scholarly journals New Face of Contemporary Sufism in Southeast Asia: Experience of Indonesia and Malaysia

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-292
Author(s):  
Muzakkir Syahrul ◽  
Ziaulhaq Hidayat
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Political Realm

The current global spiritual revival has been reflected in the revival of Sufism, to the extent that Sufism now has a different appearance from its earlier conventional manifestations. Global developments have driven Sufism to put its appearance relevant to the demands of global living. Focusing on the experiences of Indonesia and Malaysia, this paper attempts to examine the developments of Sufism. These countries seem to represent contemporary trends of Sufism in Southeast Asia. The new face of contemporary Sufism called “urban Sufism” is found in Indonesia. The practices of urban Sufism, which is influenced by the political realm, can be observed within Majelis Dzikir Nurussalam (MDN) established by the former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. In Malaysia, the new appearance of Sufism was initiated by Dar al-Arqam, which later changed its name as Ikhwan Global (IG). This group actively encourages its members to be economically self-reliant by undertaking a range of business activities and at the same time promotes a Sufi lifestyle as the focus of its activities. This research found that contemporary Sufism is no longer oriented exclusively toward the pursuit of spiritual achievements, but it also becomes an instrument of political and economic interests.

scholarly journals Southeast Asia in the one belt, one road initiative

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3A) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Inna Evgeniyivna Pidbereznykh
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The Political ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
One Belt One Road ◽  
The One ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
Southeast Asian Countries

The article describes the Chinese initiative “One Belt, One Road” by the example of its implementation in the region of Southeast Asia. At the same time, the paper investigates the prehistory of the formation of this project. Therefore, the article notes that the positions of Southeast Asian countries on the initiative proposed by China vary greatly and depend on political realities. Based on the analysis of the political and economic situation of the countries of this region the attitudes of Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines and Japan to this Chinese initiative are highlighted in detail. The paper notes that the recent coup in Myanmar 2021 has further complicated the business environment in the country, not only putting Chinese projects at direct risk, but also threatening Beijing's economic interests in the country. In addition, the article characterizes the key risks and problems of the implementation of PRC initiatives. It is established that there are many problems on the way to the implementation of the said program.

Hollywood Politics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Cramer Brownell
Keyword(s):  
Local Politics ◽  
Political Process ◽  
State Level ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
State And Local Politics ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Democratic Spaces ◽  
Political Realm

Hollywood has always been political. Since its early days, it has intersected with national, state, and local politics. As a new entertainment industry attempting to gain a footing in a society of which it sat firmly on the outskirts, the Jewish industry leaders worked hard to advance the merits of their industry to a Christian political establishment. At the local and state level, film producers faced threats of censorship and potential regulation of more democratic spaces they provided for immigrants and working class patrons in theaters. As Hollywood gained economic and cultural influence, the political establishment took note, attempting to shape silver screen productions and deploy Hollywood’s publicity innovations for its own purposes. Over the course of the 20th century, industry leaders forged political connections with politicians from both parties to promote their economic interests, and politically motivated actors, directors, writers, and producers across the ideological spectrum used their entertainment skills to advance ideas and messages on and off the silver screen. At times this collaboration generated enthusiasm for its ability to bring new citizens into the electoral process. At other times, however, it created intense criticism and fears abounded that entertainment would undermine the democratic process with a focus on style over substance. As Hollywood personalities entered the political realm—for personal, professional, and political gain—the industry slowly reshaped American political life, bringing entertainment, glamor, and emotion to the political process and transforming how Americans communicate with their elected officials and, indeed, how they view their political leaders.

Affect regulation in the political realm: Managing terror in an age of terror

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheldon Solomon ◽  
Tom Pyszczynski ◽  
Abdolhossein Abdollahi ◽  
Jeff Greenberg ◽  
Florette Cohen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Affect Regulation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Realm

The Contributions of the political economy approach: An analysis of Socio-economic development in Indonesia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Falih Suaedi ◽  
Muhmmad Saud
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The Political ◽  
Developmental Studies ◽  
Socio Economic Development ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Political Economy Approach

This article explores in what ways political economy as an analytical framework for developmental studies has contributed to scholarships on Indonesian’s contemporary discourse of development. In doing so, it reviews important scholarly works on Indonesian political and economic development since the 1980s. The argument is that given sharp critiques directed at its conceptual and empirical utility for understanding changes taking place in modern Indonesian polity and society, the political economy approach continues to be a significant tool of research specifically in broader context of comparative politics applied to Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia. The focus of this exploration, however, has shifted from the formation of Indonesian bourgeoisie to the reconstitution of bourgeois oligarchy consisting of the alliance between the politico-bureaucratic elite and business families. With this in mind, the parallel relationship of capitalist establishment and the development of the state power in Indonesia is explainable.<br>

The Gallic Singularity and the Royal Mistress

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
Christine Adams
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Marie Antoinette ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Realm

The relationship of the French king and royal mistress, complementary but unequal, embodied the Gallic singularity; the royal mistress exercised a civilizing manner and the soft power of women on the king’s behalf. However, both her contemporaries and nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians were uncomfortable with the mistress’s political power. Furthermore, paradoxical attitudes about French womanhood have led to analyses of her role that are often contradictory. Royal mistresses have simultaneously been celebrated for their civilizing effect in the realm of culture, chided for their frivolous expenditures on clothing and jewelry, and excoriated for their dangerous meddling in politics. Their increasing visibility in the political realm by the eighteenth century led many to blame Louis XV’s mistresses—along with Queen Marie-Antoinette, who exercised a similar influence over her husband, Louis XVI—for the degradation and eventual fall of the monarchy. This article reexamines the historiography of the royal mistress.

Educating Monks

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Borchert
Keyword(s):  
High Schools ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Junior High Schools ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Theravada Buddhism ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Reform Era ◽  
And Training

Educating Monks examines the education and training of novices and young Buddhist monks of a Tai minority group on China’s Southwest border. The Buddhists of this region, the Dai-lue, are Chinese citizens but practice Theravada Buddhism and have long-standing ties to the Theravāda communities of Southeast Asia. The book shows how Dai-lue Buddhists train their young men in village temples, monastic junior high schools and in transnational monastic educational institutions, as well as the political context of redeveloping Buddhism during the Reform era in China. While the book focuses on the educational settings in which these young boys are trained, it also argues that in order to understand how a monk is made, it is necessary to examine local agenda, national politics and transnational Buddhist networks.

Taken For A Ride

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
The Political ◽  
Urban Experience ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Informal Economies

The growth of cities and informal economies are two central manifestations of globalization in the developing world. Taken for a Ride addresses both, drawing on long-term fieldwork in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and charting its public transport system’s journey from public to private provision. The book investigates this shift alongside the increasing deregulation of the sector and the resulting chaotic modality of public transport. It reviews state attempts to regain control over public transport, the political motivations behind these, and their inability to address its problems. The analysis documents how informal wage relations prevailed in the sector, and how their salience explains many of the inefficiencies of public transport. The changing political attitude of workers towards employers and the state is investigated: from an initial incapacity to respond to exploitation, to political organization and unionization, which won workers concessions on labour rights. A longitudinal study of workers throws light on patterns of occupational mobility in the sector. The book ends with an analysis of the political and economic interests that shaped the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit in Dar es Salaam and local resistance to it. Taken for a Ride is an interdisciplinary political economy of public transport, exposing the limitations of market fundamentalist and postcolonial scholarship on economic informality and the urban experience in developing countries, and its failure to locate the agency of the urban poor within their economic and political structures. It is both a contribution to and a call for the contextualized study of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’.

Political Science: Seeing Like a Subversive Social Scientist

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-437
Author(s):  
Meredith L. Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Global Patterns ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
New Democracy

Much of the work of political science revolves around institutions—the structures through which politics happens. Leaders enter the frame, of course, but often as institutions in human form: presidents, premiers, populists, and mobilizers who serve to channel and direct who does what and what they do, much like an agency or law. We might trace this pseudo-structural, largely mechanical reading of human agency to political scientists of an earlier era: the behavioralists of the 1950s and 1960s. James C. Scott began his career as just such a scholar. For his dissertation-turned-book, Political Ideology in Malaysia: Reality and the Beliefs of an Elite, Scott surveyed a gaggle of Malaysian bureaucrats to examine, effectively, the extent to which their values and assumptions supported or subverted the new democracy they served. Although itself fairly prosaic, that work foreshadows the political grime and games that soon pulled Scott in more promising directions theoretically, whether scrutinizing Southeast Asia or global patterns: disentangling structure from norms, finding agency around the margins of class and state, and rethinking how power looks and functions.

Neuplatonische politische Philosophie in der Rede Περὶ βασιλείας des Synesios von Kyrene

Elenchos ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151-177
Author(s):  
Michael Schramm
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Political Realm ◽  
The Ideal

Abstract This paper argues that Synesios’ De regno is a mirror for princes and a splendid example of Neoplatonic political philosophy. It is based on Plato’s Politeia and its model of philosopher-kingship. Synesios makes his audience compare the current political reality with the ideal of the philosopher-kings, who are the image of the transcendent god in the political realm. In doing so he recommends political virtue in general, especially phronesis and sophrosyne. Particularly he argues for reforming the recruitment of military and civil officials with reference to Plato’s concept of friendship in the Politeia.

scholarly journals Chasing the green buck? Environmental activism in post-communist Baltic States

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timofey Agarin ◽  
Miķelis Grīviņš
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
Past Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Economic Resource ◽  
International Networks ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Environment ◽  
Collapse Of Communism

The paper investigates the dynamics and volution of issues on the agenda of Baltic environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) since the collapse of communism. The past research on Baltic environment activism suggests that these enjoy high visibility because they tapped the core societal views of natural environment as a crucial asset of a nation. As we demonstrate in this paper, the changes in agendas of Baltic environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) make clear that the rhetorical toolbox of ‘national environment’ is often used to mainly achieve greater financial gains for individual members, rather than for society at large. We illustrate how the dearth of economic opportunities for domestic public has impacted perceptions of ‘nature’ advocated by the environmental activists, focussing specifically on national perceptions of ownership and the resulting actions appropriating ‘nature’ as a source for economic development, only tangentially attaining environmental outcomes on the way. The vision that the ‘environment’ is an economic resource allowed ENGO activists to cooperate with the domestic policymaking, while tapping international networks and donors for funding. Throughout the past decades they worked to secure their own and their members’ particularistic economic interests and, as we demonstrate, remained disengaged from the political process and failed to develop broader reproach with publics.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document