Islam,Islamism, and Post‐Islamism: Rediscovering Politics after the War on Terror

Over the past twenty years, an influential body of conservative scholarship has focused on the alleged conflict between Islam and the West. Following widespread criticism of this scholarship, a number of commentators have revived its core assumptions to claim that the real conflict is between liberal democracy within Muslim societies and the political ideology of Islamism. In this article we trace the evolution of this scholarship, and suggest that recent empirical developments in the Muslim world suggest the potential for post‐Islamist parties to successfully adapt to the demands of democratic competition within Muslim societies. In this context, the emerging conflict is not between Islam and the West, or Islamism and the West, but between two very different discursive practices within the Muslim world that invoke Islam for radically different purposes. A traveler enters the world into which he travels, but a tourist brings his own world with him and never sees the one he's in. ¹      

Adrià Gual as illustrator,stage and costume designer

Catalan playwright, director and teacher Adrià Gual was a key figure in the development of modernista theatre. With his emphasis on theatre as artistic synthesis, Gual's multi-faceted work mirrors that of other European innovators and lays the path towards theatrical renovation in Catalonia and in Spain more generally. The visual element is a key component of his approach, and is reflected in his costume designs and illustrations to printed play texts. This article considers his work in two areas: Oscar Wilde's Salomé – perhaps the archetypical Symbolist play – and the commedia dell'arte spectacles he devised for performance in 1912 and 1927. The article also considers Salvador Dalí's set design for the latter, and allows us to highlight connections with the theatre design work of other avant-garde artists.     

Has the human security agenda come of age? Definitions,discourses and debates

The concept of human security (HS) and its accompanying agenda, 20 years after the publication of the Human Development Report (1994), are still in a state of flux. This article summarises the extent to which, based on an in-depth analysis of the original HS dimensions in the articles in this Special Issue, the HS agenda has evolved, to the extent that it has become a clearly articulated concept both in academic terms and as a guide to concrete political action for policy-makers. It is argued in this article, perhaps not surprisingly given the nature of the concept and its dimensions, that there is a great degree of variation over space, place and time in the way that it is constructed, received and appropriated. Importantly, it is suggested that personal, political and community security have all struggled to develop a shared understanding that has become a firm guide to action, whereas food security, health security, environmental security and economic security have not only become firm parts of debate and discussion, but also significant policy areas that have had considerable time, effort and money devoted to resolving. Overall, the debate on HS is still also very much in flux 20 years on, but there can be no doubt that it has had a major impact academically and in terms of political action.     

The Women's Movement and ‘Class Struggle’: gender,class formation and political identity in women's strikes, 1968–78.

ABSTRACT

Women workers’ industrial disputes were of fundamental importance to the WLM, reflected in the deeds of activists and early participant-histories. These disputes were sites of worker-employer conflict and conflict between feminists and the wider Labour Movement. This article considers how these differing interpretations related to the striking women themselves. It focuses on four key disputes and analyses contemporary reports and the accounts of those involved. It argues women strikers' particular experiences of trade unionism, class politics and feminism resulted in gendered, but still fundamentally class-based, identities, and concludes by considering the position of women workers' industrial actions in feminist histories.     

The Soviet Military–Industrial Complex and Economic Reform

The Soviet military and civilian economies are so closely integrated that economic reform cannot be treated as a purely civilian issue. Faltering economic growth coming at the same time as new challenges in the arms race has therefore focused the military's attention on how to improve the performance of the civilian economy. The Soviet military press has begun to portray current reform initiatives in a positive light, and the military economy has even been the model for some of these initiatives. Nonetheless, the military has not publicly supported any reforms involving marketization or private enterprise. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 114, 124.