Sacred Time and Conflict Initiation

This article examines the manner in which rituals and symbols associated with sacred time have influenced conflict initiation. Leaders will time their attacks with sacred dates in the religious calendar if the force multiplying effects of sacred time, motivation, and vulnerability, outweigh its force dividing effects, constraint, and outrage. This is most likely to occur under three conditions: When conflict occurs across religious divides, when the sacred day is unambiguous in significance and meaning, and when rituals connected to that day will undermine an opponents’ military effectiveness. I illustrate these effects with twentieth century examples, including the timing of insurgent attacks in Iraq and the launching of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. By exploring the pervasive effects of religious calendars on modern combat, I hope to redirect the focus of the study of religion and violence away from the narrow preoccupation with fundamentalism and terrorism and onto the much broader range of cases in which religion shapes secular conflict in multiple—and often unexpected—ways.     

Why the “Sacred” Is a Better Resource Than “Religion” for Understanding Terrorism

The popular media and many in academia often overstate the role that religion, and its supposedly unique qualities, has played in recent acts of terror. In this article, I argue that the notion of religious violence is unhelpful and that there is a more useful concept that we can utilize to draw out the values and ideas that play a role in the move to violence in both religious and secular groups. From a series of case studies on religious and non-religious groups, I have drawn out an alternative framework for investigating and learning from the role that beliefs play in motivations and justifications for terrorism. This framework uses the concept of non-negotiable (or “sacred”) beliefs. It is as applicable to secular as it is to religious groups, and can show us much more about how such beliefs can contribute to violence.     

Immoderation: comparing the Christian Right in the US and pro-Islamic movement-parties in Turkey

This article will discuss the “immoderation” of religious political actors – defined as the continuation of a relatively closed and rigid worldview – through a cross-religious comparison of the Christian Right coalition within the Republican Party in the US with the pro-Islamic movement-parties in Turkey. By adapting a “most different systems approach”, this study will question the similar evolution of two religious political actors in two dissimilar political regimes. In particular, it will question the processes and types of immoderation by looking into (1) “behavioural immoderation”, immoderation for the strategic purpose of forming a small yet ideologically pure supporter base, and into (2) “ideological immoderation”, immoderation as a result of a continued advocacy for a moral role for the state without a full embrace of political pluralism. In this, it will argue that religious political actors are strategic actors who try to guarantee their organizational survival amidst changing costs and benefits of moderation vis-à-vis immoderation. Through its discussion of “immoderation” and through its cross-religious comparison, this study will aim to contribute to the inclusion-moderation literature.     

“Good and Evil” narratives in Islamic State media and Western government statements

This article uses a critical discourse and documentary analysis to explore “Good and Evil” narratives in Islamic State (IS) media and in the official policy statements of the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. The analysis initially considers how IS and Western governments define the other as “Evil” drawing from premodern Manichean and Abrahamic religious conventions. It then interprets how these entities subscribe to a post-Enlightenment ethic that associates the triumph of “Good” over “Evil” with science, reason and technological innovation. Distinct from similar analyses that emphasise the persuasive power of religion, this article reflects on how IS and Western governments use conflicting religious and philosophical imperatives to articulate their strategic political agendas. It further interprets how these agendas become ideologically convincing, through reflexive communication.     

Reputations and deterrence: A theoretical and empirical assessment

This study seeks to adjudicate between the two schools of intelligence: the “Orthodox School” which argues that the inherent pathologies and obstacles in the intelligence work make a significant degree of successful surprise inevitable in almost all attempts and the “Revisionist School” which asserts that the roots of surprise attacks lie in avoidable mistakes of certain intelligence officials. By examining the classic case of the Yom Kippur surprise attack, the paper finds the middle ground between the two schools. It distinguishes between the real limits facing analysts and surmountable obstacles. Based on this distinction it determines which problems can be corrected or mitigated and which cannot. It also provides criteria to determine the varying levels of difficulty for predicting attacks. Finally, it finds that intelligence inevitably involves making subjective judgments and utilizing experience correctly, and therefore successful prediction depends on the quality of the analysts.     

Simbole in interkulturele kommunikasie

SUMMARY

The first part of this article: “Symbols as message-bearers” discusses the nature and occurrence of symbols, symbol systems and classifications, and the way these manifest a society's specific world view. Symbolic systems are paradigms in which certain concrete cultural constructions (eg. houses, meals, clothes etc.) occur as syntagms. The analysis of symbolic mechanisms grants access to a culture's unique constitution of meaning. Verbal and non-verbal communication symbols are briefly discussed.

The second part depicts the manifestation of symbols in certain cultural arrangements in which symbolization plays a great part, like myths, religion, art and rituals.

The final part maintains the use of symbol analysis as utilization of the cultural totality for intercultural communication. By involving the symbol system as well as the unique communication patterns, successful communication transcending intercultural boundaries, becomes more likely.     

Religious Violence in Judaism: Past and Present

Throughout Jewish history, religious tradition has had a dialectical relationship with violence. Judaism is neither more nor less violent than any other religion. In this essay, however, we offer a comprehensive and integrated survey of the components of Jewish ethos and mythos relating to violence while analyzing and illustrating their development and influence over the course of three millennia, from biblical times to the contemporary Jewish world, particularly in the Jewish State. We analyze the various transformations that Jewish religious violent norms, values, moods, and symbols have undergone, their linkage to ever-changing social and cultural circumstances, their social-political roots and implications, and their relationship to other Jewish traditions. We trace how ancient violent motifs have emerged and have been processed over time, and observe present-day violent behavior in light of these motifs. Along the way, we explicate the dynamics that characterize the tradition of Jewish religious violence and its paradoxical nature. Our argument implies a general theoretical model of religious violence that can be applied in a comparative context: Actors engage in a constant evaluation, selection, and reinterpretation of religious ideas and practices from an ever-growing reservoir and in so doing contribute to that reservoir. Religious tradition is adaptable but it also places limits on the violence agents can justify at any point in time.     

Religion as a Factor in Ethnic Conflict: Kashmir and Indian Foreign Policy

ABSTRACT

Ethnic conflicts with a strong religious component do not have merely domestic or foreign causes and consequences. As a result, internationalization of ethnic conflict has become an important subject of inquiry both in terms of pure research and policy-oriented studies. This article presents a case study of Indian-Pakistani relations over Kashmir, used to evaluate the role of religion and the explanatory power of the approach presented here. The aim of the study is to apply a foreign policy approach that simultaneously incorporates domestic and external factors in an analysis of how and in what ways religious elements of the Kashmir question affect India's foreign policy. The approach, an application of “systemism,” contributes to current developments in the realist school of international relations through its emphasis on the need to look at both international and state levels in combination. Earlier applications of realism, as both neotraditional and structural realism clearly demonstrate, tend to remain restricted to one level or the other. In this approach, a religious dynamic can have a domestic source yet be effectively examined in terms of international ramifications.     

Religious parties and democracy: A comparative assessment of Israel and Turkey

Discussions of the role of religious parties in democracies can be highly misleading when they take the parties' ideologies at face value and assign them to the binary categories of moderate vs radical. Only by a careful review of how religious parties use religious and secular symbols in defining their political stances can we evaluate their roles vis-à-vis liberal democracy. The competing political ideologies of the Mafdal and Shas Parties in Israel and the National Action Party, the Prosperity Party and the Justice and Development Party in Turkey are foci of this analysis. Two controversial concepts, ‘redemption’ in Israel and ‘secularism’ in Turkey, are used to question how these parties appropriate religious symbols in their policies towards secular public and institutions. The arguments draw on a set of interviews with the religious party leaderships and a content analysis of party ideologues' views. The findings suggest that parties that adopt the strategy of sacralization (that is, assigning religious meanings to secular ideas thereby treating them as sacred) appear more moderate yet they are more likely to support authoritarian policies. However, the so-called radical religious parties tend to be more inclusive and are more likely to secularize their respective religious tradition internally by redefining secular terms. Despite their novel political agendas both groups fail to exhibit principled commitment to liberal values and fail to provide inclusive and coherent alternatives to their secularist counterparts.     

Dr Livingstone,I Presume? Evangelicals,Africa and Faith-Based Humanitarianism

Humanitarianism is a principal means through which Northern-based Christian groups intervene into sub-Saharan African states. However, current scholarship neglects the agentive roles played by religious actors in the delivery of mainstream aid. This secularises humanitarian governance, “others” religious actors and supports the portrayal of global aid as a technical-rational project, against which faith-based humanitarianism appears inherently suspect. In the post-Cold War period, the Northern-based evangelical community has intensified its support for emergency aid. Professional evangelical relief organisations disproportionately account for the delivery of faith-based humanitarianism. Yet few analyses explore their micro-political and sociological dimensions. Drawing primarily on fieldwork conducted in Juba, South Sudan, I argue that evangelical humanitarianism encompasses overlapping and sometimes competing “religious” and “emergency” imaginaries. Through these, evangelicals are shaped by, negotiate and respond to the structural, normalising and pragmatic pressures of the mainstream humanitarian field. In order to understand how faith-based humanitarianism differs from secular variants—politically, practically, organisationally, ethically—it needs to be analysed as part of the heterogeneous whole of global humanitarianism. I join recent scholarship in arguing for more in-depth analyses of the social dimensions of faith-based aid. Doing so sheds light onto dynamics that cross-cut global humanitarianism in its entirety.     

John Mueller. Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats,and Why We Believe Them

The history and identity of fundamentalism is complex. Religious fundamentalism names an ideological perspective found in most, if not all, major religions and is currently associated with variant forms of extremism and religiously-motivated acts of violence, including terrorism. Following a discussion of religious extremism per se, a typological paradigm of religious fundamentalism that attempts to demonstrate the ideological development from what might be referred to as an “initial” and relatively benign fundamentalism into extremism and thence to terrorism, will be presented. A discussion of a model of fundamentalism as applied to Islam will provide a comparative basis for assessing Christian fundamentalism and extremism, so setting the scene for an applied exploration of religious extremism and terrorism with particular reference to Christian contexts and examples.     

Do Religious Factors Impact Armed Conflict? Empirical Evidence From Sub-Saharan Africa

Theoretically, the “mobilization hypothesis” establishes a link between religion and conflict by arguing that particular religious structures are prone to mobilization; once politicized, escalation to violent conflict becomes more likely. Yet, despite the religious diversity in sub-Saharan Africa and the religious overtones in a number of African conflicts, this assumption has not yet been backed by systematic empirical research on the religion–conflict nexus in the region. The following questions thus remain: Do religious factors significantly impact the onset of (religious) armed conflict? If so, do they follow the logic of the mobilization hypothesis and, if so, in which way? To answer these questions, this article draws on a unique data inventory of all sub-Saharan countries for the period 1990–2008, particularly including data on mobilization-prone religious structures (e.g., demographic changes, parallel ethno-religious identities) as well as religious factors indicating actual politicization of religion (e.g., inter-religious tensions, religious discrimination, incitement by religious leaders). Logit regressions suggest that religion indeed plays a significant role in African armed conflicts. These findings are compatible with the mobilization hypothesis, and stress the impact of conflict-prone religious structures, and particularly, the fact that overlaps of religious and ethnic identities are conflict-prone. Future research should investigate the religion-ethnicity-nexus in more detail.     

Diplomatic Interactions and Negotiations

This article examines the role of state actors, organization agencies, and individual agents in diplomatic interactions and negotiations. States as diplomatic actors, organizations as diplomatic agencies, and individuals as diplomatic agents enter into complex and interdependent relationships. Proposing a three‐level analysis of interstate interactions and diplomatic negotiations, I argue that no diplomatic negotiation happens without interactions between parties at the state, organizational, and individual levels. The agency–structure paradigm provides a conceptual framework for understanding behavioral and structural properties of international interactions and their influence on diplomatic negotiations. Diplomatic negotiation employs specific forms of interaction, using a distinct language, protocol norms, symbols, ceremonies, and rituals. The state's “self” (as a social conception of its identity, values, and interests) affects the process of diplomatic negotiation. By managing, organizing, and improving international interactions at the actor, agency, and agent levels, negotiating parties can advance the process and effectiveness of diplomatic negotiation.     

An Italian Foreign Policy of Religious Engagement: Challenges and Prospects

A new awareness of the role of religion in international relations has started to inform concrete policy discussions in several Western Ministries of Foreign Affairs under the heading of ‘religious engagement’ in foreign policy. Italy is no exception, but as the country which hosts the Holy See, it represents a special case. As the approach to religion found in the historical record of Italian foreign policy shows, Italy has a comparative advantage and could well develop a unique model of religious engagement by strengthening the central structures involved in religious matters and foreign policy, as well as by using the vast network of Rome-based religious non-state actors as a forum of consultation and policy advice.     

Religious Relations across the Taiwan Strait: Patterns,Alignments, and Political Effects

This study of Buddhist, Taoist, and Christian relations across the Taiwan Strait elicits three observations: (1) officials on both sides of the Strait are permitting increased cross-Strait religious interaction, but each side has different calculations for doing so; (2) each side uses religion as “soft power” to obtain its political objectives, but these low-key approaches are limited—for different reasons; and (3) even though cross-Strait religious ties are defined by the governments and religious organizations in Taiwan and China in cultural terms, they have significant political implications.     

Shadowboxing in the Dark: Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism in Northern Ireland

The British experience in Northern Ireland, particularly the fight against the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), is an oft-cited case study in the counter-insurgency (COIN) spectrum and tome of counter-terrorism studies. It is the totality of the British intelligence experience in Northern Ireland, with its successes and challenges, which make it such a valuable case study from which to draw insight to shape contemporary COIN intelligence-based operations. As the conflict was both prolonged and intensified, a multitude of intelligence units from military and law enforcement evolved specifically to counter the effectiveness of PIRA; and to satisfy the desire of the security establishment to intensify information-gathering activities. This article examines the evolution and development of this security intelligence-driven effort that ultimately had the cumulative effect to wear down PIRA’s military capability through the focused application of a prolonged and lavishly resourced linked intelligence apparatus as an adjunct of a heavy military and police footprint. Nevertheless, despite Northern Ireland being a relatively small geographical area, the eventual containment of PIRA took years to achieve, demonstrating just how difficult it is to address a committed and determined insurgency. This highlights that a successful COIN strategy is arguably best predicated on the need for “patient” as opposed to “decisive” operations.     

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.     

The Paradox of Anti-Americanism: Reflection on the Shallow Concept of Soft Power

This article deals with the seeming paradox of lasting American power and global anti-Americanism, which brings into question the relevance of the concept of soft power. Indeed, discontent over the current hegemon does not affect the consumption of its goods and the diffusion of its symbols. The contradiction results from the state-centric perspective of traditional scholars which does not shed light on the diverse aspects of American supremacy. In addition, Nye's notion of soft power does not stress the shaping of foreign societies by non-state actors and thus their important role in American predominance. As a consequence, the concept of soft power will be revised in order to reduce its “shallowness” and highlight the constraining aspect of today's prominent power.     

Fixing the Meaning of 9/11: Hegemony,Coercion, and the Road to War in Iraq

As the costs of the invasion and occupation of Iraq mount, scholars have sought to explain how the United States came to launch this war in the first place. Many have focused on the “inflation” of the Iraq threat, and indeed the Bush administration did frame the national dialogue on Iraq. We maintain, however, that the failure of most leading Democrats to challenge the administration's case for war in 2002–2003 cannot be explained fully by the bully pulpit, Democrats' reputation for dovishness, or administration misrepresentations. Rather, we argue that leading Democrats were relatively silent in the run-up to war because they had been “rhetorically coerced”, unable to advance a politically sustainable set of arguments with which to oppose the war. The effective fixing of the meaning of the September 11 attacks in terms of the “War on Terror” substantially circumscribed political debate, and we explain why this discourse became dominant. The Bush administration then capitalized on the existing portrait of Saddam Hussein to bind Iraq tightly into the War on Terror and thereby silence leading Democrats and legitimate the war. The story of the road to war in Iraq is not only one of neoconservative hubris and manipulated intelligence. It is also the story of how political actors strove effectively after 9/11 to shape the nation's discourse of foreign affairs and of how the resulting dominant narratives structured foreign policy debate. Behind the seemingly natural War on Terror lurk political processes of meaning-making that narrowed the space for contestation over Iraq.     

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.