The Politics of Veiling in Iran and the Nonreligious Left in the Early 1980s

Scholarly works and public narratives dealing with the mandating of the veil in Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution often focus on the coercive aspects of the process and emphasize the role of religious groups consolidating power. This article takes a closer look at how nonreligious leftist groups perceived and participated in the process. By revisiting the publications of seven prominent secular left-wing groups, this article discusses nuances in the Iranian left's historic approaches to veiling and how these groups' ideologies and political alliances shaped their responses to the quickly shifting gender politics of the post revolutionary period.

Revisiting the Islamist–Secular divide: Parties and voters in the Arab world

Electoral politics in the Arab world are either portrayed as clientelistic affairs void of content or as highly ideological clashes between Islamist and Secular Left forces. Although both arguments are intuitively appealing, the empirical evidence to date is limited. This article seeks to contribute to the debate by investigating the extent of programmatic voter support for Islamist and Secular Left parties in seven Arab countries with data from recent surveys by the Arab Barometer, Afrobarometer and World Values Survey. Ideological congruence between voters and parties exists but is limited to the Islamist–Secular core divide with regard to the role of religion in politics and gender values. In contrast, there are virtually no differences in economic attitudes between respondents and there is no evidence of class-based voting, with Islamist and Secular Left parties sharing the same voter base of better-off, more educated voters. Core results are robust across surveys.

Understanding the major causes of Islamic finance under-development in Tunisia

The main purpose of this paper is to determine the major causes of the underdevelopment of Islamic finance in Tunisia. Indeed, it’s surprising to note that Zitouna bank established in May 2010 is the first Islamic Tunisian bank although 99% of Tunisians are Muslim and Islam is the religion of the State according to the Constitution.So we rely in our paper on the opinions of number of professors of finance and economics as educated people to prove or reject our hypothesis that the underdevelopment of Islamic finance in Tunisia can be explained by the ignorance of its main principles and advantages. Ours findings reveal that this branch of finance is still largely unknown, not only from public but also from professionals. The results obtained surprisingly show that this insignificance of Islamic banking cannot be explained by the fact that Tunisia has been governed since her independence by a secular left-wing party. Indeed, only 3% of respondents believe that legislation and regulation in Tunisia represent an obstacle to the development of Islamic finance. Moreover, respondents are not very optimistic about the future role of Islamic financing.