The Political Economy of Support for Sharia: Evidence from the Russian North Caucasus

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 695-719
Author(s):  
Valery Dzutsati ◽  
David Siroky ◽  
Khasan Dzutsev

AbstractMany scholars have argued that orthodox Muslims harbor attitudes that are more economically communitarian and politically illiberal, since individuals are seen as embedded within a larger community that places a premium on social order. Yet most studies have ignored the potential of Islam as an ideological platform for political reformers. Religion in general and Islam in particular has mostly been treated as a predictor rather than a derivative of political-economic preferences. This article suggests that, in the absence of credible secular political ideologies and representative political mechanisms, reformist-minded individuals are likely to use religion as a political platform for change. When Muslims are a minority in a repressive non-Muslim society, Islamic orthodoxy can serve as a political platform for politically and economically liberal forces. We test these conjectures with original micro-level data from the Russian North Caucasus and find strong support for them.

Author(s):  
Eyal Zisser

This article describes how in the middle of the winter of 2010 the “Spring of the Arab Nations” suddenly erupted without any warning all over the Middle East. However, the momentum of the uprisings was impeded rather quickly, and the hopes held out for the “Spring of the Arab Nations” turned into frustration and disappointment. While many Israelis were focusing their attention in surprise, and some, with doubt and concern as well about what was happening in the region around them; suddenly, in Israel itself, at the height of the steamy summer of 2011, an “Israeli Spring” broke out. The protesters were young Israelis belonging to the Israeli middle class. Their demands revolved around the slogan, “Let us live in our land.” However, similar to what happened in the Arab world, the Israeli protest subsided little by little. The hassles of daily life and security and foreign affairs concerns once more became the focus of the public's attention. Therefore, the protesters' hopes were disappointed, and Israel's political, economic, and social order remained unshaken. Thus, towards the end of 2017, the memory of the “Israeli spring” was becoming faded and forgotten. However, while the Arab world was sinking into chaos marked by an ever deepening economic and social crisis that deprived its citizens of any sense of security and stability, Israel, by contrast, was experiencing years of stability in both political and security spheres, as well as economic growth and prosperity. This stability enabled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party to remain in power and to maintain the political and social status-quo in Israel.


2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 569-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARTURAS ROZENAS ◽  
YURI M. ZHUKOV

States use repression to enforce obedience, but repression—especially if it is violent, massive, and indiscriminate—often incites opposition. Why does repression have such disparate effects? We address this question by studying the political legacy of Stalin’s coercive agricultural policy and collective punishment campaign in Ukraine, which led to the death by starvation of over three million people in 1932–34. Using rich micro-level data on eight decades of local political behavior, we find that communities exposed to Stalin’s “terror by hunger” behaved more loyally toward Moscow when the regime could credibly threaten retribution in response to opposition. In times when this threat of retribution abated, the famine-ridden communities showed more opposition to Moscow, both short- and long-term. Thus, repression can both deter and inflame opposition, depending on the political opportunity structure in which post-repression behavior unfolds.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 803
Author(s):  
Zeki Tekin ◽  
Gülnaz Okumuş

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>Mankind has put forth a special effort to ensure the order of society since the very beginning of it. The Ottoman State, has always ensured the public and social order like other Islamic states in the light of Allah's commandments. However, the present order started deteriorating due to dwindling basic principles (justice, merit, consultancy ...) with time which were imposed by the Shariah Law; to which the Ottoman Empire was subjected.</p><p>The radical developments in the political, economic, social and legal fields that took place in Europe had affected the Ottoman State seriously like other states. Under the influence of all these internal and external dynamics, the Ottoman Empire started quest for a new order and attempted to bring a series of reforms under the name of westernization or modernization. Thus in the Ottoman State, besides these reform movements, the idea of creating a constitution had also emerged.</p><p>This study tries to find out the internal and external dynamics in the formation of Kanun-ı Esasi which was the first constitution of the Ottoman Empire in the modern sense and the consequences of this quest for order.</p><p><strong>Öz</strong></p><p>İnsanoğlu, var olduğundan beri yaşadığı toplumun düzenini temin edebilmek için özel bir çaba göstermiştir. Kuruluşu itibariyle Ortaçağ devletlerinden olan Osmanlı Devleti, diğer İslam devletleri gibi kamu ve toplum düzenini her zaman Allah’ın hükümleri doğrultusunda tesis etmiştir. Ancak Osmanlının   tâbi olduğu şer’i hukukun vaz ettiği temel prensiplerin (adalet, liyakat, meşveret…) zamanla göz ardı edilmesi ile mevcut düzen bozulmaya başlamıştır.</p><p>Avrupa’da meydana gelen siyasal, ekonomik, toplumsal ve hukuk alanlarındaki köklü gelişmeler Osmanlı Devleti’ni ciddi anlamda etkilemiştir. Tüm bu iç ve dış dinamiklerin tesiriyle yeni düzen arayışına giren Osmanlı Devleti, batıcılık ya da modernleşme adı altında bir dizi reform teşebbüslerinde bulunmuştur. Osmanlı Devleti’nde bu reform hareketlerine paralel olarak bir anayasa oluşturma düşüncesi de böylece ortaya çıkmıştır.</p><p>Bu çalışmada Osmanlının modern anlamda ilk anayasası olan Kanun-ı Esasi’nin oluşumuna kaynaklık eden iç ve dış dinamiklerin neler olduğu ve bunların tesirleri ortaya konulmaya çalışılmıştır.</p>


1979 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-333
Author(s):  
A. Rahman

The paper points out some of the existing limitations of science, in terms of its isolation, highly specialized nature of knowledge and its language, its present linkages and their consequences. It points out the nature of technology, particularly with regard to control of resources and generation and preservation of inequalities, in addition to inefficient machines and systems and pollution problems. It also points out the unequal relationship between the developing and advanced countries and the political, economic and technological pressures exerted on the former by the latter to play a satellitic role. The paper suggests that major transformations could be effected when scientific and technological developments could be linked to a movement of social change. It goes on to suggest concrete steps which could be taken to effect that.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 425-444
Author(s):  
ANDREW JAINCHILL

Among the stunning changes in material and intellectual life that transformed eighteenth-century Europe, perhaps none excited as much contemporary consternation as the twin-headed growth of a modern commercial economy and the fiscal–military state. As economies became increasingly based on trade, money, and credit, and states both exploded in size and forged seemingly insoluble ties to the world of finance, intellectuals displayed growing anxiety about just what kind of political, economic, and social order was taking shape before their eyes. Two important new books by Michael Sonenscher and John Shovlin, Before the Deluge: Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution and The Political Economy of Virtue: Luxury, Patriotism, and the Origins of the French Revolution, tackle these apprehensions and the roles they played in forging French political and economic writings in the second half of the eighteenth century. Both authors also take the further step of demonstrating the impact of the ideas they study on the origins of the French Revolution.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Andrew Monson

From China to the Mediterranean, interstate competition transformed the political, economic, and social order in the mid-first millenniumbce. The case of Egypt from the Saite reunification in 664bceto the Roman conquest in 30bceillustrates this phenomenon, which resembles the rise of fiscal-military states under the pressure of war in early modern Europe. The New Fiscal History that has sought to explain this rise in Europe tends to produce a linear historical account of centralization and increasing fiscal capacity from feudal societies to the modern tax state. In Egypt, by contrast, the process was interrupted by integration into the imperial structures of Achaemenid Persia and Rome. It thus provides a convenient laboratory to compare the development of fiscal institutions in a political environment characterized by warring states, and one dominated by a single empire.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-50
Author(s):  
Карчагин ◽  
Evgeniy Karchagin ◽  
Гапоненко ◽  
Stanislav Gaponenko

The article analyzes the correlation between the political justice as a fundamental social and political value and political ideologies. The main historical stages of the development of «ideology» notion are defined. Political justice is broadly understood as the proper measure of distribution of political goods and it forms the ideal of social order, which regulates the relations of social subjects concerning the public authority. At the same time the forming of social ideal is one of the main aims of political ideologies. The mentioned conclusions allow to interpret «political justice» as a fundamental axiological principle which proves the definite ideal of socio-political order. It is urged to regulate the social subject’s relationship concerning public authority.


Author(s):  
Mariya Y Omelicheva ◽  
Lawrence P Markowitz

Abstract What are the conditions that obstruct the formation of a crime-terror nexus? To answer this question we carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Russia's North Caucasus (2008–2016) where no durable crime-terror nexus materialized despite the presence of conditions conducive to the emergence of linkages between criminals and militants. We demonstrate how the sheer diversity and fluidity of violent actors, with some deeply immersed in the political, economic, and security institutions of the Russian state, fragmented the elements of a crime-terror nexus to such a degree that collaboration among them proved too difficult and costly. Our argument makes several contributions to analyses of the crime-terror nexus. First, our study illuminates the various actors within a purported nexus, demonstrating how cooperation between them may not be forthcoming. Second, our framework demonstrates how a multiplicity of the centers and agents of state power, both formal and informal, is intimately interwoven into the fragmented security landscape. Third, the diversity of the so-called terrorist and militant groups that are competing for power and resources call for rethinking and reconceptualization of what we call a “terrorist group” and the data that we use to study terrorist violence.


Worldview ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 7-11
Author(s):  
Quentin L. Quade

"Christ, to be sure, gave His Church no proper mission in the political, economic, or social order, The purpose which He set before her is a religious one." This is a formulation which the Bishops of the Catholic Church asserted in the Conciliar document The Church in the Modern World in the chapter devoted to "The Fostering of Peace and the Promotion of a Community of Nations." From this statement one should not conclude to the political irrelevance of religion. Rather, he should seek further for the precise mode of that relevance; he will find it, I believe, in the religiously enlightened person acting politically.


2020 ◽  
Vol 93 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-30
Author(s):  
Justin V. Hastings

What explains the recent (perhaps temporary) resurgence of sophisticated maritime pirate attacks in Southeast Asia in the face of strong regional counter-piracy efforts? Given Southeast Asian countries' relatively well-functioning institutions, political, economic, and conflict-related explanations for the return of piracy are incomplete. As an innovative extension to structural arguments on piracy incidence, we take an approach that focuses on adaptation by the pirates themselves, using incident-level data derived from the International Maritime Organization to track how sophisticated pirate organizations have changed what, where, and how they attack. In response to counter-piracy efforts that are designed to deny pirates the political space, time, and access to economic infrastructure they need to bring their operations to a profitable conclusion, pirates have adapted their attacks to minimize dependence on those factors. Within Southeast Asia, this adaptation varies by the type of pirate attack: ship and cargo seizures have shifted to attacks that move quickly, ignore the ship, and strip only cargo that can be sold profitably, while kidnappings involve taking hostages off ships to land bases in the small areas dominated by insurgent groups. The result is a concentration of ship and cargo seizures in western archipelagic Southeast Asia, and a concentration of kidnappings in areas near Abu Sayyaf Group strongholds.


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