State–Society Relations in Land Reform Implementation in the Philippines

Contrary to earlier pessimistic predictions, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Programme (CARP) in the Philippines has achieved significant success in land redistribution, although not quite matching the original claims of the state. The dominant public policy and land reform literature, broadly divided between state‐centred and society‐centred approaches, has difficulty in fully explaining the unexpected outcomes of the CARP process. Going beyond these dichotomous views, and using Fox’s interactive framework for analysing state–society relations, this article argues that redistributive land reform can be implemented in a politically hostile situation when initiatives by state reformists ‘from above’ positively interact with social mobilizations ‘from below’.     

Institutionalization of Islam in Secular Europe: The Influence of State–Religion Relations on Anti‐Muslim Attitudes

This study examines church–state relations in Europe, and analyzes their influence on anti‐immigrant attitudes. The literature explains this relationship primarily with religious demographics, or state privileges for the majority faith. Alternately, this study focuses on the status of the majority religion. It argues that, in countries with a national church, citizens are more likely to consider the institutionalization of a new religion to be occurring at the expense of the national heritage, and react negatively. To test that hypothesis, the study focuses on Muslim immigrants in Europe, and builds an index that gauges the extent to which European states institutionalize Islam. Then, employing multilevel regression analysis, it investigates how the institutionalization of Islam influences anti‐Muslim prejudice in different contexts of church–state regimes. Individual‐level data come from the latest wave of the European Values Study, and cover 31 countries. Findings indicate that, in European countries with a national church, institutionalization of Islam increases anti‐Muslim prejudice. In countries without a national church, however, institutionalization leads to tolerance. These results confirm the continuing relevance of religion on the national level in Europe, despite the decline in individual religiosity.     

Some Aspects of State–NGO Relationships in India in the Post-Independence Era

This article discusses some aspects of state–NGO relationships in India at the central and local levels from 1947 onwards. It draws its analytical framework from studies which incorporate organizational complexities and characteristics, political, social, and economic realities, associational cultures of individual countries, and human agency in analysing state–NGO relationships. It examines the applicability to India of some propositions on state–NGO relationships which are found in the literature. The author argues that there are observable differences in state–NGO relationships in various localities; these are illustrated through a set of case studies of local state–NGO interactions in the context of housing and land policies for the urban poor. Despite these differences, however, the author argues that the relationship at the local level can be generally characterized by the hostility of politicians, party workers, local élites, lower level bureaucrats, and lower level employees of the state toward NGO activity.     

Resettlement,Opium and Labour Dependence: Akha–Tai Relations in Northern Laos

Forestry is a major source of revenue for the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. The Government’s view is that shifting cultivation in the highlands is the primary cause of deforestation and erosion; this has led it to establish a policy of eliminating shifting cultivation by the resettlement of highland people in or near the lowlands. Here, it is assumed, the highlanders will be able to lead a more sedentary existence, cultivate wet rice, and benefit from various forms of development assistance. In the district of Muang Sing in northern Laos this policy has been partly responsible for the movement of large numbers of Akha people downhill to settle on the lower slopes of the highlands, at the periphery of the lowlands. This movement has been further encouraged by the low productivity of the Akha swidden economy. This article argues that Akha expectations of a more secure livelihood have not been fulfilled due to the ravages of disease, high rates of opium addiction, and the lack of government assistance. Instead, the Akha of the lower slopes have become an impoverished labour force, exploited for the benefit of the politically and economically dominant Tai lowlanders.     

Civil Society,Locality and Globalization in Rural Tanzania: A Forty–Year Perspective

In the last decade, much discussion of civil society in LDCs, especially those in Africa, has been based on two sets of normative assumptions, one deriving from the Tocquevillian tradition, the other concerning the nature and implications of globalization. This article criticizes both these approaches, on the basis of a restatement of the Hegel–Young Marx position on civil society. This is then used to compare and contrast the character of rural civil society in northern Tanzania in the 1950s and 1990s, allowing a critical consideration of the emergent properties of LDC civil societies, of the changing significance of the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ within them, and of the underlying sources of their transformation.     

Reconsidering Elitist Duality: Persistent Tension in the Turkish–Egyptian Relations

Since the Muslim Brotherhood's ouster in July 3, 2013, tension has escalated between Turkey and Egypt and gained media attention as an unprecedented incident in bilateral relations. However, disagreement has characterized bilateral relations since the declaration of the Egyptian Republic and the launch of diplomatic relations with Turkey in the 1950s. By tracking the history of both countries’ bilateral relations, this study contends that, according to the elitist duality thesis, Turkish – Egyptian relations were an exception to the Turkish – Arab relations, as they were not influenced by the ruling elite. It argues that regardless of the ruling elite identity, tension has disrupted the normal course of relations. By relying on extensive interviews conducted with members of the Justice and Development Party, and academicians and staff members in the Turkish ministries of economy and foreign affairs, the study analyzes the unaddressed tension in the Turkish – Egyptian relations since the 1950s until 2013 and provides policy recommendations to improve bilateral relations.     

Christian–Muslim Relations in Egypt in the Wake of the Arab Spring

The Arab Spring protests that brought massive and largely unforeseen political change to Egypt included all sectors of society, including the Egyptian Christian population, known as Copts. Copts participated in large numbers in the protests that brought about regime change in February 2011, but the broader implications of the revolution to Copts are unclear. In this essay, I address the changes in Christian–Muslim relations that attended the development of a new republican regime in Egypt as a result of the Arab Spring. While the former regime of President Hosni Mubarak had formed a stable elite partnership with the hierarchy of the Coptic Orthodox Church (a “neo‐millet” system), the 2011 revolution contributed to the erosion of this partnership in favor of a republican and pluralist model of citizenship in which individual Copts represent their own interests. The increasingly assertive public role of lay movements among Copts, coupled with the death of the Coptic Patriarch (pope) and his replacement by a younger successor, points to the continued erosion of the elite partnership in favor of the new model. Time will tell whether or not pluralist representation or a retrenched corporatism that favors the church will dominate Christian–Muslim relations in Egypt into the future.