scholarly journals Globalization and the Transformation of Political Attitude Structures at the Party Level in the Arab World: Insights from the Cases of Egypt and Jordan

Societies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malek Abduljaber ◽  
Ilker Kalin

In this paper, the outline, design, and findings of an ongoing research project on the effects of globalization on the transformation of political ideology in the Arab world at the political party level are presented. It is argued that globalization has altered the dimensionality, type, and structuration of political ideology in the Arab world. The structure of preferences among political actors in the region shifted from a unidimensional one in the post-independence era to become multidimensional in the contemporary period, defined by high rates of economic, cultural, and political globalization. Arab political parties no longer organize their platforms based on the Islamic–liberal, Islamist–secular, or cultural divides. An economic values-based dimension has emerged to divide party programs, adding a second, distinct and statistically independent dimension to the already existing classic church versus state cleavage. Further, a new family of Islamist parties has emerged due to the economic, cultural, and political gains from globalization. This project argues that globalization causes political ideological shifts in attitudes through formulating new groups, schedules of preferences, and political/economic opportunities. This research contributes to the ongoing debate on the influence of globalization and any other social transformation process on changing political actors’ preferences across time and space.

2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122098524
Author(s):  
Mark Boukes

The effects of episodic and thematic framing on the attribution of responsibility for societal problems have previously been investigated with experimental methods and mostly tested general effects on the public. The current work, instead, investigates episodic framing’s effect by linking a large-scale content analysis to data of a panel survey ( n = 3,270) and assesses the conditionality upon citizens’ individual political ideology. It does so with a focus on perceptions of responsibility for the 2009–2015 economic crisis and within the context of the Netherlands. Results demonstrate that exposure to episodically framed crisis news caused a decline in the attribution of responsibility to individual citizens, whereas thematic framing did not affect this. Framing effects on the attribution of political responsibility, instead, were conditional on political ideology: Episodic framing decreased the attribution of political responsibility, whereas thematic framing increased the attribution of responsibility to political actors, but both effects occurred primarily among citizens with a right-wing political-economic ideology. Accordingly, we add an explanation for the inconsistency of effect directions in previously published research on the effects that episodic and thematic framing may have on responsibility attributions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 19-42
Author(s):  
Khalid Shibib

As a humanitarian worker who was professionally involved for decades in crisis- and war-shaken countries, the author strove to understand the political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors contributing to conflicts. This contextualization, with a focus on Arab countries, confirmed what other thinkers found: the majority of political, economic, social, cultural, religious, and finally humanitarian crises in the Arab world are man-made and can be attributed to both extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Central to the latter appears to be a shared cultural construct that can be termed “Arab reason.” This essay tries to present information on various aspects of the crisis; to understand why reform efforts come so late and why are they are more difficult for Arabs than for other Muslims. It continues by looking at the knowledge systems that govern Arab reason and their evolution, including the decisive role of the religious knowledge system. From there, it proposes some reform ideas including a renewed legal reasoning process with the goal of a future-oriented, knowledge-based, and inclusive Arab Islamic vision. A pragmatic way forward could be an additional unifying eighth legal school (madhhab/madhāhib) to counter sectarian conflicts and violence. This essay is built on a targeted literature search and is not a comprehensive review of the growing literature generated by distinguished thinkers on various aspects of Arab Islamic identity.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Ghani Imad

The problematic addressed in this article is the challenge initiated by the Arab revolutions to reform the Arab political system in such a way as to facilitate the incorporation of ‘democracy’ at the core of its structure. Given the profound repercussions, this issue has become the most serious matter facing the forces of change in the Arab world today; meanwhile, it forms the most prominent challenge and the most difficult test confronting Islamists. The Islamist phenomenon is not an alien implant that descended upon us from another planet beyond the social context or manifestations of history. Thus it cannot but be an expression of political, cultural, and social needs and crises. Over the years this phenomenon has presented, through its discourse, an ideological logic that falls within the context of ‘advocacy’; however, today Islamists find themselves in office, and in a new context that requires them to produce a new type of discourse that pertains to the context of a ‘state’. Political participation ‘tames’ ideology and pushes political actors to rationalize their discourse in the face of daily political realities and the necessity of achievement. The logic of advocacy differs from that of the state: in the case of advocacy, ideology represents an enriching asset, whereas in the case of the state, it constitutes a heavy burden. This is one reason why so much discourse exists within religious jurisprudence related to interest or necessity or balancing outcomes. This article forms an epilogue to the series of articles on religion and the state published in previous issues of this journal. It adopts the methodologies of ‘discourse analysis’ and ‘case studies’ in an attempt to examine the arguments presented by Islamists under pressure from the opposition. It analyses the experiences, and the constraints, that inhibit the production of a ‘model’, and monitors the development of the discourse, its structure, and transformations between advocacy, revolution and the state.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21
Author(s):  
Iswandi Iswadi

  The ideology contestation is basically a classic polemic, where after independence the ideology of Islam was confronted with nationalism and took root until now (reform). However, the momentum of the 2019 election political contestation was again marked by the struggle of ideology namely ideology of Islamism and nationalism. The polemic began with the emergence of religious issues that were raised on the surface of political actors as a hegemony in taking the sympathy of voters. The existence of religion as a central issue began in 2016-2017 related to the prosecution of Ahok who insulted religious values ​​(Islam), and among the political parties involved in the demonstrations namely PPP, PKS, PBB, and PKB. In that momentum the beginning of the revival of Islamic ideology as the power in defending Islamic sovereignty. Judging from the ideology of political parties in Indonesia in the 2019 election political contestation, the ideology of political parties based on the statutes and bylaws (AD / ART) that the ideology applied can be classified into three parts namely ideology Nationalism, Islamism, and Nationalist-Religious, and the three ideologies. This can be proven based on the results of a survey from Australia 2017-2018 based on the voters. However, political parties based on multiple ideologies, PAN, PKB and Democrats, each have priority orientation. PAN and PKB tend to polarize the values ​​of Islamism (religious), while Democrats are more dominated by nationalist issues. The concept of Islamic political ideology, in the context of political contestation in political party elections, is basically a necessity to implement the values ​​of ri'ayah, taqwin, irshad and ta'dib through political education, or campaign in elections to achieve mutual benefit, both parties whose ideology Islamism, nationalism and nationalist-religious, so as to build the moralistic side of society, and intelligence in responding to the issues that exist in the election apart from that, political parties in confronting political contestation the emphasis of the movement must reflect the value of poverty, the three ideologies have been packaged in the values ​​of Pancasila in the third principles of Indonesian unity.         Asbtak Kontestasi ideology pada dasarnya polemik klasik, dimana pasca kemerdekaan ideologi islam dihadapkan dengan nasionalisme dan mengakar sampai sampai saat ini (reformasi). Akan tetapi momentum pemilu 2019 kontestasi politik kembali diwarnai pergulatan ideology yakni ideology islamisme dan nasionalisme. Polemik tersebut berawal dengan mencuatnya isu keagamaan yang dimunculkan dipermukaan pelaku politik sebagai hegemoni dalam mengambil simpati  pemilih. Eksistensi agama sebagai sentral isu berawal tahun 2016-2017 terkait penuntutan terhadap ahok yang melecehkan nilai-nilai agama (islam), dan diantara partai politik yang terlibat dalam demonstrasi yakni PPP, PKS, PBB, dan PKB. Dalam momentum tersebut awal mencuatnya kembali ideologi islam sebagai of the power dalam mempertahan kedaulatan Islam. Menilik ideologis partai politik di Indonesia pada konstestasi politik pemilu 2019, ideology partai politik berdasarkan anggaran dasar dan anggaran rumah tangga (AD/ART) bahwa ideologi yang diterapkan dapat diklasifikasikan menjadi tiga bagian yakni ideology Nasionalisme, Islamisme, dan Nasionalis-Religius, dan ketiga ideology tersebut dapat dibuktikan dengan berdasarkan hasil survey dari asutralia 2017-2018 berdasarkan pemilih. Namun demikian partai poltik yang berasaskan ideologi ganda, PAN, PKB dan Demokrat, masing-masing memiliki kiblat prioritas. PAN dan PKB condong polarisasi nilai-nilai islamisme (religious), sedangkan Demokrat lebih didominasi oleh isu-isu nasionalis. Konsep ideology politik islam, dalam konsteks kontestasi politik dalam pemilu partai politik pada dasarnya sebuah keharusan mengimplementasikan nilai-nilai ri’ayah, taqwin, irsyad dan ta’dib melalui pendidikan politik, ataupun kampanye dalam pemilu guna mencapai kemaslahatan bersama, baik partai yang berideologi islamisme, nasionalisme dan nasionalis-religius, sehingga terbangun sisi moralistik masyarakat, dan kecerdasan dalam menanggapi isu-isu yang ada dalam pemilu. selain dari itu partai politik dalam menghadapi konstestasi politik penekanan gerakannya harus mencermikan nilai kemaslahan, ketiga ideology tersebut telah kemas dalam nilai-nilai pancasila pada sila ketiga persatuan Indonesia. 


Author(s):  
Bradley E. Ensor

A Marxist perspective considers contradictions within modes of production that ultimately lead to crises and transformations to other modes, providing a framework for interpreting political economic change in human societies. This chapter describes how kinship and marriage structure social relations of production and contradictions in kin-modes that may lead to social transformations. An archaeological framework for making inferences on kinship and marriage is applied to the Archaic periods of the Lower Mississippi Valley to explain the enigmatic development of early mound-building foraging societies and their dissolution in the Tchefuncte period. The Archaic periods reflect competitive “Crow/Omaha” kinship and marriage—explaining mound building and widespread craft production and exchange—that experienced the disproportionate demographic growth among descent groups hypothesized to cause crises in social reproduction. This was followed by a social transformation in the Tchefuncte period to bilateral descent networks with a less competitive “complex” marriage system.


Author(s):  
Jim Segers

This chapter looks at social transformation through the lens of ‘tough issues’. The perspective makes the vast challenges communities are faced with more practical, which in turns allows for progress in the right direction through small wins. Many citizen and community organisations with a background in environmental, peace and third world movements have roots in direct action. Over recent decades, they have been moving from opposing developments to proposing alternatives. We use the words of de Certeau (1984) to describe it as a shift from ‘résistance’ to ‘bricolage’. This shift has brought them closer to more institutionalised partners like government, business, civil society and research institutions. While this rapprochement has proven beneficial to each party involved – research methodologies such as Co-Creation prove that notions like horizontal decision-making, anti-authoritarianism and self-organisation are no longer the preoccupation of informal actors solely – the different stakeholders have not become interchangeable. The chapter argues for the role of a third actor in a social transformation process. This actor is not a stakeholder itself, but through a creative process (“prototyping” in the case of City Mine(d), arts creation in others) becomes tactically linked to the important stakeholders.


2019 ◽  
pp. 82-106
Author(s):  
Frederic Wehrey ◽  
Anouar Boukhars

This chapter charts the complex relationship between the changing nature of state power and management of religious activism in Tunisia. In particular, it provides insight into a unique situation in the Arab world where, for the first time, jihadist ideologies and democratic experience intermingled, arousing greater passions, hopes, and fears. For a brief moment, Tunisia became the theater to test the political and ideational impact of democratization on antisystemic groups with jihadist ideological visions. The chapter examines the novelty of this case and provides insights on the factors that affected and mediated jihadist interactions with both the Islamist Ennahda-led government and other groups with opposing moral and ideological stances. Such an analysis of intrajihadi dynamics, jihadi-regime dynamics, and intergroup dynamics with other social and political actors helps elucidate the choice of strategies that jihadists adopted and how those choices were deeply affected by their own internal contradictions and ambiguities.


Author(s):  
Eyal Zisser

This article describes how in the middle of the winter of 2010 the “Spring of the Arab Nations” suddenly erupted without any warning all over the Middle East. However, the momentum of the uprisings was impeded rather quickly, and the hopes held out for the “Spring of the Arab Nations” turned into frustration and disappointment. While many Israelis were focusing their attention in surprise, and some, with doubt and concern as well about what was happening in the region around them; suddenly, in Israel itself, at the height of the steamy summer of 2011, an “Israeli Spring” broke out. The protesters were young Israelis belonging to the Israeli middle class. Their demands revolved around the slogan, “Let us live in our land.” However, similar to what happened in the Arab world, the Israeli protest subsided little by little. The hassles of daily life and security and foreign affairs concerns once more became the focus of the public's attention. Therefore, the protesters' hopes were disappointed, and Israel's political, economic, and social order remained unshaken. Thus, towards the end of 2017, the memory of the “Israeli spring” was becoming faded and forgotten. However, while the Arab world was sinking into chaos marked by an ever deepening economic and social crisis that deprived its citizens of any sense of security and stability, Israel, by contrast, was experiencing years of stability in both political and security spheres, as well as economic growth and prosperity. This stability enabled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party to remain in power and to maintain the political and social status-quo in Israel.


Author(s):  
Ahmed El Gody

Information communication technologies (ICT) have become an effective force for accelerating political, economic, and social development, decreasing poverty, and fostering trade and knowledge; however the uneven distribution, usage, and implementation of ICT resulted in what is known as the “digital divide” between those who have access to and utilization of information resources and those who do not (Internet.com, 2004). The Middle East, with the exception of Israel, is the least ICT connected area worldwide with only 1.4% of the global share (less than half of the world average of 5.2%). ICT adoption and access in the Arab world are far from adequate; only 6% of the Arab world population uses the Internet, while the penetration rate of personal computers is 2.4%, and less than 4 % of the Arab population has access to a ground telephone line (Ajeeb, 2006; NUA, 2005). The trend of globalization forced Arab countries to realize the power of ICT as one of the most important factors in achieving sustainable growth. During the past decade, genuine efforts have been implemented by Arab governments to utilize ICT; as of May 2005, every country in the Arab world (as seen in Table 1)—except Iraq and Libya—has a clear strategy or at least a plan for promoting ICT (Dutta & Coury, 2003). In her book, Technology Strategies for Putting Arab Countries on the Cyber Map, Reem Hunaidi (2002) stated that despite Arab world efforts to utilize ICT, Arabs are still far from bridging the digital divide. Hunaidi stated that the Arab world is still scoring low on the Digital Access Index (as seen in Table 2), adding that bridging the digital divide requires commitment from all development stakeholders, not only Arab governments. The Hunaidi study concluded that development should start within the Arab society through liberating Arab human capabilities, especially those of women questioning how a society can compete in an increasingly globalized world if half of its people remain marginalized (Hunaidi, 2002). The UNDP 2004 report on human development in the Arab world added to Hunaidi’s question stating that the first step in human ICT development is to bridge the gender divide within the Arab world and make use of the latent 50% of the Arab population. The Arab world has the lowest Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) worldwide next to Sub-Saharan Africa. Nancy Hafkin and Nancy Tagger (2001), in their study “Gender, Information Technology, and Developing Countries”, stated that the degree of gender bias can be vividly seen across the Arab region. Figures indicate that Arab users constitute 4% of Internet users in comparison to 22% of users in Asia, 25% in Europe, 38% in Latin America, and 50% in the United States. Hafkin and Tagger (2001) concluded that several challenges of socio-cultural, political, economic, and education disparities need to be addressed towards advancing Arab women’s active participation in the new networked information society.


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