Russia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Political Character

Chapter 7 addresses the question of how, after seventy years during which religion was violently suppressed, a religious reawakening could have occurred within a few years that is unparalleled in the post-communist states. According to the empirical data, many signs speak for a religious renaissance in Russia. Not only has church membership increased by about 30 per cent, but also belief in God. However, the religious revival can be hardly attributed to a deep-rooted religious mentality, and forms of religious practice are barely used. The religious renaissance in Russia has less a religious than a national and political character, with most people equating being Russian with being Orthodox. Talk should therefore be of a borrowed religious boom, one that has less to do with the internal dynamics of the religious than with political, cultural, and economic factors.

Two Countries, Five Years: Islam in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan through the Lens of Public Opinion Surveys

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Junisbai ◽  
Azamat Junisbai ◽  
Baurzhan Zhussupov
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
Daily Prayer ◽  
Cross National

Drawing on two waves of public opinion surveys conducted in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, we investigate the rise in religiosity and orthodoxy among Central Asian Muslims. We confirm that a religious revival is underway, with nearly 100 percent of Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani Muslims self-identifying as such in 2012—up from 80 percent in Kazakhstan in 2007. If we dig a bit deeper, however, we observe cross-national variations. Religious practice, as measured by daily prayer and weekly mosque attendance, is up in Kyrgyzstan, but has fallen in Kazakhstan. While the share of those who express preferences associated with religious orthodoxy has grown in both, this group has more than doubled in Kazakhstan. We attribute these differences to political context, both in terms of cross-national political variation and, within each country, variation based on regional differences.

The time–space tactics of Chinese Buddhist and Taoist believers under state–religion tension

2021 ◽  
pp. 0920203X2110609
Author(s):  
Wing Chung Ho ◽  
Lin Li
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Regulatory Control ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
State Regulations ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Ethnographic Observation ◽  
Communist China ◽  
Ruling Party

This study explores the experience of elderly rural Buddhist and Taoist believers in communist China where the ruling party has maintained decades-long regulatory control over religion. Based on ethnographic observation and oral histories, the analysis begins with how the actors made sense of and coped in their relationship with the state during the fieldwork period (May–June 2020) when state regulations restricted public religious practice because of COVID-19. The analysis then looks back on how practitioners experienced tightening state ideological control from the early 2010s to before COVID-19; further back at the religious revival during the opening and reform (1980s–2010s); and finally, the Cultural Revolution period (1960s–70s) when strict atheistic measures were imposed. Their narratives reveal the practical logic (habitus) which practitioners used to mediate their resistance against and compromise with the authoritarian state. Specifically, four logical modes that involve actors’ different time–space tactics were identified, namely state–religion disengagement, state–religion enhancement, religious (dis)enlightenment, and karma. The implications of these ostensibly conflicting modes of thinking in mediating the actors’ resistance–compliance interface in contemporary China are discussed.

The Politics of the Judiciary

2020 ◽  
pp. 206-228
Author(s):  
Mike McConville ◽  
Luke Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
The Political ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Political Character ◽  
Held Back

A foundational theme of this chapter is the refutation of the generalized claim that judges are ‘independent’ and free from political influence. In reconsidering the institutional realities of judicial independence, it contests the views and theories advanced by leading commentators whom have sought to show that judges are ‘political’, not least Professor J A G Griffith in his seminal, The Politics of the Judiciary. Other theorists considered include Alan Paterson, Robert Stevens, David Robertson, and Harry Annison. The chapter critically reviews the strengths and weaknesses of such theories and demonstrates instead how the ‘political’ character of judges may be explicated by empirical data drawn from internal governmental files rather than previously favoured methodologies. Contrary to these widely adopted accounts, this chapter posits that throughout the last century, a cadre of senior judges in criminal cases have been overtly political in a way previously not understood. Senior judges, it is argued, have had a dynamic involvement in building state institutions and state ideology: working in secret with the executive in formulating policing policies, initiating far-reaching change in the political economy of criminal justice, and setting the agenda for successive legislative interventions, underpinned by a state bias, having held back rights for suspects and defendants and commandeered the process of subjugating the Bar.

GENDER IN YORUBA RELIGIOUS CHANGE

2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practice ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Congregational Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Church Life ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Indigenous Society ◽  
The Church

AbstractThis paper explores the relevance of gender to the reception of Christianity and to early church life in nineteenth-century Yorubaland. These were profoundly shaped by the gender conceptions prevalent in indigenous society and religion. Though the indigenous gods (orisa) lacked gender as a fixed or intrinsic attribute, gender conceptions were projected on to them. Witchcraft was mostly attributed to women both as its victims and as its perpetrators, and with men and ancestral cults chiefly responsible for its control. There was an overlap between the social placement of witches and Christian converts, both being relatively marginal. Religious practice was also strongly gendered, with women preponderant in the cult of most orisa, but men in the main oracular cult, Ifa. Women found something of an equivalent in the cult of Ori, or personal destiny. The missions initially met their readiest response among young men, who were less tied to the orisa cults than women were. By the second generation the balance shifted, as male prestige values were incompatible with full church membership and women came more to the fore in congregational life. As an aspect of this, the church took on many of the concerns that the orisa cults had offered women—a token of this being the honorific use of the term 'mother'. In the end it is less gender per se than the gender/age conjunction that is critical.

Retrouver le temple du sacré : la logique des extrêmes dans le roman de Durtal

2013 ◽  
pp. 108-115
Author(s):  
Eléonore Sibourg
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Spiritual Belief ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Primitive Form ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

In the late 19th century a reversal of the values linked to the sacred and the profane can be observed. As Religion retreats, Positivism and faith in Progress fill the gap left by the abandoned spiritual belief. A nostalgia for transcendence arises amongst writers. Naturalism turns out to be sterile, but, sill, a belief in God seems to have become impossible. It is in this context that Huysmans writes his novels. The Durtal tetralogy in particular focuses on this theme: desperate, the main character wanders around Catholicism, seeking a sense of the Sacred. He first explores the world of Satanism before the conversion. But even when faith is regained, problems are not solved. In the religious domain itself, Durtal condemns the sacralization of the profane. Henceforth, the Durtal tetralogy manifests itself as a novel of the in-between: from brothel to church, between up-above and down-below, between almighty materialism and bourgeois Catholicism, this misanthropic writer prays for a renewed and primitive form of religious practice in which the individual can access the Sacred again. The quest for the supernatural, through a questioning of contemporary society, becomes a quest for Identity.

Sports and boycott: Attitudes among Jewish Israelis

2021 ◽  
pp. 101269022110664
Author(s):  
Tamir Sorek
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Political Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sports Fans ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Political Character ◽  
Politically Active ◽  
The Way

The controversy about the campaign to boycott Israel in general and Israeli sports in particular suffers from the absence of empirical data about the political character of the Israeli sports sphere, as well as the way Jewish Israelis see a possible boycott. Supporters of the boycott hope, among other things, that the campaign is registered among Israelis, and maybe even contribute to political change. Liberal opposition relies on the argument that sports is a beacon of inter-ethnic tolerance that should be cherished rather than targeted. Through a survey with a representative sample of internet users among the adult Jewish citizens of Israel (N = 600), this study provides the following related observations: (1) there is no evidence that Jewish Israeli sports fans are more likely to question the regime of Jewish supremacy than non-fans. (2) Among Jewish Israelis there is a small, but non-negligible minority who justifies the boycott of Israeli sports, and this minority is even larger among people who attend the soccer stadium and/or are politically active. (3) A significant majority of Jewish Israelis (69%) are concerned about a possible boycott of Israel in general, but this majority is less clear among men who are sports fans. The findings question the liberal expectation that Israeli sports serve as a model for inclusive citizenship and at the same time they indicate the potential of sports to amplify existing political tendencies among fans. These observations should be considered in future debates about sanctions and boycotts.

scholarly journals Revitalization of religion and religiousness in Serbia: Reality or a myth?

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirko Blagojevic
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Public Institution ◽  
Spiritual Needs ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Religious People ◽  
The Third ◽  
Religious Factors

This article has three parts: in the first part the authors discusses two theoretical ways of interpreting revival and revitalization of religion in Serbia. The first way takes religion as a public institution and implies mutual support of religious and non-religious factors, while the other way describes independent, internal religious revival emerging from the very core of religion and church as a divine institution and individual spiritual needs of believers for religiousness (terminal faith). In the second part, the author points to two different interpretations of empirical data on attachment to religion and church in Serbia accumulated in the last thirty years. The third part compares socio-demographic characteristics of religious people from twenty-five years ago and characteristics of contemporary believers.

scholarly journals CRITERIA FOR SELECTING CRYPTOCURRENCY FOR EFFECTIVE OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladislav Stanislavskyi
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Financial Sector ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Ideal Solution ◽  
Operational Management ◽  
Technical Properties ◽  
Operational Activities ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Socio Economic Factors

Investing in cryptoassets can be tricky. At the moment, there are many different cryptocurrencies operating on different blockchains with different ecosystems. The use of cryptoassets requires defining a goal in relation to the type of cryptoassets and the degree to which their properties affect their functioning and development. In this article, the author analyzes two of the most popular and significant cryptocurrencies for the cryptoindustry Bitcoin and Ethereum on two different blockchains. The author specifically took two cryptocurrencies that are completely different in their meaning and purpose. In view of the fact that the author does not see an ideal solution to several problems, he described the need for diversification of assets by purpose of use. The author describes each cryptocurrency as a separate ecosystem with its own properties, which requires playing by the rules. The author cites socio-economic factors due to which he chose these two blockchains for analysis, tries to analyze the dependence of the properties of each cryptocurrency on the level of popularization, and gives empirical data stating the consequences in a historical context.The author also considers technical properties as a factor of scalability and attractiveness of each of the blockchains, how cryptocurrencies interact with each other, influencing the financial mood of users. The author of the article also tries to determine the technical and social factors that led to the adaptation of these cryptocurrencies to the traditional financial sector and how they depend on each other. The author describes Bitcoin as a system for saving and multiplying funds, while Ethereum sees it as an ecosystem, an intermediary protocol between already formed market sectors and decentralized applications within the network. After analyzing the results of the study, the author provides general criteria for the formation of a methodology for choosing a cryptocurrency and blockchain for conducting effective operational activities, as well as the formation of its own mechanism for managing the efficiency of cryptocurrency operations.

scholarly journals Types of religious city population of Dagestan.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-207
Author(s):  
Madina M. Shakhbanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
The Social ◽  
City Population ◽  
Religious Factor ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Islamic Faith ◽  
Destructive Processes

Religious revival has more strongly affected the canonical territories of the spread of the Islamic faith, and for this there were objective factors. The growing importance of the religious factor, in this context, Islamic in the social life of society, the desire of clergy to dominate public life, especially in the education system, contributed to the increased interest of researchers in religious topics. Therefore, the study of the state of the religious sphere, religiosity, its types, the specifics of the cult behavior of the population are relevant, because the stability of society depends on the situation in this area. Empirical data indicate that the mass consciousness of the urban population of Dagestan is characterized by the designation of the key role of the Islamic factor in society. The attitudes of the interviewed townspeople are dominated by the position denoting the association of the respondents with Islam, while it can be observed that the subgroups self-identifying as “convinced non-believers” and “non-believers” emphasize their belonging to the Muslim faith, which is a confirmation of the existence of cultural or formal religiosity. In addition, the designation by the respondents of belief in mystical forces is one of the indicators of the deformation of their religious self-identification, which can be expressed in destructive processes in the religious sphere. Empirical data show that the share of “pure” religious types among the respondents across the entire sample is small, but for subgroups the percentage indicators reflect their type of religiosity, while religious behavior in intensity does not correspond to a specific type of religiosity.

Performanzorientierte Religionsdidaktik. Oder: Wie können Schülerinnen und Schüler über religiöse Handlungen ins Gespräch kommen?

2014 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-385
Author(s):  
David Käbisch
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
General Didactics

Abstract The performative approach in religious education tries to answer the question of how to talk appropriately about religion with students who - for whatever reason - do not participate in any religious practice and thus lack personal experience to draw upon. Based on the latest statistics about church membership, prayer and the attendance of services in Germany, the article describes religious acts as preconditions for RE, as topics in RE and as aims of RE. In doing so, the author shows why performative methods in RE can be regarded as a specific form of activity-oriented teaching and therefore comply with the standards of general didactics.

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