Islam: Issues of Political Authority and Pluralism

Abstract

Islam and the Muslim world are very much part of the current discussions on religion and global politics. This article looks at some of the more general debates about the gradual rise of Islam in the public and political consciousness. It is not a systematic analysis of Islamic political systems or political thought nor a discussion about key thinkers of the last century. It does, however, provide a glimpse into diverse views about leadership and governance in early and more recent Islamic history. The article concentrates more on Sunni Islam though the author is well aware that this is not the normative tradition in some parts of the Muslim world. Within the context of this diversity, it looks at issues of religious diversity and how they fit into current debates about inter-religious dialogue and pluralism.     

Personal,Political, Pedagogic: Challenging the Binary Bind in Archaeological Teaching,Learning and Fieldwork

In this paper, we consider how we can undercut the various binaries of gender and sexuality in archaeological practice and particularly in our teaching. We argue that taking an assemblage theory approach enables us to look at the multiplicity of identities of those practicing archaeology as different and intersecting assemblages that bring one another into being through their connections at different scales. In particular, we examine how this approach can be applied to archaeological pedagogy and how this in turn enables us to move away from modern binary distinctions about sex and gender identities from the ‘bottom up’, fostering an approach in our students that will then go on to be developed in professional practice.     

Explaining State Budget Punctuations: Policy Transparency,Political Institutions,and Electoral Incentives

What factors cause policies experiencing long periods of stability to be interrupted occationally by a short period of large changes? This study argues that electoral incentives might influence the search, supply, and processing of information on constituency issues, as well as the associated cognitive or institutional frictions, and thus determine the presence and variation of punctuated policies. This article develops and evaluates this claim within a systemic framework consisting of policy transparency, political institutions, and electoral incentives. For the purpose of identifying policy punctuations, this research uses the Generalized Pareto Distribution in the Extreme Value Theory. This study analyzes budget spending data collected from FY 1988 to FY 2008 for all 50 American states. This study finds that greater policy transparency is associated with larger spending stability. By contrast, greater gubernatorial competition is more likely to produce extreme spending changes. Electoral incentives shaped by public preference and political term limits have a profound impact on nonincremental policy changes. The impact of policy transparency is conditional on public preference, while that of electoral competition and legislative professionalism is moderated by political term limits. Particularly, a transparent policy consistent with public preference and legislative professionalism with term limits are more likely to give rise to punctuated policies, while gubernatorial (legislative) competition leads to less punctuated changes when governors (legislators) are subject to term limits.     

Voting Technology,Political Institutions,Legal Institutions and Civil Society: A Study of the Hypothesis of Cultural Lag in Reverse

The 2000 Presidential election was plagued by butterfly ballots and ‘pregnant chads’. Electronic voting systems, lacking verifiable paper trails that are subject to possible fraud, promise to wreak havoc with the 2004 Presidential election. There is a great diversity of systems of voting technology in the 50 states: from paper ballots, lever‐operated machines and punch cards to optical scanners and electronic systems. Associated with each technology is an estimated error rate. The underlying theory of this paper was set forth by William F. Ogburn in his famous book entitled Social Change, published in 1922. Dividing culture into material and non‐material elements, Ogburn argued that non‐material elements lag behind material elements. His explanation for this lag is that technology, which underlies material culture, changes at a faster rate than elements of non‐material culture. Obgurn did not contemplate the possibility of a reverse lag, viz., technology lagging behind non‐material culture. In analyzing the anomalous relationships between voting technology, political institutions and legal institutions, a striking instance of a ‘reverse cultural lag’ is discerned. To eliminate the phenomenon of the reverse cultural lag, there is a need for a federally‐funded program of a uniform, state‐of‐the‐art voting technology, plus an amended Help America Vote Act, to implement the innovations in the 3,114 counties. The complex problems reviewed in this paper point to a vexing question: how do we educate an electorate in a democratic society—such as the United States in the twenty‐first century—to be responsible for ensuring that periodically‐elected representatives implement the will of the people?     

Islam and Politics: Egypt,Algeria, and Tunisia

This paper is dedicated to the memory of my dear daughter, Amal, who died on May 8, 1994, of cancer and pneumonia at the age of 29, leaving behind two little children.     

Making Original Men: Elijah Muhammad,The Nation of Islam,and The Fruit of Islam

Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam converted thousands of African American men to Islam during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. Muhammad's men neither protested for Civil Rights nor subscribed to the militancy of the Black Power Movement. Indeed, they construed both to be fundamentally flawed routes to justice, freedom, and equality. Nation men, or Fruit of Islam (FOI) as they are more commonly known, believed that through Islam, racial separation, and community building initiatives they could ultimately reclaim their freedom, self-respect, and manhood. The NOI provided men with a newfound sense of self and purpose and in doing so imbued them with a deep-rooted appreciation for Islam, as taught by Elijah Muhammad. Rank-and-file male members of the faith community remain largely overlooked in the extant scholarship on the NOI. This article seeks to recover the stories of rank-and-file FOI. It assesses the organisation's appeal to men, the varied means by which it challenged them and the burdens the community placed on FOI.