more, and now its chief strongholds are under fire from the neighboring fields of sociology, economics, and ethics. So severe and so persistent have these attacks become that the time has arrived when the political scientist must decide whether he will allow his subject to be absorbed in any one or all of these various fields, or will attempt to reëstablish it as a distinctive discipline.The reasons for this state of things are not difficult to discover. They quite obviously lie in the fact that in the pursuit of their basic problem—the search, namely, for the nature and source of sovereignty—political philosophers have so generally followed two equally futile and fruitless paths: either the path of pure speculation leading to a supernatural or metaphysical theory, or the path of legal analysis, leading ultimately to the juristic theory of the state. Indeed, during these recent years political theory has been so increasingly “under bondage to the lawyers” that it is little wonder that a reaction has come, and that thinkers in their determination to find the reality behind the formal juristic conception, are now repudiating not only the legal, but even the political, character of the state.

scholarly journals APSA Executive Director's Report, 2009

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (01) ◽  
pp. 172-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Brintnall
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Annual Report ◽  
The State ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
The Past ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Science Association

The Executive Director's Report is an annual report on the state and activities of the association, and for 2009 it is hard not to reach outside the literal bounds of the association to reflect on the discipline, the academy, and the economy as a whole. Simply put, the American Political Science Association has weathered the financial storms of the past year well, though we know as well that reverberations from the economic downtown will continue for some time, with the potential for a sustained period of change.

The state of political science, 2020

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Rom Jensen ◽  
Jonathon W. Moses
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
The State
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document