Christian women’s movements in secularizing and diversifying contexts: a case study from Belgium

2018 ◽  
pp. 117-133
Author(s):  
Nella van den Brandt
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Women's History ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Catholic Women ◽  
The Face

This chapter considers the case of Flanders. In Flanders, Christian women's movements belonging to Catholic civil society used to draw a large following and were able to contribute to the political, religious, and social emancipation of Catholic women throughout Belgium. Today, however, these Christian women's movements face declining membership and the need to ‘reinvent’ themselves according to contemporary times and women's needs. Looking at how a movement that is constitutive of Christian women's history in Flanders rethinks its self-presentation, the chapter aims to generate important insights, both descriptive and normative, into the role and place of Christian feminism and Christian women's movements in the face of social changes that take place across Western Europe.

scholarly journals Local Wisdom and National Integration in Indonesia: A Case Study of Inter-Religious Harmony amid Social and Political Upheaval in Bunga Bondar, South Tapanuli

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Rosmaida Sinaga ◽  
Flores Tanjung ◽  
Yuri Nasution
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
National Integration ◽  
Local Leadership ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
Dutch Colonial

This study emphasizes on inter-religious affairs happened in Bunga Bondar, South Tapanuli began to experience turmoil when thenational movement era started in 1908 and itstillhappens to present-day. The Dutch colonial government advocated for inter-religiousharmony at a local level. The policy was pursued by the the Dutch colonial government out offear that the Indonesian people would developa sense of unity and fraternityamong them, thereby intensifying thespirit of nationalism. The Dutch government’s concern eventuallycame true when the power of the Christian wingof the national movement cooperated with itsIslamic counterpart. Along with the political upheavalsand social changes experienced by the Indonesian people, the harmony between religious groups in various regions was affected. Despite migration, changes of central and local leadership, and the flow of modernization that took place, the dynamics of inter-religious harmony of the 1930s are still present today.The tradition, the spirit of harmony, leadership models, and the application of local wisdom are all the key to the survival of inter-religious harmony in Bunga Bondar, South Tapanuli, as findings in research that can be used as a guide or model to build national integrity.

How Civic is Russia's New Civil Religion and How Religious is the Church?

2017 ◽  
pp. 125-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuri Teper
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
The Face ◽  
Political Model ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Religious Elements ◽  
The Church

This chapter demonstrates how and why a shift in the balance between civic and religious elements of a civil religion can take place, using Russia as an illuminating case study. Post-Soviet Russia is used to demonstrate how religion can be utilized to reinforce national identity and the legitimacy of the political system in the face of their civic weaknesses. The chapter demonstrates how, eventually, the civic-democratic political model officially designated during Yeltsin's presidency gradually changed to a more religiously grounded one, albeit a model that is not fully recognized, during Putin's rule. Moreover, the Russian case allows us to differentiate between two possible levels of civil religion: an official and openly communicated secularism, and an established church religion, promoted by the establishment in more subtle but not necessarily less aggressive ways. It further shows that just as the state has to adopt religious features in order to be deified, religious institutions have themselves to become more secular to be suitable for adoption as the state's civil religion.

Civil society, class and locality

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Shapely
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Voluntary Sector ◽  
The Political ◽  
Voluntary Organization ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
Provision Of Services ◽  
The Face ◽  
Political Spectrum

This chapter returns working-class agency to the analysis of voluntarism. As it demonstrates with reference to tenants' associations, the voluntary sector was shaped as much by working-class as middle-class culture, even at the height of the welfare state, with the provision of services generating engagement rather than apathy. Tenants' associations provided a vehicle for the assertion of working-class interests in the face of an often unresponsive bureaucracy. In doing so they ‘helped to create a new decision-making arena, making a contribution to expanded notions of democracy’. That they managed to do so while engaging tenants from across the political spectrum demonstrates ‘the essential flexibility and robustness of the voluntary organization as a form which continued to provide an effective platform for the development of civil society’.

Repression and endurance: anathematized Hindu and Sikh women of Afghanistan

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 628-645
Author(s):  
Hafizullah Emadi
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face

Hindus and Sikhs, longtime minority religious communities in Afghanistan, have played a major role in the social, cultural, and economic development of the country. Their history in Afghanistan has not been faithfully documented nor relayed beyond the country's borders by their resident educated strata or religious leaders, rendering them virtually invisible and voiceless within and outside of their country borders. The situation of Hindu and Sikh women in Afghanistan is significantly more marginalized socially and politically. Gender equality and women's rights were central to the teachings of Guru Nanak, but gradually became irrelevant to the daily lives of his followers in Afghanistan. Hindu and Sikh women have sustained their hope for change and seized any opportunity presented to play a role in the process. Active participants in the social, cultural, and religious life of their respective communities as well as in Afghanistan's government, their contributions to social changes and the political process have gone mostly unnoticed and undocumented as their rights, equality, and standing in the domestic and public arena in Afghanistan continue to erode in the face of continuous discrimination and harassment.

scholarly journals Value from Ruin? Governing Speculative Conservation in Ruptured Landscapes

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-99
Author(s):  
Wolfram H. Dressler ◽  
Robert Fletcher ◽  
Michael Fabinyi
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Capital Flows ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
The Face ◽  
State Actors

AbstractThis paper examines how state and non-state actors govern through pursuing speculative conservation among resource-dependent people who must renegotiate altered livelihoods amidst extractivism in ruptured landscapes. As donor aid declines and changes form, bilaterals, state agencies, and civil society now pursue advocacy in overlapping spaces of intensifying extractivism and speculative governance in the ruptured frontiers of Southeast Asia. In these spaces, bilaterals and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) struggle to work with upland farmers who negotiate the contrasting expectations of the abstract, speculative nature of conservation initiatives and the lucrative nature of extractive labour in the face of dramatic transformations of agrarian livelihoods and landscapes. Through a case study of the Philippine uplands, we demonstrate that as speculative conservation unfolds and manifests within and beyond these landscapes, it endeavours to revalue nature monetarily in ways that help reorganise labour and capital in an effort to overcome the exhaustion of capital wrought by rupture. We propose that during moments of rupture speculative conservation coproduces value from ruin by renewing and preserving capital flows.

Local Elections in Independent Ukraine: The Case Study of Nikolayev*

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 551-563
Author(s):  
Olena Yatsunska
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political System ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
The Rule Of Law

In the current situation of societal modernization and transformation of the political system of Ukraine, one of the most important problems facing the country is the formation of a system of local self-government that can act effectively. If this institution is not developed and strengthened, there can be no discussion of the establishment of democratic, social government, of the development of the rule of law, or of an expansion of the infrastructure of civil society.

scholarly journals Political and Legal Novelty as the Contribution of Indonesian Women’s Movement in the Advocacy on Affirmative Policy in Election and Law on the Abolition of Domestic Violence

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Anita Dhewy ◽  
Bella Sandiata
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Adaptive Strategies ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Private And Public

This article discusses the novelty of the women’s movement in encouraging women’s political representation and advocating for the elimination of domestic violence. Data is obtained through interviews with actors involved in the women’s movement, especially actors from civil society organizations. The results of the study show that the women’s movement in the Advocacy on Affirmative Policy in Election becomes a sign of the inclusion of women in the political agenda. While the women’s movement in the advocacy for Law on the Abolition of Domestic Violence dismantles private and public dichotomies that are detrimental to women in the context<br />of domestic violence. This study also shows that women’s movements need strong concepts, adaptive strategies and synergies with various elements to be able to push the women’s agenda and encourage change.

How Civic Is Russia's New Civil Religion and How Religious Is the Church?

2019 ◽  
pp. 1284-1307
Author(s):  
Yuri Teper
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
The Face ◽  
Political Model ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Religious Elements ◽  
The Church

This chapter demonstrates how and why a shift in the balance between civic and religious elements of a civil religion can take place, using Russia as an illuminating case study. Post-Soviet Russia is used to demonstrate how religion can be utilized to reinforce national identity and the legitimacy of the political system in the face of their civic weaknesses. The chapter demonstrates how, eventually, the civic-democratic political model officially designated during Yeltsin's presidency gradually changed to a more religiously grounded one, albeit a model that is not fully recognized, during Putin's rule. Moreover, the Russian case allows us to differentiate between two possible levels of civil religion: an official and openly communicated secularism, and an established church religion, promoted by the establishment in more subtle but not necessarily less aggressive ways. It further shows that just as the state has to adopt religious features in order to be deified, religious institutions have themselves to become more secular to be suitable for adoption as the state's civil religion.

A border baron and the Tudor state: the rise and fall of Lord Dacre of the North

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven G. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Political ◽  
Politics And Government ◽  
The North ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
Estate Management ◽  
A Minor

AbstractCrown policy towards the nobles and the rule of the provinces under the early Tudors reflected the values and social structures of ‘civil society’ in lowland England. Using as a case-study the Dacres, a minor peerage family who were wardens of the Anglo-Scottish marches, this paper explores the strains and tensions which were created by the application of these norms to the ‘peripheral’ parts of the Tudor state. The paper outlines the political ambitions, resources, and estate-management policies of a border baron, and argues that Henry VIII's policies for the rule of the borders and his expectations of his officials there were unrealistic. It also suggests that the traditional approach of historians to the problems of Tudor politics and government reflects too much a view of events as seen from ‘the centre’ and needs to be balanced by a more sensitive treatment of the problems of the ‘periphery’.

scholarly journals Constructing victimhood in divided Germany: The case of the Association of the Victims of Stalinism (1950–1989)

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 422-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
Historical Injustice ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
Divided Germany ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Do So

Taking the Vereinigung der Opfer des Stalinismus (Association of the Victims of Stalinism) as a case study, this article argues that civil society organisations which claim to represent the interests of victims of historical injustice must seek to construct and propagate notions of the political and social relevance of victimhood. They must do so in such a way that victimhood both offers a coherent point of identification for individual victims and speaks to the concerns of the political system on which victims rely for compensation and recognition. By examining the discourse of officials of this organisation over time, it is possible to demonstrate the extent to which victims’ representatives must adapt their conception of victimhood in order to respond to changing circumstances. The article also points to the challenges these organisations face in remaining relevant in the new political contexts.

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