You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Societal divisions and even violence can occur when electoral candidates appeal to race, religion, or tribe. Why do candidates make these ethnic appeals? More specifically, why do some candidates appeal to their own ethnic group while others reach out to other ethnic groups or abandon ethnic appeals altogether? To answer this question, Colm A. Fox adopted a ground-breaking, novel approach to study campaign appeals made by thousands of candidates. He collected and systematically analyzed photographs of over 25,000 election posters from campaigns across Indonesia, along with newspaper reports and interview data. The book shows how electoral rules, political party ideology, ethnic demographics, and social norms shape candidates' decisions to bond with co-ethnics, bridge across other ethnic groups, or bypass ethnicity entirely. Its findings yield not only insights as to which ethnic identities are likely to become politicized, but also prescriptions on how to curb divisive ethnic politics.
“As the euphoria fades from the Jokowi presidency, this timely book reviews the processes that brought him to the top, and the processes that have undermined his initial standing. The nineteen articles by ten writers provide views from along the way, starting with a chapter on the Jakarta governor elections from November 2012 and preceding through the key events up to a contemporary assessment in February 2015. Several major clues to the current disillusion are provided in accounts of the legislative elections and the presidential campaigns. Key topics are vote buying, the Islamic factor, economic platforms, pluralism, economic challenges. Max Lane points to deep alienation from politics a...
Since the Bali terrorist attacks in 2002, law enforcement agencies have rigorously combatted terrorist networks in Southeast Asia, yet groups motivated by violent extremist interpretations of Islam remain resilient and dangerous. This book shines a light on specific beliefs, behaviors, and policies that impact these challenges, ultimately offering cutting-edge, effective tools for response. The book begins by challenging misguided and controversial notions that depict Islam as an inherently violent religion, arguing that the theological-ideological amalgam of what has been called Salafabism is the more useful lens for recognizing closed-minded extremist currents. The book carefully distingui...
In The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue, Michael D. Driessen examines the growth of state-sponsored interreligious dialogue initiatives in the Middle East and their use as a policy instrument for engaging with religious communities and ideas. Using a novel theoretical framework and drawing on five years of ethnographic fieldwork, Driessen explores both the history of interreligious dialogue and the evolution of theological approaches to religious pluralism in the traditions of Catholicism and Sunni Islam. Compelling and nuanced, this book illustrates how religion operates in contemporary global politics, offering important lessons about the development of alternative models of democracy, citizenship, and modernity.
In Between Heaven and Hell, eminent and up-and-coming scholars representing a diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints address the question of non-Muslim salvation: according to the Islamic ethos (however understood), what can be said about the status and fate of non-Muslims? Each of the volume's contributors responds to this often asked "salvation question"-a question with profound theological and practical implications-from different angles: while some limit themselves to its historical dimensions, others approach it as theologians and philosophers, while yet others focus on the relationship between this-worldly relations with Others and next-worldly conceptions of salvation. Collectively a...
This book explores the phenomenon of political Islam in the Gulf region. Existing scholarship on this topic is mostly dedicated to the varied religious groups' position on violence and democracy. This book expands on the topic and investigates the complexities of the relationship of individuals to religion, the state, and societies, and the organization of their lives and spiritual affairs in the Middle East with particular emphasis on the unique environment of the Gulf. Given the importance of the political Islamic context to the politics, regional interventions, economics, and society of the Gulf states, this book will be an essential tool in giving, policy makers, practitioners, and the larger public a detailed view of a complicated but essential topic.
Islam has become an important symbol in post-Suharto Indonesia, and political figures or parties feel they cannot afford to be seen to be against the religion or be considered unfriendly to it. Islamism emerges to challenge Pancasila (or cultural pluralism) again. Islamists already challenged Pancasila soon after Indonesian independence. But during that initial era under Sukarno, this challenge was already under control. Under Suharto, Pancasila as an ideology was effectively used to govern Indonesia, and political Islam was suppressed. However, Suharto began to co-opt Islamic political leaders during the last decade of his rule. Religious Islam grew significantly during the Suharto era and ...
This book is a succinct and critical account on the shariatisation of Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. It is the first book in English to uncover and explain the shariatisation of Indonesia in a comprehensive way. With the abundant primary and secondary sources, this book is a reference for other scholars who conduct research on the inclusion of sharia into legal and public sphere of Indonesia. It comes with an important conclusion that the change of such a non-theocratic state like Indonesia into a theocratic state is highly possible when its law is penetrated by those who want to change the state system.
Islam and Citizenship in Indonesia examines the conditions facilitating democracy, women’s rights, and inclusive citizenship in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority country and the third largest democracy in the world. The book shows that Muslim understandings of Islamic traditions and ethics have coevolved with the understanding and practice of democracy and citizen belonging. Following thirty-two years of authoritarian rule, in 1998 this sprawling Southeast Asian country returned to electoral democracy. The achievement brought with it, however, an upsurge in both the numbers and assertiveness of Islamist militias, as well as a sharp increase in violence against religious minoriti...