Secularism, Religion, and Democracy in Southeast Asia

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Religion And Democracy ◽  
Intellectual Environment

The return of religion is most paradoxical, as in many parts of the world that take pride in their modernity and economic success, religion is emerging as the strongest reason in national politics. In addition, it is increasingly acknowledged that organized religion is not disappearing or fading but might even be gaining new forms of assertions. However many Western governments are unable to recognise a language that formulates both spaces, the secular and religious, to build our modern identities. The essays proposed for this volume analyse this post-secular turn as it has evolved in the past two decades. The collection also tries to situate the discourses within the larger intellectual environment shaped by anxieties about religion. This proposed volume is also a serious attempt to explore how the democratic traditions in Southeast Asia have transformed religious beliefs and practices along with the vocabulary of rule and obligation. The contributors question the relationship between modern forms of power and its citizens and the way religion, human rights, and secularism are framed. The chapters challenge the claim that religious traditions are either making nonsensical claims or have dangerous consequences when they enter the public realm. The result, we hope, will be invaluable for experts in this region wanting a broad picture of the debates on secularism and democracy in Southeast Asia.

The Relationship Between Government Popularity and Approval for the Government's Record in the United Kingdom

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hudson
Keyword(s):  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
State Of The Economy ◽  
Degree Of Stability ◽  
Key Variables ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Opinion Polls

The past decade has seen the growth of a considerable literature on the link between government popularity, as reflected by the proportion of the public indicating their intention to vote for the government in opinion polls, and the state of the economy, as represented by certain key variables. The work began in the early 1970s with articles by Goodhart and Bhansali, Mueller, and Kramer. It continued through the decade; some of the more recent contributions can be found in a set of readings edited by Hibbs and Fassbender. However, despite the amount and quality of this work, problems remain. Principal amongst these, as Chrystal and Alt have pointed out, is the inability to estimate a relationship which exhibits any degree of stability either over time or between researchers. Nearly all the studies have been successful in finding a significant relationship for specific time periods, but when these are extended, or when the function is used to forecast outside the original estimation period, the relationship appears to break down.

scholarly journals UNDERSTANDING LAW AND RELIGION AS CULTURE: MAKING ROOM FOR MEANING IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (1, 2 & 3) ◽  
pp. 2006
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Berger
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between law and religion in contemporary civil society has been a topic of increasing social interest and importance in Canada in the past many years. We have seen the practices and commitments of religious groups and individuals become highly salient on many issues of public policy, including the nature of the institution of marriage, the content of public education, and the uses of public space, to name just a few. As the vehicle for this discussion, I want to ask a straightforward question: When we listen to our public discourse, what is the story that we hear about the relationship between law and religion? How does this topic tend to be spoken about in law and politics – what is our idiom around this issue – and does this story serve us well? Though straightforward, this question has gone all but unanswered in our political and academic discussions. We take for granted our approach to speaking about – and, therefore, our way of thinking about – the relationship between law and religion. In my view, this is most unfortunate because this taken-for-grantedness is the source of our failure to properly understand the critically important relationship between law and religion.

Introduction: Social Movements and Democratization in Indonesia

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Thushara Dibley ◽  
Michele Ford
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
The Public ◽  
Competition And Cooperation ◽  
Elected Representatives ◽  
The Relationship

This introductory chapter focuses on the collective contribution of progressive social movements to Indonesia's transition to democracy and their collective fate in the decades since. This sets the scene for the case studies to follow. It also explains how the relationship between social movements and democratization is understood in this context. Social movements consist of networks involving a diverse range of actors, including individuals, groups, or organizations that may be loosely connected or tightly clustered. Democratization, meanwhile, is a process through which a polity moves toward “a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives.”

Rising public piety and the status of women in Indonesia two decades after reformasi

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Dina Afrianty
Keyword(s):  
The Public ◽  
Gender Policy ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
The Past ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Status Of Women

AbstractIndonesian women were at the forefront of activism during the turbulent period prior to reformasi and were a part of the leadership that demanded democratic change. Two decades after Indonesia embarked on democratic reforms, the country continues to face challenges on socio-religious and political fronts. Both the rise of political Islam and the increased presence of religion and faith in the public sphere are among the key features of Indonesia's consolidating democracy. This development has reinvigorated the discourse on citizenship and rights and also the historical debate over the relationship between religion and the state. Bearing this in mind, this paper looks at the narrative of women's rights and women's status in the public domain and public policy in Indonesia. It is evident, especially in the past decade, that much of the public conversation within the religious framework is increasingly centred on women's traditional social roles. This fact has motivated this study. Several norms and ideas that are relied on are based on cultural and faith-based interpretations - of gender. Therefore, this paper specifically examines examples of the ways in which social, legal, and political trends in this context affect progress with respect to gender equality and gender policy. I argue that these trends are attempts to subject women to conservative religious doctrines and to confine them to traditional gender roles. The article discusses how these developments should be seen in the context of the democratic transition in Indonesia.

“Tanked up Yobs” and “Self-Pity City”. Deconstructing the Myths of the Hillsborough Disaster

STADION ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Alan McDougall
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
British History ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
Grassroots Activism ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Overwhelming Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Government Legislation

On 15 April 1989, Liverpool FC played Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield in northern England. Catastrophic errors by the police and other organisations led to the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters, crushed against the perimeter fences on the Leppings Lane terrace. Though the horrific facts of the disaster were quickly and widely known, they were lost beneath another narrative, promoted by the police, numerous politicians, and large sections of the media. This narrative blamed the disaster on “tanked up yobs”: drunk and aggressive Liverpool supporters, who turned up late and forced their way into the ground. Over the subsequent years and decades, as Hillsborough campaigners vainly sought justice for the disaster’s victims in a series of trials and inquests, the destructive allegation remained in the public realm. It was reinforced by establishment dismissal of Liverpool as a “self-pity city”, home to a community incapable of accepting official verdicts or of leaving the past in the past. This essay uncovers the history of the myths of the Hillsborough disaster. It first shows how these myths were established - how false narratives, with powerful backers, shifted responsibility for the disaster from the police to supporters, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It then examines how these myths were embedded in public discourse - how Liverpool was demonised as an aggressively sentimental city where people refused to admit to “killing their own”. It finally analyses how these myths were overturned through research, media mobilisation, and grassroots activism, a process that culminated in the 2016 inquest verdict, which ruled that the 96 Hillsborough victims were unlawfully killed. In doing so, the essay shows how Hillsborough became a key event in modern British history, influencing everything from stadium design to government legislation.

Corporate Statecraft and its Diplomacy

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-419
Author(s):  
George Haynal
Keyword(s):  
External Environment ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Corporations

Global corporations operate in an environment of increasing complexity. While they have in the past been able to rely on the modern state to manage much of the complexity in the external environment, as globalization proceeds they are constrained to engage in that function ever more directly. This practitioner’s piece seeks to discuss the evolving challenges for global corporations in the public realm and proposes certain approaches for the conduct of their diplomacy in managing them.

Called to Become a Blessing

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-411
Author(s):  
Martin Prudký
Keyword(s):  
Public Domain ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
The Status ◽  
Book Of Genesis ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
European Civilization

The religious traditions and texts of ancient Israel have shaped European civilization and culture in a fundamental way. One of the key motifs that the Hebrew Bible has contributed to the formation of the spiritual traditions of this culture is the conception that faith entails a ‘stepping out’ of the status quo on the new journey to which God calls a person. An archetypal story in this respect is the narrative concerning the call of Abram (Gen. 12:1–3). This paper presents the basic motifs of Abram’s call in the context of the book of Genesis and sketches their impact on subsequent religious traditions. It pursues the question of the relationship of vocation and mission (of ‘stepping out’ and ‘charting a course’), which are two fundamental aspects of Abraham’s role as ‘the father of the faith’. In addition, this paper reflects on these motifs’ potential to impact the public domain.

scholarly journals Entre l’arbre et l’écorce : la recherche criminologique au Canada (1960-1985)

Criminologie ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Denis Szabo
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship

The author describes the relationship that has been established over the past 25 years between university centres doing research in criminology and the Federal Government, pointing out both areas of agreement and as an expert and participant in the field, advocates a pluralistic type of collaboration between the University and the public authorities.

The Oxford Handbook of Music Listening in the 19th and 20th Centuries

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Musical Cultures ◽  
History Of

This handbook takes on the task of examining the history of music listening over the past two hundred years. It uses the “art of listening” as a leitmotif encompassing an entanglement of interdependent practices and discourses about a learnable mode of perception. The art of listening first emerged around 1800 and was adopted and adapted across the public realm to suit a wide range of collective listening situations from popular to serious art forms up to the present day. Because this is a relatively new subject in historical research, the volume combines case studies from several disciplines in order to investigate whether, how, and why practices of music listening changed. Focusing on a diverse set of locations and actors and using a range of historical sources, it attempts to historicize and reconstruct the evolution of listening styles to show the wealth of variants in listening. In doing so, it challenges the inherited image of the silent listener as the dominant force in musical cultures.

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