The Religious Experience Communal Prayer and Group Identity

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-51
Author(s):  
Michael Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Economic Marginalization ◽  
Sectarian Identity

This chapter describes the religious experience in sectarian environments as expressed by the participants themselves. This chapter provides essential texture to the analysis by allowing worshipers to speak for themselves. Using responses from open-ended interview questions in both Lebanon and Iraq, it reveals the ways in which communal worship promotes sectarian solidarity and group-centric political preferences. The Lebanese interviews illustrate the link between communal worship and political preferences. Distinct themes emerged between sects; while communal prayer heightened sectarian identity for all sects, each sect reported different political messages. For Christians, the emphasis was on preserving their community's privileges in a changing political landscape. For Sunnis, the emphasis was on avoiding divisions imposed from outside. For Shi`a, political messages stressed political and economic marginalization and called for an end to the sectarian system. In each of these cases, interviews indicated that religious-political messaging in places of worship clearly reflects political circumstances and sectarian interests, a relationship explored in-depth in subsequent chapters.

The Re-ethnicisation of Politics in Myanmar and the Making of the Rohingya Ethnicity Paradox

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Hein
Keyword(s):  
Group Identity ◽  
Ethnic Origin ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Violent Acts

In Myanmar, hostilities between the majority Burmese and the minority Rakhine people on one side and the minority Rohingya on the other side have been common, but violence has persisted and even increased during the unstable transition away from an authoritarian regime. Most Burmese citizens appear to be united behind the ruling elites on the Rohingya issue. Why is the violence assumed to be of ethnic origin and whose interests are served by the acceptance of such violent acts as routine events? The article attempts to seek answers by following Brass’s framework on Hindu–Muslim violence in India. Its purpose is to examine which actors, mechanisms and institutional developments have been dominant and significant in the re-ethnicisation of the political landscape in Myanmar and how this has consolidated the formation of a contentious and contested specific Rohingya group identity among many Arakanese Muslims.

Election Forecasts With Twitter

2010 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 402-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andranik Tumasjan ◽  
Timm O. Sprenger ◽  
Philipp G. Sandner ◽  
Isabell M. Welpe
Keyword(s):  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Election Result ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Positive And Negative Emotions

This study investigates whether microblogging messages on Twitter validly mirror the political landscape off-line and can be used to predict election results. In the context of the 2009 German federal election, we conducted a sentiment analysis of over 100,000 messages containing a reference to either a political party or a politician. Our results show that Twitter is used extensively for political deliberation and that the mere number of party mentions accurately reflects the election result. The tweets' sentiment (e.g., positive and negative emotions associated with a politician) corresponds closely to voters' political preferences. In addition, party sentiment profiles reflect the similarity of political positions between parties. We derive suggestions for further research and discuss the use of microblogging services to aggregate dispersed information.

The Dynamics of Collective Deliberation in the 1996 Election: Campaign Effects on Accessibility, Certainty, and Accuracy

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 641-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Huckfeldt ◽  
John Sprague ◽  
Jeffrey Levine
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Communication Effectiveness ◽  
Campaign Effects ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Registered Voters ◽  
Discussion Partners ◽  
Presidential Election Campaign

We examine the effectiveness of political communication and deliberation among citizens during a presidential election campaign. In order for communication to be effective, messages conveyed through social interaction must be unambiguous, and the recipient must readily, confidently, and accurately perceive the intent of the sender. We address a number of factors that may influence communication effectiveness: the accessibility and extremity of political preferences, the distribution of preferences in the surrounding environment, disagreement between the senders and receivers of political messages, and the dynamic of the election campaign. The analysis is based on a study of the 1996 campaign, which interviewed citizens and discussion partners between March 1996 and January 1997. The citizens are a random sample of registered voters in the Indianapolis and St. Louis areas, and these registered voters identified the discussion partners as people with whom they discuss either “government, elections, and politics” or “important matters.”

Religious Experience in Seventeenth-Century Quakerism

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-43
Author(s):  
Madeleine Pennington
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Powerful Group

This chapter traces the precise ways in which the actual religious, emotional, and cultural experience of Quakers changed from the origins of the movement to roughly 1700. Recovering this experience, it becomes clear that Quakerism itself emerged out of a particular response to an awareness of Christ’s presence, and that Friends’ commitment to belief in immediate revelation was continuously affirmed throughout this period of transformation. However, other important religious changes did occur—namely, an altered understanding of divine immanence, the emergence of a powerful group identity, the loss of a distinctive prophetic vocation, and a growing understanding of perfection as moral righteousness. These shifts do not indicate a process of mollification in the pursuit of socio-political respectability, but rather point to a process of theological transformation—as the next chapter will show

Education as a Cleavage

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bovens ◽  
Anchrit Wille
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
First Century ◽  
European Countries ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Educational Differences ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Selection Of

Cleavage formation in the nineteenth and twentieth century was based on religion and class. To what extent can we observe an emerging social and political cleavage along educational lines across Europe in the twenty-first century? We use a broad notion of cleavage and look at educational patterns of segmentation, stratification, and segregation; differences in political preferences; and to what extent these educational differences are reflected in the political landscape. We construct an index of cleavage formation that aims to measure to what extent the various differences along educational lines are merging. The degree to which the contours of this new divide have been crystallized is stronger in western and northern countries than elsewhere in Europe. This analysis forms the basis of our selection of six West European countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, and the UK.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Fanar Haddad
Keyword(s):  
Group Identity ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Group Relations ◽  
Mass Group ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
Sectarian Identity

The introduction sets out the problems currently inherent to the study of sectarian dynamics and makes the case for why a new approach is needed. Specifically, it proposes the abandonment of the term ‘sectarianism’ and a shift of analytic attention towards sectarian identity. It then argues that understanding sectarian identity requires a multidimentional framework – one that recognizes the multiple ways in which sectarian identities are imagined, experienced and utilized. The model proposed in this book frames sectarian identity as a multi-layered concept that operates on several dimensions: doctrinal, subnational, national and transnational. The introduction briefly outlines why such a framework is needed and what its benefits are to our understanding of sectarian dynamics. Rather than a sui generis category, sectarian identity is better understood through the prism of mass-group identity and inter-group relations. It is neither perpetually relevant nor is it impervious to inflammation; neither inherently divisive nor inherently uniting. Rather than zero-sum conceptions of conflict and coexistence sectarian relations are marked by fluidity and ambiguity between commonality and difference, between Islamic/national oneness and sect-specificity. Finally the introduction presents a chapter outline and ends with a brief description of what the book is and is not.

Transformations of the spanish party-political landscape: internal and external vectors

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Gavrilova ◽  
A. Vilchinskii
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary Election ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Nationalist Parties

The paper examines the party-political crisis in the Kingdom of Spain. The triggers of the political crisis are analyzed, the results of the parliamentary election in 2015, 2016 and 2019 are considered and the main trends in the Spanish electoral process are highlighted. The study carries out a content analysis of the programs presented by leading Spanish political parties prior to the 2016 and 2019 parliamentary election. The article describes the run-up to the off -year voting on November 10, 2019. The research presents a comparative analysis of sociological surveys, distinguishes the most topical issues for Spanish voters and fi gures out their political preferences. The article shows the infl uence the internal political situation has on the international position of the Kingdom and its role in the European Union. The research identifi es the main problems in forging party coalitions, underscores the stances of regional and nationalist parties, analyzes the results of the resolved crisis in 2020 and characterizes new Spanish government.

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