Religion and Authority in a Korekore Community

Africa ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. F. C. Bourdillon
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Knowledge ◽  
Rites Of Passage ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Traditional Authority ◽  
Initiation Rites ◽  
Supportive Role ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
The Relationship

Opening ParagraphIn her lucid and persuasive Henry Myers Lecture on ‘The power of rights’ (Man, 1977), Professor La Fontaine argues that since the Gisu themselves cite transition from one status to another as the purpose of their initiation rites, this transformation cannot logically explain them. Taking up Maurice Bloch's idea that religion is concerned with inequality and hierarchy (1974; 1977), La Fontaine argues convincingly that the explanation of Gisu initiation rites lies in their functions of validating traditional knowledge and of maintaining traditional authority. The relationship between religion and political power had been noticed before but it had not previously been applied to the field of rites of passage nor had the mechanism of the supportive role of traditional knowledge been so clearly analysed.

Non-Governmental Organisations and Legitimacy: Authority, Power and Resources

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Gnes ◽  
Floris Vermeulen
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
Moral Basis ◽  
Organisational Sociology ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

In the analysis of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), legitimacy and legitimation are useful concepts because they bring to light the processes through which organisational entities justify their right to exist and their actions within a particular normative context. Theories of legitimacy underscore the moral basis of organisational power as grounded in the relationship between organisations and different kinds of audiences. In this article, we look at how those concepts and theories relate to the study of NGOs. Those theories not only help us understand how organisations establish themselves, strengthen their position and survive over time despite very limited material resources of their own, but also how organisations may build political power. In our review of the literature on organisational legitimacy, we focus on three main aspects of legitimacy: the conceptualisation of the term in organisational sociology, political sociology and political science; the constraining role of institutionalised normative contexts and competing audiences in the legitimation processes; the agentic role of organisations within both institutional and strategic contexts.

Reading the Qurʾān on Jihād: Two Early Exegetical Texts

2015 ◽  
pp. 33-49
Author(s):  
Andrew Rippin
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Relationship

Understanding the character of early jihād has been the focus of much scholarly effort. The relationship between those fighting and the political power of the caliph, the notion of the obligation and appropriateness of continued fighting and the role of the renunciant tradition among early fighters, especially those who become associated with the scholarly classes, are all issues that have drawn attention. 1 The challenges in tackling these issues are many and are primarily related to the limited number and nature of the early sources available to us to clarify the matter. Two early texts that focus on legal aspects of the Qurʾān comprise sources that have not yet been fully tapped in discussing these questions. One work is by Muqātil b. Sulaymān, who died in 150/767 and, while the text in question, Tafsīr al-Khams Miʾat Ā ya min al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, may have achieved its final form later in the second or even the third hijrī century, it represents some of the earliest Qurʾānic exegetical material we have available. The second work is by Abū ʿUbayd, who died in 224/838, and is devoted to abrogation in the Qurʾān (and, to a lesser extent, the Sunna), entitled Kitāb al-Nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh.

Wealth versus political power: the Russian case

2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Shlapentokh
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Complete Control ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Russian President ◽  
Rich People ◽  
Vladimir Putin ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The interplay between the state and the super rich has been a subject of intense debate since the time of Aristotle, who introduced the notion of oligarchs and the oligarchic regime as the ruling of a few rich people. The ideologically loaded debates about the role of wealthy people in society can be found in each country in the contemporary world. In recent times, the fact that Silvio Berlusconi is both Italy’s prime minister and the richest person in the country (who has almost complete control over Italian TV) has aroused intense debates about the impact of big business on politics (Stille, 2003). It is not surprising that the case of the Italian prime minister draws attention in Russia, where he is often compared to both the Russian president as well as to the oligarchs (Remnik, 2003). A dramatic struggle between Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose wealth was estimated before his arrest at eight-billion dollars,1 unfolded in the summer and fall of 2003. This conflict will likely be recounted in any future textbook that discusses the relationship between political power and big money.

Religion and Society Among the Kuria of East Africa

Africa ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Ruel
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Autonomous System ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Rites Of Passage ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ritual Practice ◽  
The One ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
The Relationship

Opening ParagraphThis paper attempts to answer two broad questions. Firstly, what is Kuria religion about? and secondly, what is the relationship between Kuria religious concepts and their social life and what is the place of ritual in this relationship? Neither of these are questions which Kuria would themselves ask—certainly in this form—but they are perhaps the two leading questions which an anthropologist must ask in examining the religious beliefs and ritual practice of another people. Much depends upon the answer to the first, for it is in terms of the answer that one is likely to establish the particular coherence of ‘integrity’ of a people's beliefs, held existentially in the context of their own social life. The answer is relevant too to an issue which has concerned those writing on related peoples of the same area as the Kuria—the problem of the relation between magic and religious beliefs. Thus Wagner, writing on the Bantu Kavirondo, uses the undifferentiated category of ‘magico-religious’ belief. But what exactly is meant by this umbrella term, and does it not itself obfuscate what it seeks to define? The second question considered—the relationship between Kuria religious concepts and their social life—is a continuation of the first in relation to their very elaborate and, in one sense, autonomous system of ritual based in particular on a complex sequence of rites of passage. These rites are a very striking feature of Kuria culture. It is, I think, by considering them in this double context—as expressing religious values on the one hand while controlling social behaviour on the other—that these rites are most fully understood.

scholarly journals Representative Democracy and Social Equality

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
SEAN INGHAM
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
Arbitrary Power ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Ideal

When are inequalities in political power undemocratic, and why? While some writers condemn any inequalities in political power as a deviation from the ideal of democracy, this view is vulnerable to the simple objection that representative democracies concentrate political power in the hands of elected officials rather than distributing it equally among citizens, but they are no less democratic for it. Building on recent literature that interprets democracy as part of a broader vision of social equality, I argue that concentrations of political power are incompatible with democracy, and with a commitment to social equality more generally, when they consist in some having greater arbitrary power to influence decisions according to their idiosyncratic preferences. A novel account of the relationship between power and social status clarifies the role of social equality in the justification of democracy, including a representative democracy in which public officials have more political power than ordinary citizens.

scholarly journals Assessing the role of the pelvic canal in supporting the gut in humans

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0258341
Author(s):  
Jeanelle Uy ◽  
Natalie M. Laudicina
Keyword(s):  
Pelvic Floor ◽  
Pelvic Floor Disorders ◽  
Ct Scans ◽  
Ct Volumetry ◽  
Canal Width ◽  
Supportive Role ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
3D Landmarks

The human pelvic canal (true pelvis) functions to support the abdominopelvic organs and serves as a passageway for reproduction (females). Previous research suggests that these two functions work against each other with the expectation that the supportive role results in a narrower pelvic midplane, while fetal passage necessitates a larger opening. In this research, we examine how gut size relates to the size and shape of the true pelvis, which may have implications on how gut size can influence pelvic floor integrity. Pelves and in vivo gut volumes were measured from CT scans of 92 adults (48 female, 44 male). The true pelvis was measured at three obstetrical planes (inlet, midplane, outlet) using 11 3D landmarks. CT volumetry was used to obtain an individual’s gut size. Gut volume was compared to the pelvic planes using multiple regression to evaluate the relationship between gut size and the true pelvis. We find that, in males, larger gut sizes are associated with increased mediolateral canal dimensions at the inlet and midplane. In females, we find that larger gut sizes are associated with more medially-projecting ischial spines and an anteroposteriorly longer outlet. We hypothesize that the association of larger guts with increased canal width in males and increased outlet length in females are adaptations to create adequate space for the gut, while more medially projecting ischial spines reduce the risk of pelvic floor disorders in females, despite its possible spatial consequences for fetal passage.

scholarly journals THE EFFECT OF POLITICAL POWER ON BUDGET MONITORING: A Study of Fertilizer Industry in Indonesia

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Akhmad Syakhroza
Keyword(s):  
Interaction Effect ◽  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Manufacturing Enterprises ◽  
Managerial Roles ◽  
The Relationship

This study examines the role of political power on the process of budget monitoring in the context of the fertilizer manufacturing industry in Indonesia. The objectives of this study are: (a)to investigate the relationship between budget monitoring and managerial roles, (b) to examine the two-way interaction effect between budgets monitoring and politics on managerial roles, and (3)to identify the effect of departmental power on the two-way interaction between budgets monitoring and politics affecting managerial roles. The sample for this study consists of four public sector fertilizer-manufacturing enterprises in Indonesia. This study uses a questionnaire survey supplemented by structured interviews. The questionnaire, adapted from previous studies, utilizes a seven-point Lilcert scale. Respondents to the questionnaire were middle managers. The results provide substantial evidence that interaction between budget monitoring and politics affect managerial roles; and that the departmental power plays a significant role on such interactions.

A note on the Asante akonkofo: a non-literate Sub-elite, 1900–1930

Africa ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwame Arhin
Keyword(s):  
Social Stratification ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Traditional Authority ◽  
The Third ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Opening ParagraphFollowing the growing interest in recent years in social stratification in Asante in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Arhin, 1983a: 2–22; 1983b: 475; McCaskie, 1983: 23–44; Wilks, 1975: 166–719), this note offers a preliminary study of a body of men who became known in Kumasi and the capital towns of the other Asante chiefdoms – in particular Bekwai, Juaben and Mampon – as the akonkofo in the first phase of colonial rule, 1896–1930. The argument of the paper, written in the light of the views of Daaku (1970, 1971) is that the akonkofo, an intermediary group between office holders and non-holders of office (Arhin, 1983a) could emerge as a distinctive sociopolitical category only in the colonial period. The first section of this article, on the origin of the akonkofo, describes the factors that inhibited the rise of ‘merchant princes’ in Asante before colonial rule; the second, on the akonkofo in Kumasi, offers a kind of social portrait of the akonkofo; and the third section, on the position of the akonkofo in Asante society, examines the relationship of the akonkofo to traditional authority. My sources are archival and written. I have also recorded interviews with Barima Owusu-Ansah, over seventy-five years old, and a leading authority on Asante law and constitution, and with Baffour Osei Akoto, senior spokesman (okyeame) of the Asantehene and just turned seventy, as well as conversations with sundry officials at the Asantehene's court.

scholarly journals Buyer–Supplier Contract Length and the Innovation of Supplier Firms

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Nguyen Thanh Liem ◽  
Nguyen Vinh Khuong ◽  
Nguyen Thi Canh
Keyword(s):  
Agency Cost ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Firm Innovation ◽  
Contract Duration ◽  
Corporate Innovation ◽  
Supportive Role ◽  
Firm Investments ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship with customers has important implications for operating decisions as well as firm performance. One important aspect of the supplier–buyer relationship is the contract duration, and how this factor is likely to affect firm investments has been under-researched. This study aims to investigate whether corporate innovation is linked to the maturity of contracts between suppliers and buyers. Using a sample of 1516 manufacturing firms in Vietnam for the period of 2014 to 2018, we find that longer-term contracts are positively related to firm propensity of innovation. However, only contracts with foreign purchasers have this characteristic, confirming the supportive role of foreign partners in uplifting the technology for domestic suppliers in a developing country. Interestingly, longer contracts do not tend to facilitate firm innovation or raise the aimed level of newness for firms with very long contracts compared with those that have short-term contracts. This is consistent with the agency cost theory. These findings are robust to different specifications and econometric approaches. Based on the findings, implications are provided to manage the relationship with customers more efficiently.

Choosing a Markov blanket

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Parr
Keyword(s):  
Markov Blanket ◽  
Target Article ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This commentary focuses upon the relationship between two themes in the target article: the ways in which a Markov blanket may be defined and the role of precision and salience in mediating the interactions between what is internal and external to a system. These each rest upon the different perspectives we might take while “choosing” a Markov blanket.

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