Blessed Men and Tribal Politics: Notes on Political Culture in the Indo-Afghan World

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 344-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nile Green

AbstractThis article examines some of the foundations of the political culture of the Afghan communities of medieval North India through analysing the roles of Sufis and Sayyids in the arbitration of disputes. The social roles of such 'blessed men' are interpreted as part of a wider political culture in which places, objects and persons of mediation functioned on both the small scale of private quarrels and the grander scale of tribal and 'state' diplomacy. In both cases, the origins of this political culture are seen as a reflection of the segmentary society of the Indo-Afghan frontier and a response to the recurring interaction of its mobile social groups in India and beyond. Cet article s'attache à élucider les fondements de la culture politique des communautés afghanes de l'Inde médiévale en examinant les rôles qu'ont joués les soufies et les sayyids dans l'arbitrage des disputes. Ces 'hommes bénis' font partie intégrante d'une culture politique au sein de laquelle circulent objets, lieux et personnes médiatrices ; leur in fluence s'exerce tant au niveau des querelles personnelles qu'au niveau de la diplomatie de la tribu et de 'l'état'. Dans les deux cas, les origines de cette culture politique sont perçues comme re flet de la société segmentée de la frontière indo-afghane et comme réponse à l'interaction répétée de ces groupes sociaux en Inde et ailleurs.

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Galina Viktorovna Morozova ◽  
Artur Romanovich Gavrilov ◽  
Bulat Ildarovich Yakupov

If we sum up the tasks facing the Russian state in relation to the young generation, then all of them are associated with its harmonious inclusion in the social and political development of the country. At the normative level, the current need is declared for young people to form active citizenship and democratic political culture, which is possible only in a constant and equal dialogue between the authorities and young people. Ensuring the interaction of the younger generation with the political elite presupposes the existence of certain conditions - the creation and effective functioning of the information infrastructure of youth policy, as well as the conduct of an open active information policy. The article describes the results of a study of the political status of students of the capital of Tatarstan - Kazan, in particular, such parameters as youth interest in political information, trust in the sources of this information, and political participation. Together with the data of secondary studies, this made it possible to characterize the youth sector of political communication, identify the existing difficulties in the interaction of the government and youth, in particular, identify some difficulties in receiving and disseminating political information among the youth, which impede the development of a democratic political culture and the accumulation of social capital of the young generation.


Author(s):  
Salvatore Caserta

This introductory chapter presents the main theoretical and methodological issues of the book. In terms of theory, the chapter explains that the book relies on the concept of de facto authority, according to which international courts become authoritative and powerful when their rulings are endorsed by relevant audiences in their practices. To complement this approach, the chapter explains that the book proposes five original analytical markers, which are central for analysing and explaining the social processes through which international courts, in general, and regional economic courts, in particular, gain or lose de facto authority. These are: (i) the nature of the political environment surrounding them; (ii) the timing of their institutional founding; (iii) the material and/or abstract interests of the agents interacting with them; (iv) the fundamental support of different social groups relating to them; and (v) the societal embeddedness in their operational context.


Author(s):  
Christian Welzel ◽  
Ronald Inglehart

This chapter examines the role that the concept of political culture plays in comparative politics. In particular, it considers how the political culture field increases our understanding of the social roots of democracy and how these roots are transforming through cultural change. In analysing the inspirational forces of democracy, key propositions of the political culture approach are compared with those of the political economy approach. The chapter first provides and overview of cultural differences around the world before tracing the historical roots of the political culture concept. It then tackles the question of citizens' democratic maturity and describes the allegiance model of the democratic citizen. It also explores party–voter dealignment, the assertive model of the democratic citizen, and political culture in non-democracies. It concludes with an assessment of how trust, confidence, and social capital increase a society's capacity for collective action.


Asian Survey ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-148
Author(s):  
Holly High

In 2020, Laos successfully contained the spread of COVID-19, with very few cases and no deaths. The key elements of the COVID-19 response reflect not only public health advice but also the core values of the political culture promoted by the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party. These include unity, solidarity, struggle, respect for science, guidance by a strong center, and the extension of the state into everyday life in the form of designated roles, committees, and organizations. These significantly shaped the social fabric drawn on in the COVID-19 response. This success, then, can be read as a reaping of some of the benefits of this political culture. More ominously, the global pandemic exacerbated Lao PDR’s public debt crisis. Born of years of government backing of megaprojects such as hydropower, this debt is the dark harvest of the LPRP’s reign.


Hinduism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Rastelli

The Pāñcarātra is a Hindu tradition that worships Viṣṇu as the supreme god. Its origins date back to the pre-Christian era, and certain features of it can still be found in the related Hindu-tradition of the Śrīvaiṣṇavas. Its earliest textual source, having been composed around the 3rd to the 5th century ce, is the so-called Nārāyaṇīya, which is a part of the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata. In this text the Pāñcarātra does not yet bear the tantric features that become characteristic for the tradition as known from the Saṃhitās, which may have been composed from around the 9th century onward. The Saṃhitās are the most important texts of the tradition and are traditionally considered to have been revealed by god Viṣṇu himself. They deal with the theology and philosophy of the tradition, but most prominently with rituals. Rituals are the main means for a Pāñcarātra follower to achieve the tradition’s religious goals. As in other tantric traditions, these goals are worldly pleasures (bhukti) and liberation (mukti) from transmigration. In early Pāñcarātra Saṃhitās, rituals are to be performed by individual persons for their own benefit. In later Saṃhitās, probably due to political influences, public temple worship for the benefit of the king and the state becomes the main focus. The early extant Saṃhitās probably originate from North India, and there is evidence that Pāñcarātra was widely practiced in Kashmir. However, from perhaps the 11th century, Pāñcarātra mainly flourished in South India. The social background of Pāñcarātra followers over the centuries has not yet been investigated in depth, but we do know that the tradition’s historical development was shaped by various social groups and subtraditions, as well as their interactions, sometimes involving rivalry.


Author(s):  
Chris Gilleard ◽  
Paul Higgs

This chapter addresses the question of intersectionality and the positioning of older people at points in a complex set of locations structured and leant upon by multiple sources of difference and inequality. It argues that social locations are no longer organised through simple binary divisions underpinned by single hierarchies of power and influence. Instead, identities and inequalities are located in the interstices that social divisions and differences form. The positioning both of age and of able-bodiedness, class, ethnicity, gender is rendered contingent by this intersectionality, making each of these potential divisions the source of at most a limited set of demi-regularities that constrain both the political claims of different social groups and the restrict the commonalities of different communities. The chapter concludes that intersectionality, though a much-contested concept, does draw attention to the social positioning of and social divisions within later life.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Hermann Linscheid

Turkey has changed significantly since the AKP came to power in 2002. These changes affect the political system, political culture, the legal system, but also people's everyday lives. With this system transformation, a strong polarization of society can be observed. The question arises whether a more consensus-oriented, pluralistic system or a more authoritarian “majority democracy” has been created in the Republic of Turkey. When examining these questions, the author deals in particular with the parties, social groups, political culture and the causes, backgrounds and possible solutions to political and social conflicts.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1017-1022
Author(s):  
Isabel Cristina Rincón Rodríguez ◽  
◽  
Jorge E. Chaparro Medina ◽  
José Gregorio Noroño Sánchez ◽  
Marcela Garzón Posada ◽  
...  

In the exercise of teaching, teachers give account of different forms of organization: emerging, self-managed and autonomous product of conceptions that arise from training, performance and experiences where the socio-political nature of both his being and individual that integrates and makes part of social groups, as in the exercise of professional practice. Under this horizon, the aim of this work is to analyze from the social function of the teacher the sociopolitical role of their task as far as the political vision has, ability to understand social problems and generate actions for which is part of a frame of reference where the concepts that allow to develop theoretical analysis to identify the sociopolitical expression of the teaching exercise are exposed, considering that in this practice this type of content is revealed in the teachers as actors of the teaching-learning process, both in the training in their performance based on the training they receive, the historical geographical relationship and the experiences that their activity provides them with what has framed this work. It is concluded that in the exercise of teaching work are present sociopolitical categories that affect both the understanding of social phenomena and the pretense of practical actions that transform these realities from the institution-teacher-student interaction.


2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lennart Bes

AbstractIn Ramnad, bandits could be king. The open-ended political culture of this South Indian kingdom presented even people on the margins of society with opportunities to attain political power. Likewise, the VOC (Dutch East India Company), operating from the coastal frontier of the kingdom, played a significant role in the political arena of Ramnad. Given this similarity, it may be asked whether the Dutch were regarded as neutral outsiders (as they themselves thought they were) or rather as an indigenous marginal power. By comparing the internal and regional relations of Ramnad with its contacts with the VOC, this article attempts to determine the kingdom's perception of the Company. In Ramnad, could the Dutch be bandits? En Ramnad, un royaume dans l'Inde méridional, il arrive que le bandit se fait roi. La culture politique, ainsi que les avenues du pouvoir y furent en principe ouvertes à tous; aux marginaux indigènes, vivants dans les terres sèches périphériques, autant qu'aux fonctionnaires de la compagnie néerlandaise des Indes Orientales, la VOC, qui avait un comptoir sur le littoral. Elle se considerait neutre. Toutefois elle allait jouer un rôle important dans l'arène politique de Ramnad. Or, au niveau conceptuel la question se pose si la perspective indigène différenciait entre le roturier indigène d'au-delà de la terre de grande culture, et l'aventurier étranger, ou par contre les confondait l'un l'autre. Cet article se propose d'y voir plus clair par l'étude des liens internes et régionals entretenus par le centre politique de Ramnad, en comparant ceux-ci avec les relations vis-à-vis la VOC pour en déduire le statut social des Hollandais dans la société indigène.


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