Contesting the Monopoly of Interpretation: The Uneasy Relationship between Ulama and Sunni Parties in Yemen

Most studies on Sunni Islamism either neglect ulama or portray them as basically diverging from the Islamist movement. Unlike their Islamist counterparts who are contenders for political power in incumbent regimes, the ulama are depicted as loyal quietists. As such, this article problematizes this dichotomy. As is shown by the case of Yemen, the ulama form an integral part of the Islamist Islah party, yet since the position of ulama within the party is crucially dependent on their monopoly over interpretation, and as the lay Muslim Brothers have increasingly digressed from the rulings of the ulama, they have sought alliances with their peers outside the party and attempted to undermine the politics of the Brotherhood by means of ulama associations and founding Salafi parties. By focusing on these developments, the article proposes an alternative reading to the allegedly contradictory politics of Islah which might be valid to other Islamist parties too.     

The Significance of ISIS's State Building in Syria

Researchers and policy makers appear to hold a deeply rooted reluctance to acknowledge, let alone address, the significance of ISIS's state building. Those who have engaged with this issue have tended to traverse the analytical dead end of legalistic questions and themes, inevitably concluding that ISIS's efforts fell short of the threshold of statehood. This article sharply diverges from this reasoning and instead focuses on the political extent of ISIS's state building, which was a reaction to the collapse of authority in Iraq and Syria, and the concomitant failure to protect peoples at risk. The study examines the Islamic State on four dimensions: the stabilization of society, the extraction of income, the politicization of religion, and the use of sectarian divisions. It finds that ISIS's efforts were internally contradictory and contained a number of elements that impeded its establishing a conventionally defined state and its carrying out of actions expected of such a state.     

Putting the Chinese State in its Place: A March from Passive Revolution to Hegemony

The Chinese party-state has been depicted in three major forms by the existing studies – the authoritarian state, developmental state and corporatist state. These depictions, however, only offer a partial understanding of the Chinese party-state and have failed to grasp its totality. Drawing upon the theoretical insights of Antonio Gramsci, this article contends that Chinese economic reform inaugurated in 1978 has been a top-down passive revolution and that, after three decades of reform, the role of the Chinese state has been changing from steering the country’s passive revolution to establishing capitalist hegemony. However, it should be noted that although the Chinese state has been undergoing a hegemonic transformation, capitalist hegemony has not been unambiguously established in the country. Some workers have given consent to the ruling class’s leadership, but a segment of workers has been able to transgress hegemony to formulate a radical critique of capitalists and the state. The transition to hegemony in China is a chaotic and tumultuous process of class struggles between the ruling class and the working class.     

The Secular State Under Siege: Religion and Politics in Europe and America

The Secular State Under Siege: Religion and Politics in Europe and America. By Christian Joppke (Cambridge and Malden: Polity 2015).     

Commemorating Chile's Coup: The Dynamics of Collective Behavior

This article examines the dynamics of collective behavior in Santiago, Chile every September 11, the date of the 1973 coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. It uses a multiple‐method strategy that includes participant observation, personal interviews, and content analysis of three major newspapers during the period 2003–8. The theoretical approach emphasizes time and space coordinates of specified social actors, sociocultural emergence, a limited range of dominant emotions, and dramaturgy to describe the complexity of ritualized commemorations. It shows that incidents occurring on this date are not primarily caused by the actions of social movement organizations. Moreover, the dichotomy of “day and night” used to understand the peaceful and violent commemorations is an oversimplification of a complex network of events, actors, and scenarios that has the effect of denying any legitimacy to actions that fall outside the state‐approved practices.     

The society's tour in Syria and Jordan

Black Box: KAL 007 and the Superpowers. By Alexander Dallin. Berkeley and London. University of California Press. $14.95.

KAL 007: The Hidden Story. By Oliver Clubb. Sag Harbour, NY. The Permanent Press. $16.95.

Shootdown. The Verdict on 007. By R. W. Johnson. London. Chatto &; Windus. £10.95.

"The Target is Destroyed.” What really happened to Flight 007. By Seymour Hersh. London. Faber and Faber. £9.95