The Increasing Role of Religion in State Failure: 1960 to 2004

This study examines the extent of religious conflict between 1960 and 2004 in the context of all domestic conflicts in that era based on data from the State Failure dataset. The findings show that until 2002 religious conflicts were a minority of all conflicts, but from 2002 to 2004 they were a majority of all conflicts. This study also examines the extent to which groups belonging to different religious traditions (i.e., Christianity, Islam, etc.) participate in conflict. The specific results on the relative participation in conflict by Christian and Muslim groups depend on the method used to measure conflict. However, no matter how conflict is measured, the results consistently show a rise in Islamic participation in conflict since the late 1970s. Also, for nearly the entire period covered by this study, the majority of religious conflicts involved Muslims. All of this supports contentions that rather than causing religion's demise, modernity has caused a resurgence of religion.     

The Rise and Fall of Christian Democracy in Europe

The role of Christian Democratic parties after World War II in helping to build stable parliamentary regimes in Western Europe deserves attention simply for their ability to survive. Such parties took root in Catholic countries and electorates and incorporated electoral organizations from the early twentieth century. After the war, Christian Democrats provided an alternative to the large Communist parties that were particularly strong in France and Italy. They also represented a link to the European past that was not implicated in the crimes of the Nazi era. Germany's Christian Democracy has proven the most successful of its kind. It moved beyond its original Catholic base to include a significant Protestant minority. And it has survived amidst the social and cultural changes and charges of corruption that have reduced their counterparts elsewhere to a secondary parliamentary force.     

Demographics, Religion, and the Future of Europe

Immigration and changing demographic trends mean that Europe will in the very near future inevitably be transformed, culturally and politically. As in the Cold War, it again represents a critical theater for rivalry, but this time it is between Christianity, Islam, and secularism. European nations will either be the sites of religious conflict and violence that sets Muslim minorities against secular states and Muslim communities against Christian neighbors, or it could become the birthplace of a liberalized and modernized Islam that could in turn transform the religion worldwide. We urgently need to understand the developing contours of European religious beliefs and practices, and not just as they apply to Muslims, for the outcome of the rivalry there will have profound implications for the United States.     

东南亚地区伊斯兰信仰的传播及华人在其中发挥的作用

东南亚地区是世界上民族与宗教最为多样化的地区之一,在所有宗教之中,信奉伊斯兰教的人数是最多的,本文讨论了穆斯林在东南亚的早期活动,结合伊斯兰教在印尼、马来西亚等地的传播进行研究,伊斯兰教在东南亚的传播具有和平、包容和本地化的特点.而华人在伊斯兰教的传播过程中起到了非常重要的作用,郑和7次下西洋是东南亚伊斯兰教传播中的重要历史事件.     

20世纪印度尼西亚伊斯兰教育变迁

作为印尼穆斯林社会的重要构成，伊斯兰教育在20世纪经历了深刻变化。一方面，伊斯兰现代主义推动印尼伊斯兰教育现代性的发展，另一方面，独立后印尼政府去伊斯兰化政策促进了伊斯兰教育的世俗化与非政治化发展。在后苏哈托时期，伊斯兰教育面临伊斯兰多元主义的挑战，尤其如何应对伊斯兰激进主义成为印尼伊斯兰教育改革不可回避的问题。     

论印度伊斯兰民族主义——兼论伊斯兰教与民族主义的关系

在印度民族解放运动中，在宗教文化的差异和影响、印穆两大教派利益冲突以及英国分而治之政策等因素的综合作用下，穆斯林社会伊斯兰民族主义兴起并占据主导地位。宗教信仰与民族主义思潮相结合极为广泛地动员了广大穆斯林民众参与巴基斯坦运动。     

Southeast Asia as the ‘second front’ in the war against terrorism: evaluating the threat and responses

Following the seminal events of 11 September 2001, and especially since 12 October 2002, southeast Asia has come into focus as the so-called ‘second front’ in the war against international terrorism. However, the threat of terrorism to southeast Asia emanating from radical Islam predated these events. An emerging security concern in recent years has been the rise of extreme Islamic groups. In addition, there exist Islamic separatist/guerilla groups within the region which envision separate Islamic states, and which have been actively engaged in long-running insurgencies against the central governments in the region. In evaluating the nature of the threat emanating from militant Islamic terrorism, there is a need for better typologies to explain the complexity of home-grown Muslim militant groups, and the emergence of transnational linkages both among them and with international Islamic terrorism. These complexities, coupled with the presence of fundamental grievances which long predated 11 September 2001, point to the necessity for a more broad-based strategy that takes into account the presence of fundamental grievances. But the varied nature of these grievances, and the difficulties that have been encountered in meeting the challenges posed by militant Islam, mean that the war against terrorism will be long drawn-out. Containment, not victory, will be the most realistic outcome.     

The Method is the Message: The Current State of Political Communication Research

Formal journalism ethics, as laid out in codes of ethics by journalism associations and the like, is part of a wider debate on media ethics that has been triggered in the Middle East due to the advent of global media in the region. This study compares journalism codes from Europe and the Islamic world in order to revisit the widespread academic assumption of a deep divide between Western and Oriental philosophies of journalism that has played a role in many debates on political communication in the area. The analysis shows that there is a broad intercultural consensus that standards of truth and objectivity should be central values of journalism. Norms protecting the private sphere are, in fact, more pronounced in countries of the Near and Middle East, North Africa, and in the majority of Muslim states in Asia than is generally the case in Europe, although the weighing of privacy protection against the public's right to information is today a component of most journalistic codes of behavior in Islamic countries. Obvious differences between the West and many Islamic countries are to be found in the status accorded to freedom of expression. Although ideas of freedom have entered formal media ethics in the Middle East and the Islamic world, only a minority of documents limit the interference into freedom to cases where other fundamental rights (e.g., privacy) are touched, whereas the majority would have journalists accept political, national, religious, or cultural boundaries to their work. Despite existing differences between Western and Middle Eastern/Islamic journalism ethics and in contrast to the overall neoconservative (Islamist) trends in societal norms, formal journalism ethics has been a sphere of growing universalization throughout the last decades.     

伊斯兰女性主义探析:马来西亚伊斯兰姐妹的经验

伊斯兰姐妹是马来西亚著名的非政府组织,属于伊斯兰女性主义,致力于在伊斯兰的框架下维护公正和妇女权利。该组织通过重新解释《古兰经》,指出伊斯兰是追求公正和性别平等的宗教;通过宣传教育、向政府递交备忘录、发表公开信和声明等方式,提高公众觉悟、影响政府政策和法律制定;还通过法律援助,帮助在婚姻中处于弱势的穆斯林妇女。伊斯兰姐妹将伊斯兰与民主、人权联系起来,维护妇女的权利,有力地挑战了宗教权威对伊斯兰解释的垄断权,也有力地回击了伊斯兰主义对妇女的说教。     

Radical Islam and the struggle for influence in Central Asia

The threat of an Iranian‐style Islamic takeover of the newly independent states of Central Asia is currently more of a potential than actual threat to the secular rulers of these countries. Nonetheless, economic, environmental and nationality problems render these rulers vulnerable to a future Islamic potential challenge. The threat of Islam has been used by local leaders to justify dictatorships and intervene in neighboring countries, while foreign governments, such as Turkey and Israel, have sought to exploit the threat of Islam in Central Asia to strengthen their support from the United States. By contrast, Iran has downplayed the Islamic factor in its foreign policy toward these new republics and as a result has enhanced its relationship with Russia, which seeks to establish its hegemony over the region.     

Norming “Moderation” in an “Iconic Target”: Public Policy and the Regulation of Religious Anxieties in Singapore

The maintenance of a “moderate mainstream” Muslim community as a bulwark against the fraying of harmonious ethnic relations has become a key governance concern post-September 11. In light of the global concern—and often paranoia—with diasporic Islam, Islamic religious institutions and civil society have been portrayed in the popular media as hotbeds of radicalism, promoters of hatred, and recruiters for a “conflict of civilization” between the Muslim world and the modern world. Having declared itself a terrorist's “iconic target,” Singapore has taken a broad-based community approach in advancing inter-religious tolerance, including a subtle initiative to include the “Muslim civil society” in advancing the understanding and the promotion of a moderate brand of Islam in Singapore. This tacit process of regulation (top-down, intra-community and inter-community), while effective, is constrained by the unique governance context in Singapore.     

东盟“伊斯兰化”与东盟10国对以关系的互动研究

冷战结束为东南亚地区一体化发展和东盟扩大创造了条件。随着伊斯兰复兴运动近年在马来西亚和文莱的深化,这两国出于宗教情感而持反以亲阿的态度,并将其变为东盟意志,无视东盟大多数成员为非伊斯兰国家且与以色列合作良好的事实。这既体现了冷战后国际关系格局发展现实在东南亚的投影,又体现了当代国际关系的“宗教转向”和东盟国家在伊斯兰问题上的分歧公开化。以色列实际上已成为东盟伊斯兰与非伊斯兰成员国之间的宗教“柏林墙”。欧盟模式应是东盟可资借鉴的方向,东盟制度建设乃至维系存在的基础在于：一是加强东盟制度民主建设,二是东盟机构的“去宗教化”。马来西亚和文莱可以通过伊斯兰会议组织等国际宗教组织发出其宗教诉求,但东盟绝非在宗教上的合适平台。     

近代以来中东地区伊斯兰思潮在东南亚的传播方式和影响（19世纪初-20世纪上半叶）

中东地区是伊斯兰世界的中心，东南亚地处伊斯兰世界的边缘。中东地区作为伊斯兰教的中心，一直盛产各种伊斯兰思潮：瓦哈比运动、伊斯兰现代主义、伊斯兰民族主义等，并通过朝觐和留学等方式向东南亚伊斯兰社会传播，激发了东南亚的帕特里运动、伊斯兰现代主义和民族主义运动的兴起和发展。     

Turkey's New Foreign Policy and the Future of Turkey–EU Relations

When European Muslim citizens are involved in social conflicts or when they contest the place that is given them in Europe, these political claims are often seen as radical and inspired by external influences. If an attempt is made to understand what part the influences of the so-called Muslim “countries of origin” play in the way Muslims contest European models of society and integration, it turns out that the roots of radicalisation are often purely European. The idea that it is the Islamic and communitarian nature of the European Muslim way of life which is at the base of their failing integration has to be challenged. Indeed, the initiatives of religious actors have failed to channel the radicalisation of European Muslims’ political demands. The role of the religious variable is of much less importance in political radicalisation than the lack of an institutional response to the demands for greater social and economic integration.     

Islamist militancy in Sierra Leone

This article examines the contemporary Islamic trends in post-conflict Sierra Leone (through 2009) against the background of international concerns that the country might become a haven for religiously-inspired violence. It argues that there is some evidence that prolonged economic impoverishment and foreign religious influences, especially from Saudi Arabia and Iran, have led to a reinvigoration of Islam in post-war Sierra Leone. Though this reinvigoration has resulted in the visibility of more purist strains of the religion, there are no indications that the Sierra Leonean Muslim groups are actively participating in any worldwide jihadist network or will engage in large-scale religiously-inspired extremism and violence. The recent history of the country indicates that attempts to mobilise religious sympathies for political ends in Sierra Leone have been short-lived and largely unsuccessful     

Parties,Party Systems and Democracy in the European Union

Since the late 1980s, research on political Islam has been much in vogue in Europe and the US. This phenomenon is typically viewed as an expression of religion rather than of politics. Precisely because of the assumed “religious” underpinnings of political Islam, most Western attempts to engage with Islamists often remain trapped in an attempt to test their “democratic credentials”. By focussing on what Islamists think about democracy, many studies have ignored the political, social and economic contexts in which Islamists operate. Accounting for the political underpinning of Islamist movements can both help understand their political evolution and open up fruitful avenues for comparative analysis. For this reason, attention is turned to Europe to seek best practices of external engagement with domestic opposition movements in authoritarian contexts, such as Western engagement with opposition actors in Franco's Spain, Kuchma's Ukraine and Shevardnadze's Georgia.     

Muslim fundamentalists as social revolutionaries: The case of Israel

The Muslim movement in Israel has been growing in leaps and bounds since the 1980s and has deeply affected the socio‐political fabric of the Arab minority in Israel.

These Arabs, who are leaning more and more towards the Islamic movement, are thus protesting both against Israeli society and politics, and against the Socialist propensities of the Communist Party which has reflected their concerns since Israel was founded in 1948.

The Islamic movement, which has taken over so far, six mayorships in Arab‐Israeli villages and townships, has revolutionized society in those localities mobilizing the masses, instilling in them a new sense of identity and purpose and uniting them behind Islamic and national goals.     

土耳其和巴基斯坦政教关系对比研究

土耳其与巴基斯坦一直具有传统的友好关系,共同的宗教信仰是土耳其与巴基斯坦相互认同的一个重要基石;两国95%以上的居民都是穆斯林,伊斯兰教在两国的政治、经济、社会、文化和外交等方面都起着非常重要的作用。在两国历史发展中都曾出现伊斯兰政治化和政治伊斯兰化的趋势,在全球化的进程中,伊斯兰复兴是两国都要面对的问题。本文试图在探讨土耳其与巴基斯坦建国之初对伊斯兰教的定位的基础上就两国在政教关系方面的异同作较为深入和系统的比较和分析。     

Islamic versus other identities in the Greater Middle East: Comments on the Ex‐Soviet Muslim republics

The six newly independent, ex‐Soviet Muslim republics share many characteristics. Common to all are identity conflicts based on ethnic ties, cultural traditions and attitudes to Islam. Most ethno‐nationalist groups have been mythologizing their past history and culture. Islam remains, however, the most important factor determining identity throughout the area, although in diverse ways. Realizing this, most political elites take an unfavorable view of the flow of extreme religious propaganda from Iran and Saudi Arabia and of the incursions from Afghanistan. Aware of the revival of Islam, some political leaders of the new states strive to encourage various patterns of moderate religion as a bulwark against militant Islam.     

Islamic reformation discourses: popular sovereignty and religious secularisation in Iran

Disputes over the outcome of the June 2009 presidential election in Iran rapidly developed into a contest about the legitimacy of the Islamic state. Far from being a dispute between religious and non-religious forces, the main protagonists in the conflict represented divergent articulations of state–religion relations within an Islamic context. In contrast to the authoritarian legitimisation of an Islamic state, the Islamic reformation discourse is based on secular-democratic articulations of state–religion relations. This article focuses on the ideas of four leading Iranian religious scholars who advocate a secular-democratic conceptualisation of state authority. Disputing the religious validity of divine sovereignty, they promote the principle of popular sovereignty based on Islamic sources and methods. This reformist conceptualisation is rooted in the notion that Islam and the secular-democratic state are complementary.