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401. Turbulent Transition in Iraq: Can It Succeed?

Author:
Judith S. Yaphe
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
One year after liberation, most Iraqis are impatient with the military occupation of their country. Although grateful for the removal of Saddam Hussein's cruel and repressive regime, many assumed the United States and its coalition members would soon go home and leave them to sort out their political, economic, and military fate. The war, after all, had been fought to liberate Iraqis from political tyranny, not to defeat the Iraqi people. Both U.S. and Iraqi expectations were high that the transition from oppression to democracy would be smooth and quick and that Iraqi political elites would move swiftly to ensure democratic rule.
Topic:
Government and Religion
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Arabia

402. The Violence of "Religion": Examining a Prevalent Myth

Author:
William T. Cavanaugh
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This essay examines arguments that religion is prone to violence and finds them incoherent. They are incoherent because they can find no way consistently to differentiate the religious from the secular. After exposing the arbitrariness of the arguments, the essay goes on to examine why such arguments are so common. The hypothesis put forward is that such arguments are so prevalent because, while they delegitimate certain kinds of violence, they legitimate other kinds of violence, namely, violence done in the name of secular, Western states and ideals. Such arguments sanction a putative dichotomy between non-Western, especially Muslim, forms of culture on the one hand, which—having not yet learned to privatize matters of faith—are absolutist, divisive, irrational, and Western culture on the other, which is supposedly modest in its claims to truth, unitive, and rational. In short, their violence is fanatical and uncontrolled; our violence is controlled, reasonable, and often regrettably necessary to contain their violence.
Topic:
Religion

403. “Une Messe est Possible”: The Imbroglio of the Catholic Church in Contemporary Latin Europe

Author:
Paul Christopher Manuel and Margaret Mott
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Throughout the contemporary period, the Church-State relationship in the nation-states of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal – which we will refer to as Latin Europe in this paper – has been a lively source of political conflict and societal cleavage, both on epistemological, and ontological grounds. Epistemological, in that the person living in Latin Europe has to decide whether his world view will be religious or secular; ontological, in that his mortality has kept some sense of the Catholic religion close to his heart and soul at the critical moments of his human reality. Secular views tend to define the European during ordinary periods of life, (“métro boulot dodo,”) while religious beliefs surge during the extraordinary times of life (birth, marriage, death,) as well as during the traditional ceremonial times (Christmas, Easter). This paper will approach the question on the role of the Catholic church in contemporary Latin Europe by first proposing three models of church-state relations in the region and their historical development, then looking at the role of the Vatican, followed by an examination of some recent Eurobarometer data on the views of contemporary Catholics in each country, and finishing with an analysis of selected public policy issues in each country. Throughout, it is interested in the dual questions of whether religion still plays an important role in Latin Europe, and whether or not the Catholic church is still able to influence the direction of public policies in the now democratic nation-states of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Topic:
Politics and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe, France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal

404. Narrating Oneself Through Another: Medieval Christians and Their Images of the Saracen

Author:
Paul T. Levin
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
It was Turkish membership in the European Union that the Viennese social worker quoted in the Guardian was against. As the Commission of the European Union has recently delivered a report that suggests the opening up of EU accession negotiations with Turkey, old fears seem to be awakening on the continent; “Turcophobia”, as the Guardian calls it. The liberal Viennese news weekly Profil the same week described the prospect of Turkish membership as “not so much a risk as a danger” in an editorial titled “The Turks at the Gates of Vienna.” But not only Turks are experiencing a resurrection of animosities that many thought were long since buried. In the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, anti-Arab sentiments surged along with verbal and physical attacks on Muslims in both Europe and the U.S. Perhaps the secretly held view of too many in Europe and the “West” is that of Britain's Robert Kilroy-Silk. According to his column in the Sunday Express on September 25 of this year, Arabs are no more than "suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors". This essay digs deep to find the historical roots of today's images of Turks, Arabs, and Muslims.
Topic:
International Relations, International Organization, Regional Cooperation, and Religion
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, Europe, Turkey, and Arabia

405. CERI: Political Opposition, Nationalism and Islam among the Uygurs in Xinjiang Abstract

Author:
Rémi Castets
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
With a substantial Uyghur population, Xinjiang (East Turkistan) is, after Uzbekistan, the second largest Muslim Turkic-speaking area of settlement area in Central Asia. Annexed by China fairly late, this territory has a tumultuous history punctuated by foreign interference and separatist insurrections. Through strict control of the regional political system and a massive influx of Han settlers, the communist regime has managed to integrate this strategic region and its large oil deposits into the rest of China.
Topic:
Nationalism, Politics, and Religion
Political Geography:
China, Central Asia, Asia, and Uzbekistan

406. CERI: Religion and Politics in Greece: The Greek Church's 'Conservative Modernization' in the 1990s

Author:
Anastassios Anastassiadis
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
This article addresses the sensitive question of Church-State relations in Greece. Recent studies have suggested that the Greek Church's discourse was plainly incompatible with modern conceptions of liberal democracy. Populism and nationalism have been the two theoretical concepts used in relation with the Church. Discourse analysis based on public declarations of Church officials has been the main methodological tool. The Greek identity cards' crisis of the nineties has been its testing ground. Through an analysis of this "crisis" this article intends to show that these methods can offer only very limited perspectives of understanding the process for two main reasons. First, they show little interest for sociological analysis and especially for the internal functioning of the Church. Second, discourses are one outcome of the actors' strategies but have to be deciphered and not taken for granted. Analysts disregard one of the main presuppositions of semantics theory: discourses are produced within a specific socio-historical context and according to certain prefabricated schemes. This dual pattern of production allows for continuity as well as for change. Thus, this article also argues that a Church's conservative discourse may be closely related to the efforts of certain actors within this institution to renovate it. While refuting the "clash of civilizations" thesis, this article finally intends to suggest that the renewed interest for religion in general and orthodoxy in particular due to this thesis should be put to use by researchers in order to acquire new and more comprehensive socio-historical accounts of the Greek Church.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe and Greece

407. El Islamismo como teoría política y de relaciones internacionales.

Author:
José Alberto Moreno
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
The Islamism is the sum of theories and religious doctrines who fought for a harsh Quoranic interpretation and Shari'a (Islamic Law) applying, with the aim to transform the society to an idealistic return of the prophet Muhammad's time and manners. The present paper has a double objective: diffuse the main arguments of some scholars from this political thought and categorized the Islamism through intellectual periods and religious schools (Sunnism and Shiism).
Topic:
Development, Ethnic Conflict, Politics, and Religion

408. Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity

Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Important changes in the outlook of Egyptian Islamic activism in recent years have opened up possibilities for progressive political development, but these have gone unexploited because of the conservatism of the Egyptian government's policies. The absence of serious violence since late 1997 strongly suggests that the strategy of armed struggle (jihad) against the state has not only failed but has effectively been abandoned. At the same time, the ideology of non-violent Islamic activism has evolved and now emphatically embraces democratic principles and elements of a modernist outlook. However, unless the Egyptian government changes its approach, opens up the political field and undertakes serious political reform, the frustration which many Egyptians feel could lead to a recrudescence of violent activism at some stage. The government risks realising too late that it has squandered a vital opportunity and wasted the fruits of its own earlier successes on the security front.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, Religion, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Africa, North Africa, and Egypt

409. Islamism in North Africa I: The Legacies of History

Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Islamism, terrorism, reform: the triangle formed by these three concepts and the complex and changeable realities to which they refer is at the centre of political debate in and about North Africa today. The role of Egyptian elements in the leadership of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation is well-known, if not necessarily well understood. The involvement of Maghrebis in terrorist networks in Europe -- whether linked to al-Qaeda or not -- has recently been underlined by the suspected involvement of Moroccans in the 11 March 2004 attack in Madrid. Egypt itself has endured years of terrorist violence; few if any countries have suffered as much from terrorism as Algeria has over the last twelve years; and the bombings in Casablanca on 16 May 2003 suggest that Morocco is not immune.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, Religion, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Algeria, North Africa, Egypt, and Morocco

410. Indonesia Backgrounder: Jihad in Central Sulawesi

Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Recent violence in Poso (Central Sulawesi) suggests a need to revise assessments about the nature and gravity of the terrorist threat in Indonesia. While the shorter term prospects are somewhat encouraging, there is an under appreciated longer term security risk.
Topic:
Government, Religion, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Indonesia and Southeast Asia