The Sacred Men's Club examines the global struggle of religious conservatism against women's rights, and the ways in which a rise in the power of organised religions in western countries in the last two decades affects the lives of women. Institutionalised religion is, as feminist theorist Mary Daly points out, a sacred men's club'. The rise of religious ideals and movements in world politics can be understood as representing a movement focusing on men's rights and power. Contrary to this lies the marginalisation of women in religion and religious power structure. The book explores and provides: * a feminist critique of the politics of religion * a view that the contemporary rise of religion endangers the rights of women in two ways: on the world stage through the United Nations, and in western democracies through multifaithism and desecularisation. * concrete examples of the ways in which the rise of religion affects women's status by looking at polygamy and dress practices. Following on from The Industrial Vagina, Sheila Jeffrey's incisive and often controversial views provide a polemical and radical re-envisioning of some of the most important issues in the fields of religion, politics and gender studies.

This book draws on extensive fieldwork among Muslims in Nepal to examine the local and global factors that shape contemporary Muslim identity and the emerging Islamic revival movement based in the Kathmandu valley. Nepal's Muslims are active participants in the larger global movement of Sunni revival as well as in Nepal's own local politics of representation. The book traces how these two worlds are lived and brought together in the context of Nepal's transition to secularism, and explores Muslim struggles for self-definition and belonging against a backdrop of historical marginalization and an unprecedented episode of anti-Muslim violence in 2004.

Through the voices and experiences of Muslims themselves, the book examines Nepal 's most influential Islamic organizations for what they reveal about contemporary movements of revival among religious minorities on the margins--both geographic and social--of the so-called Islamic world. It reveals that Islamic revival is both a complex response to the challenges faced by modern minority communities in this historically Hindu kingdom and a movement to cultivate new modes of thought and piety among Nepal 's Muslims.

Islamization is commonly seen as the work of Islamist movements who have forced their ideology on ruling regimes and other hapless social actors. There is little doubt that ruling regimes and disparate social and political actors alike are pushed in the direction of Islamic politics by Islamist forces. However, Islamist activism and its revolutionary and utopian rhetoric only partly explain this trend. In fact, argues Vali Nasr, the state itself plays a key role in embedding Islam in the politics of Muslim countries. The turn to Islam, argues Nasr, is a facet of the state's drive to establish hegemony over society and expand its power and control. He focuses on the cases of Malaysia and Pakistan to demonstrate his thesis.

Notes on Contributors Introduction Life Struggles: War, Disciplinary Power and Biopolitics--J.Reid 'Power's ode to itself': History, Power and Poetry in the Post-Waterloo Writing of Hazlitt, Byron and Shelley: S.Bainbridge Sovereignty, Biopolitics, and the Use of Literature: Michel Foucault and Kathy Acker--A.Houen Michel Foucault: Biopolitics and Biology--J.Marks Biopower, Biological Racism and Eugenics--C.Hanson Michel Foucault: Defending Society and the Idea of Race--D.Macey War and Peace, or Governmentality as the Ruin of Democracy--L.Hartley Necropolitics--A.Mbembe A Geopolitical Blindspot in Foucault's Thought: Biopolitics, Torture and Indefinite Detention in the Colonial World--S.Morton 'Manual for a Raid' and 'Henslowe's Diary': Foucault and the Multiple Meanings of the Document--R.Fensome Foucault, Auden and two New York Septembers--S.Bygrave Notes Index

Most Americans could not fathom how Islamic terrorists could bring down the World Trade Center or an army psychiatrist could turn on his own soldiers, taking their lives in the name of his religion. How could an ex-army veteran blow up a federal building, or a Jewish doctor gun down Muslims at worship? Or how can one understand why a meditation guru would put sarin gas in a Tokyo subway? None of these incidents fit our conceptions of the benevolence of religion. More importantly, is there something inherent within religions that justifies the taking of human lives? In Few Call It War, Dr. Robert Hicks explores these questions and takes the blinders off illuminating the roots of religious violence, what religious terrorists have in common, and how they differ. He focuses on the current administration's struggle to call ISIS or ISIL what it really is: War. Hicks disagrees with the administration's slow recognition of this enemy. In reality, this war is not as unique as some might think. It is a modern explosion of ancient religious ideologies that masks its historic roots. As Hicks points out, all major religions have used violence and terrorist methodologies at some points in their histories. Few Call It War reveals how the teachings of religious founders and the sacred writings attributed to them provide rich soil from which contemporary religious clerics and ideologues gain converts. Hicks raises the crucial question often asked: "Is there any difference between a Timothy McVeigh and an Osama bin Laden?" For those making the moral equivalence arguments between various terrorists, Hicks dispels the equivalence with a clear understanding of history and religious ideologies. If one is interested in gaining an answer to the question, "Of all the religions in the world, which are most prone to using violence?" Few Call It War provides a well-reasoned answer that is well worth the read.

First published in 2000. This is Volume IV of 6 from the Ethics and Political Philosophy series. It includes a study in contemporary political theory looking at political pluralism or the pluralistic theory of the state, giving a definition of the monistic state and describes the essential features and objections to it.

As the topic of political Islam gains increased visibility in international politics and current affairs, it has become more difficult to navigate the vast literature that is devoted to explaining this phenomenon. This reader provides the student with an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the study of political Islam. Offering a clear route to the most influential literature in the field, the diverse range of viewpoints presented allows students to obtain a detailed, authoritative and critical perspective on the most pressing questions of the post-9/11 era.

With detailed introductory chapters and clear presentation of existing literature, thematically-arranged sections cover:

• modern understandings and explanations of Islamism
• the emergence and development of Islamist groups
• political responses to the phenomenon
• democracy and democratization
• multiculturalism
• political violence and terrorism
• globalization
• the future of political Islam.

This overview of political Islam will help students at all levels to appreciate its many manifestations and dimensions. A relevant text to introductory courses on history, international affairs, government and sociology, this reader is an essential tool for students of the Middle East, Muslim politics, religion in politics and Islamism.

Islam has had a significant impact on world history, not only as a major religion that has directed the personal beliefs and actions of individuals, but also as the basis of a distinct system of government that has developed its own institutions, practices and philosophies. This new Routledge Major Work collection is concerned with the development of political thought in Islam. By political thought is meant, broadly, the study and interpretation of Islamic political culture, ideas, beliefs, and institutions; the contribution of key political theorists and authorities to the understanding or practice of governance; what people and groups believed about political authority and institutions and their political convictions; and how politics in the Islamic world has related to and interacted with other disciplines, such as religion, law, ethics, and philosophy. Although contemporary issues in Islamic political thought are very much in the public focus at the moment, this set also focuses on the history and development of Islamic political theories and thought, from their inception until the twentieth century. Political thought in the Muslim world is connected to its history and by understanding the past, those who study contemporary political thought will have a better grounding to understand current and future developments. Moreover, understanding how Islamic political thought developed also helps shed light on the political thought of other civilizations, such as Western political thought. Political thought in Islam did not develop in isolation -- it responded to and interacted with the political institutions and theories of other civilizations throughout history.

Mawlana Mawdudi was one of the most influential and important Islamic thinkers of the modern world, whose brand of political Islam has won widespread acceptance in South and South East Asia as well as the Middle East. He was not only an Islamic scholar, but also a journalist and political activist who founded the Jama?at-i-Islami, which has subsequently influenced the development of many Islamic movements and parties throughout the Muslim world.

This book is the first to critically engage and assess his career and legacy within the wider context of political Islam. It includes coverage of his early life and influences, and examines his considerable influence in the contemporary Islamic world. The issues that were a concern for Mawdudi and continue to have resonance for our world today include such questions as the role of women in Islam, the possibilities for democracy in an Islamic state, the importance of jihad, and the moral and religious responsibility of the individual. Whilst focus is on Mawdudi's life and writings, this is placed within the wider context of topical, often contentious, Islamic thought. ?

Providing an up-to-date and detailed critical study of Mawlana Mawdudi and many issues surrounding political Islam both in his time and today, this book will be an important text for scholars of Islamic Studies, Political Science and Philosophy.

Cultural Politics in the 1790s examines the relationship between sentimental literature, political activism and the public sphere at the end of the eighteenth century. Drawing on critical theorists such as Habermas, Negt and Kluge, Marcuse and Foucault, it attempts to demonstrate how major literary and political figures of the 1790s can be read in terms of the broader dynamics of modernity. Reading a diverse range of political and literary material from the period, it examines how relationships between the aesthetic and the political, the private and the public, mark the emergence and consolidation of bourgeois behavioral norms and the simultaneous marginalization of potentially more radical forms of political and cultural production.

Since the end of apartheid, South Africa has become an extreme yet unexceptional embodiment of forces at play in many other regions of the world: intensifying inequality alongside "wageless life," proliferating forms of protest and populist politics that move in different directions, and official efforts at containment ranging from liberal interventions targeting specific populations to increasingly common police brutality.

"Rethinking the South African Crisis" revisits long-standing debates to shed new light on the transition from apartheid. Drawing on nearly twenty years of ethnographic research, Hart argues that local government has become "the" key site of contradictions. Local practices, conflicts, and struggles in the arenas of everyday life feed into and are shaped by simultaneous processes of de-nationalization and re-nationalization. Together they are key to understanding the erosion of African National Congress hegemony and the proliferation of populist politics.

This book provides an innovative analysis of the ongoing, unstable, and unresolved crisis in South Africa today. It also suggests how Antonio Gramsci's concept of passive revolution, adapted and translated for present circumstances with the help of philosopher and liberation activist Frantz Fanon, can do useful analytical and political work in South Africa and beyond.

The book presents an analysis of the concept of rights and provides an illuminating expression of socialist ideals. The author outlines an analysis of fundamental human rights compatible with historical relativism and applies this to the political right of freedom of expression and the economic right to work. Finally he deploys the proposed analysis of socialist rights to explain the ambivalence of socialist thinkers towards welfare rights in contemporary capitalist states and to analyze the logic of assertions that welfare law is often counter-productive.

'an extremely welcome and useful book...the best available text in the field.' - Gregory Claeys, Albion;'A comprehensive encyclopaedia of the ideology of the British Labour Movement...What emerges is by far the clearest account I have ever read of its strengths and weaknesses.' - Tony Benn, MP;This book provides a synoptic and accessible history of the development of political ideas within the Labour Party. It traces the complex relationship between power and political thought and illustrates how Labour's political ideas have been shaped and formed by the Labour Party's political experience. It presents 'labourism' or trade union politics as a clear theory and stresses its importance in understanding the different phases in the party's history, arguing that it constitutes the bedrock of the party's thought and that its crisis has caused the recent changes in party ideology.

This book explores two of the most crucial areas of the war on terror: 1) why some Muslims turn to violent jihad, and 2) that process in the world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia. The recent history of terrorism in Indonesia has brought this country into the world spotlight: the Bali night club bombing by Islamists in 2002 was one of the worst terrorist attacks in history. The recent violence following the executions of three of the Bali bombers, together with a number of thwarted bomb plots, demonstrate the continuing danger posed by radicalized violent Islamists in the country. Written by one of Southeast Asias leading counter-terrorism experts, Radical Pathways offers innovative new perspectives on the sources of violent Muslim radicalization and what should be done to counter it.

This edited volume offers a state-of-the-art synthesis of the historical role of radical journalism, its present iterations, and plans for the future of a journalism that is committed to liberatory movements and politics. At a time of profound crisis and stagnation for mainstream journalism, radical journalism seems to be riding a wave. New outlets, including those – like Jacobin – with a global reach, have sprung up, presenting a new generation of unapologetically progressive publications with an emancipatory agenda. Understanding the role and place of radical journalism becomes even more urgent given the current political climate in a (post) pandemic world with heightened inequalities and intensified pauperisation. Drawing on contributions from leading academics, this collection considers: • How new outlets fit in the genealogy of (radical) journalism and what their flourishing can tell us about the present and future of emancipatory politics and the role of the radical journalist; • What these new forms and publications mean for mainstream journalism and its persisting problems of financial sustainability and professional journalistic labour; • Important challenges presented by, for example, the resurgence of fascism, authoritarianism and the mainstreaming of the far right; • Essential questions of what radical journalism looks like today, what forms it takes or should take, and what its future might be. Radical Journalism is recommended reading for advanced students and journalists working at the intersection of journalism, politics, and sociology.

Wagar pulls together all aspects of futures studies in this unique volume--comprising a vital introduction to, and defense of, the impressive array of futurist inquiry. The book examines how futurists think and work. It compares and analyzes their ideas on a wide range of topics, including the environment, politics, economics, war and peace, and sociocultural issues. Wagar also shows how the three ideological paradigms within the futures field, the technoliberal, the radical, and the countercultural, play a role in the study of the future. The organizing theme of this unique work by W. Warren Wagar is the way in which images of alternative futures are shaped by ideological differences in the present. Wagar identifies three principal camps of futurist thought: technoliberals, radicals, and counterculturalists. By far the largest group are the technoliberals--supporters of parliamentary democracy, civil liberties, free enterprise, and technological progress. Radicals occupy the Marxist and democratic-socialist Left, while counterculturalists espouse decentralist, eco-pacifist, and New Age values. The Next Three Futures pulls together all aspects of futures studies--comprising a vital introduction and outline of the many worlds of futurist inquiry. The book consists of two parts: the first an examination of how futurists think and work; the second a comparative and critical analysis of their ideas on a wide variety of topics. After a short prologue, the first chapter defines the scope and limitations of futures research, and discusses its chief methodologies. The next chapter gives a valuable intellectual history of futurism from its earliest origins, with special emphasis on the work of H. G. Wells. The idea of the ideological paradigm in futures studies is described in the third chapter. The following four chapters, making up part two, investigate the thinking of contemporary futurists on the environment, economic and political developments, war and peace, and societal/cultural issues. Wagar's epilogue considers the possibility that the technoliberal, radical, and countercultural futures may all lie ahead for humankind, but at different stages and times in the years to come. This highly readable volume will be of great value to students of futurism, futurists, political scientists, sociologists, economic forecasters, environmentalists, and anyone else fascinated by the study of the future.

After her beloved dad got addicted to right-wing talk radio and Fox News, Jen Senko feared he would never be the same again... Frank Senko had always known how to have a good time. Despite growing up in a poverty-stricken family during the Depression and having to fight his way to middle-class status as an adult, he tended to look on the bright side. But after a job change forced Frank to begin a long car commute every day, his daughter Jen noticed changes in his personality and beliefs. Long hours on the road listening to talk radio commentators like Rush Limbaugh sucked her father into a suspicion-laden worldview dominated by conspiracy theories, fake news, and rants about the "coastal elite" and "libtards" trying to destroy America. Over the course of a few years, Jen's dad went from a nonpolitical, open-minded Democrat to a radical, angry, and intolerant right-wing devotee who became a stranger to those closest to him. As politics began to take precedence over everything else in her father's life, Jen was mystified. What happened to her dad? Was there anything she could do to help? And, most importantly, would he ever be his lovable self again? Jen began the search for answers, and found them... as well stories from countless other families like her own. Based on the award-winning documentary, The Brainwashing of My Dad uncovers the alarming right-wing strategy to wield the media as a weapon against our very democracy. Jen's story shows us how Fox News and other ultra-conservative media outlets are reshaping the way millions of Americans view the world, and encourages us to fight back.