Democratic values and the Qur’an as a source of Islam

2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 361-371
Author(s):  
Mehmet Paçacı
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Fundamental Rights And Freedoms

It would be an anachronism to search for modern democracy in the Qur’an that is the first among the other sources of Islam, i.e. Sunnah, ijma and the qiyas. To deduce the definition of Islam merely on the basis of the primary and secondary textual sources rather than the application of them as Muslim praxis would be an incomplete hermeneutic process in understanding it. We can see that the state and the religious society, which was represented by ulama, were separated from each other in an early stage of Islamic history. The members of ulama were in charge of the intellectual and social life, the law and its application. The values of the modern democracy such as law and order, separation of state authority from the public sphere, observing the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals such as women and religious minorities as the inseparables of democracy were upgraded in Muslim societies. This structure of Muslim society, however, was spoiled by colonialist interventions and the adoption of the modern nation-state concept.

Secularism, Pluralism, and Publics in America

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles McCrary
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
American Life ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Religious Nation ◽  
State Relations

In the United States, religious, political, and social life has been structured by a public/private binary. Oftentimes, religion is understood as private and politics as public. This framework informs a religious/secular binary and carries important implications for the structure of American life. Particularly affected arenas include church-state relations; religious discourse in public life, including prophetic protest and religious nationalism; sexual regulation and the politics of morality; and norms of civic and civil discourse. Real politics and consequences attend the definition of terms like “religious,” “secular,” and “pluralist.” Many observers have called the United States a secular, pluralist nation and, simultaneously, the most “religious” nation in the “developed world.” The perceived incongruities or affinities among these labels betray fundamental assumptions about religion and its place in public life. When public figures invoke the language and imagery of “civil religion,” for example, they may be understood to sacralize the public sphere or bring religion into the public or treat the nation’s “shared” symbols with a religious reverence. Although pluralism, as both a demographical description and a progressive goal, has been broadly championed amid growing religious diversity, certain groups, ideas, and practices have nevertheless remained excluded from the realms of public secularism and private (proper) religiosity. The politics are messy and often subtle, but the consequences can be stark. In these ways and more, American life has been shaped by the entwined concepts of secularism, pluralism, and publics.

Attitudes and the Stalled Gender Revolution: Egalitarianism, Traditionalism, and Ambivalence from 1977 through 2016

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Scarborough ◽  
Ray Sin ◽  
Barbara Risman
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Gender Attitudes ◽  
Birth Cohorts ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Empirical studies show that though there is more room for improvement, much progress has been made toward gender equality since the second wave of feminism. Evidence also suggests that women’s advancements have been more dramatic in the public sphere of work and politics than in the private sphere of family life. We argue that this lopsided gender progress may be traced to uneven changes in gender attitudes. Using data from more than 27,000 respondents who participated in the General Social Survey from 1977 through 2016, we show that gender attitudes have more than one underlying dimension and that these dimensions have changed at different rates over time. Using latent class analysis, we find that the distribution of respondents’ attitudes toward gender equality has changed over the past 40 years. There has been an increase in the number of egalitarians who support equality in public and private spheres, while the traditionals who historically opposed equality in both domains have been replaced by ambivalents who feel differently about gender equality in the public and private spheres. Meanwhile, successive birth cohorts are becoming more egalitarian, with Generation-Xers and Millennials being the most likely to hold strong egalitarian views. The feminist revolution has succeeded in promoting egalitarian views and decreasing the influence of gender traditionalism, but has yet to convince a substantial minority that gender equality should extend to both public and private spheres of social life

scholarly journals The Problem of Fundamentalism in Foreign Orthodoxy: the Review

2019 ◽  
pp. 23-35
Author(s):  
Anna M. Yakovleva ◽  
◽  
Alexey V. Volobuev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
21St Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mass Consciousness ◽  
Conservative Beliefs ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Given ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
The Church

. The review deals with the problem of Orthodox fundamentalism in the discussion of Englishspeaking authors of different denominations, representatives of canonical and non-canonical Orthodox churches, which took place in theological discussions, in journalism and at scientific conferences mainly in recent years. The main materials are first introduced into the scientific circulation in Russian. The concepts of fundamentalism in Orthodoxy in the foreign press are presented; the definitions of Orthodox fundamentalism, the main theses of opponents and their argumentation are given. Frequently, the word “fundamentalism” in relation to Orthodoxy is used as a banal nickname for those opponents who have traditional or conservative beliefs, are prone to “ritualism”, shows intolerance and lack of readiness for dialogue, including ecumenical. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, theologians, priests and scholars have been trying to give a stricter definition of such fundamentalism as a phenomenon of the modern era, especially in its demise. It is primarily about the attitude to the works of the holy fathers of the Church. It is expressed, in particular, the opinion that the veneration of patristic writings, along with the resolutions of the Councils (which constitutes the Holy Tradition) should be revised. However, the concept of “Orthodox fundamentalism”, as follows from the given review, has not yet been formed. But one can speak of such signs of it, connected, in particular, with a wide exit to the public sphere of mass consciousness, as the striving to minimize theological provisions, absolutization of some provisions of dogma to the detriment of others, and the logos (modern) reading of the myth.

scholarly journals NYC POPS: Exploring Human Agency of the Public Sphere

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Anna Constable
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Privately Owned

<p>This thesis aims to investigate, through design, spatial agency within the realm of New York City’s Privately Owned Public Spaces. The notion of agency in architecture is directly linked to social and political power. Starting in 1961, New York’s city planners introduced an incentive zoning scheme (POPS) which encouraged private builders to include public spaces in their developments. Many are in active public use, but others are hard to find, under surveillance, or essentially inaccessible. Within the existing POPS sites, tension is current between the ideals of public space - completely open, accessible - and the limitations imposed by those who create and control it. Designed to be singular, contained, and mono-functional, POPS do not yet allow for newer ideas of public space as multi-functional, not contained/bounded but extending and overlapping outward.  As public-private partnerships become the model for catalyzing urban (re)development in the late 20th century, bonus space is an increasingly common land use type in major cities across the world. The quality and nature of bonus spaces created in exchange for floor area bonuses varies greatly. In many cases, tensions in privately owned space produce a severely constricted definition of the public and public life. Incentive zoning programmes continue to serve as a model for numerous urban zoning regulations, so changing ideas of public space and its design need to be tested in such spaces.  These urban plazas offer a test case through which to examine agency, exploring how social space is also political space, charged with the dynamics of power/ empowerment, interaction/ isolation, control/ freedom. This thesis looks at one such site, the connecting plaza sites along Sixth Avenue between West 47th St and West 51st St. This is an extreme example of concentrated POPS sites in New York City. Here one’s perception and occupation of space is profoundly affected by the underlying design of that space which reflects its private ownership. Privately Owned Public Space can be designed that is capable of/ challenging the notion of the public in public space, and modifying the structure of the city and its social life.</p>

Women’s participation and challenges to the liberal script: A global perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 026858092110609
Author(s):  
Julia C Lerch ◽  
Evan Schofer ◽  
David John Frank ◽  
Wesley Longhofer ◽  
Francisco O Ramirez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
National Data ◽  
The Public ◽  
Education Politics ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Participation In Higher Education ◽  
Cross National

Existing scholarship documents large worldwide increases in women’s participation in the public sphere over recent decades, for example, in education, politics, and the labor force. Some scholars have argued that these changes follow broader trends in world society, especially its growing liberalism, which increasingly has reconfigured social life around the choices of empowered and rights-bearing individuals, regardless of gender. Very recently, however, a variety of populisms and nationalisms have emerged to present alternatives to liberalism, including in the international arena. We explore here their implications for women’s participation in public life. We use cross-national data to analyze changes in women’s participation in higher education, the polity, and the economy 1970–2017. We find that women’s participation on average continues to expand over this period, but there is evidence of a growing cross-national divergence. In most domains, women’s participation tends to be lower in countries linked to illiberal international organizations, especially in the recent-most period.

Geographers and sexual difference: feminist contributions

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda McDowell
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Geographical Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Family ◽  
Definition Of

Divisions based on the assumption that men and women are different from one another permeate all areas of social life as well as varying across space and between places. In the home and in the family, in the classroom or in the labour market, in politics, and in power relations, men and women are assumed to be different, to have distinct rights and obligations that affect their daily lives and their standard of living. Thirty years ago, there were no courses about gender in British geography departments. This chapter discusses the challenges to geographical knowledge, and to the definition of knowledge more generally, that have arisen from critical debates about the meaning of difference and diversity in feminist scholarship. It examines a number of significant conceptual ideas, namely: the public and the private; sex, gender and body; difference, identity and intersectionality; knowledge; and justice. Finally, it comments on the role of feminism in the academy as a set of political practices as well as epistemological claims.

Japanese Buddhism and the Public Sphere: From the End of World War II to the Post-Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Power Plant Accident

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shimazono Susumu
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Hanshin Earthquake

Abstract Until the 1990s, a commonly held view in Japan was that Buddhism had withdrawn from public space, or that Buddhism had become a private concern. Although Buddhist organizations conducted relief and support activities for the people affected at the time of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, they were often seen to be out of place, and little attention was given to them by the media. However recently there are areas in which Buddhism can be seen as playing new roles in the public sphere. Religious organizations seem to be expected to perform functions in fields that lie outside the narrow definition of religion. These expectations are becoming stronger among Buddhist organizations as well. In this paper, I describe some areas in the public sphere in which Buddhist groups are starting to play important roles including disaster relief, support of the poor and people without relatives, provision of palliative care and spiritual care, and involvement in environmental and nuclear plant issues.

Iranian Women from Private Sphere to Public Sphere, With Focus on Parliament

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-414
Author(s):  
Elaheh Koolaee
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Iranian Women ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
Governmental Institutions ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractWomen in Iran have gained unprecedented experiences in the course of their fight for democracy and human rights. In the Pahlavi era, the modernisation model was based on Western patterns. With the Islamic Revolution, a new generation of Iranian women emerged in social arenas. Ayatollah Khomeini always emphasised women's prominent and important role in social life. His views shed light on potentials for women's rights, but the obstacle of old cultural and historical attitudes have made these ideas difficult to actualise. The weakness of civil organisations, including women's political and non-political organisations, has seriously affected the outcomes. Although a reformist government and the reinforcement of governmental institutions concerned with women's affairs can play a part in improving the situation of women, women's civil society organisations can assume responsibilities at social levels in order to complement the role of the representatives. The author discusses the process of women's entrance in the public sphere and efforts by the 6th parliament to protect their rights.

scholarly journals Elections in the Public Sphere: the Analysis of Lithuanian TV Debates „Lyderių Forumas“

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 166-188
Author(s):  
Aistė Valiauskaitė
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Definition Of

The article analyses the information that spreads in the media during the election campaign. It looks at the aspect of promises made by politicians through an academic lens. The definition of a political promise is explained; some insights are devoted to an analysis of the reasons why some promises are more commonly fulfilled. The paper mostly concentrates on the role of the media, combining ideas of media theorists with the investigation of pre-election TV debates “Lyderių forumas”.Keywords: campaign, objectivity, parliamentary elections, political communication, professionalism, promise, tv debates.

scholarly journals The short life of a concept: tourismphobia in the Spanish media. Narratives, actors and agendas

2021 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
María Velasco González ◽  
Ernesto Carrillo Barroso
Keyword(s):  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Narratives ◽  
Policy Narratives ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Media Narratives ◽  
Dominant Narratives

This article forms part of a classic social science debate on the role of the media in the construction of social and political narratives. The object of the paper is to study the rise and fall of the concept of tourismphobia in the Spanish media. The case is analyzed in the light of public policies studies, especially those analyzing agenda-setting, the social construction of the definition of public problems and the struggles of coalitions seeking to impose their public policy narratives in the policy-making process. With this purpose, a database was used that collected more than 11,000 news items over a substantial period of time. Its analysis reveals that media attention rises sharply after active protest actions against tourist saturation and that the term is mostly linked to specific territories and cities and to certain political figures. It also allows us to observe how some political responses to the problem appear more in the media, while others are minimized. The conclusions indicate that the “tourismphobia” neologism was capitalized on – which is often the case with terms that circulate in the public sphere – by various groups attempting to highlight some of its semantic dimensions over others. The study also reveals that the media assume an active position in the construction of discourses in relation to tourism also as a political and not just an economic issue. Furthermore, it shows that the use of the term has greatly declined, either because the problem has become dormant or because it has been reformulated into other terms that are more in line with dominant narratives.

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