Search

Begin New Search Topic Religion Political Geography Europe Content Type Working Paper

21. Forging Catholic National Identities in the Transatlantic Spanish Monarchy, 1808-1814

Author:
Scott Eastman
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
Abstract:
By 1810, with the convening of the Cortes of Cádiz, the opening of the public sphere and war threatening to tear apart the monarchy, Spaniards began to forge a new national identity and an inclusive transatlantic nation. The common cultural idiom of religion and the language of national sovereignty provided a unifying symbolic repertoire for Spanish national identities during the transition from the Old Regime to liberal ascendancy. Yet American independence severed the ties of a transatlantic Spanish monarchy and an inclusive national identity as prescribed in the Constitution of 1812. The Virgin of Guadalupe, which had been appropriated by royalists as well as insurgents during the War of Independence in New Spain, soon emerged as the symbolic image of the Mexican nation. Religious imagery that had served to unite Spaniards on both sides of the Atlantic fragmented into regional identifications in the Americas, and Spain itself emerged as a sovereign nation that had broken with the Old Regime.
Topic:
Nationalism, Religion, and History
Political Geography:
America, Europe, Spain, and Mexico

22. The 1998 and 2007 Referenda on Abortion in Portugal: Roman Catholicism, Secularization and the Recovery of Traditional Communal Values

Author:
Paul Christopher Manuel and Maurya N. Tollefsen
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
In the thirty-three years since the April 25, 1974, Carnation Revolution, there have been sporadic efforts by progressive forces to legalize abortion in Portugal. This activity has intensified over the past nine years, culminating with two national referenda on the subject, one in 1998 which narrowly affirmed the ban on abortion, and the second in 2007 which allowed for the procedure during the first ten weeks of pregnancy. One reason that the abortion debate in Portugal attracted much interest in the world press was what it would potentially teach about the Roman Catholic Church's contemporary role in Portuguese society. That is, would the Church maintain its traditional influential role over public policy formation in a secularizing Portugal, especially related to its moral teaching? There is some controversy about the type of secularization which is taking place (i.e., Portuguese-style secularization may be of a different sort than that of Northern European countries), but there is little doubt that the Church's ability to define morality for its members has been reduced in recent years. The Church now competes with many secular voices to frame issues such as sexuality, marriage, divorce and abortion. The recent vote to legalize abortion—a move bitterly opposed by the Church—is but one of many examples symbolizing a drift in Portuguese society toward secularization. There was another dimension to the national debate over abortion as well: the pro-choice side successfully harmonized its rhetoric to certain traditional communal values found in Portuguese society—namely compassion, solidarity and support—and, in so doing, forged a recovery of those values.
Topic:
Civil Society and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe and Portugal

23. Islam and Identity in Germany

Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The experience of Germany, with the largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France, shows that a significant Muslim population at the heart of Europe need not produce either violent Islamist groups or destabilising social unrest. Politicians now acknowledge it is a country of immigration, with a large and permanent Turkish and Muslim component. Citizenship is at last on offer, if still under difficult conditions. Neither political nor jihadi currents of Islamism have had much appeal for those of Turkish origin, three quarters of the Muslim population, and the handful of terrorist suspects that have been found have been either German converts or dual nationals of Arab origin. But there are issues that must still be addressed more effectively if the genuine integration that will ensure social peace and stability is to be created. While the political system has been preoccupied with finding, or creating, a single Islamic interlocutor for itself, more important are practical issues, especially education and jobs, which matter to the many still disadvantaged among the more than two million of Turkish origin and the hundreds of thousands of others of Muslim background.
Topic:
Civil Society, Demographics, and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe, France, Germany, and Western Europe

24. Political Islam and Europe – Views from the Arab Mediterranean states and Turkey

Author:
Robert Springborg
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
The social, political and economic power of moderate Middle East and North African Islamist movements has been growing for a generation or so. The question of how to deal with Islamists who reject violence, embrace democracy and outperform their competitors at the polls has therefore become a central concern not only of incumbent Middle East elites, but also of interested foreign actors such as the EU and US. Robert Springborg sees the need for the EU to clarify its policies towards the MENA region and Muslim democrats within it. The present lack of EU policies on engaging with moderate Islamists leads them to be at best curious about the EU and at worse to be suspicious of it. Engagement might itself help to contribute to policy formation in this important area, and serve as a vehicle to disseminate information about relevant EU policies.
Topic:
Politics and Religion
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Arabia, Arab Countries, and North Africa

25. Political Islam in Turkey

Author:
Senem Aydin and Rusen Çakir
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
Turkey differs from the Arab states studied in the CEPS–FRIDE Political Islam project in not only in having a European Union membership prospect, but also in the fact that a broadly Islamist-oriented party has been in office since 2002. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) still enjoys the primary support of pro-Islamic constituencies in Turkish society and its orientation towards the EU has not changed since its assumption of power. An overwhelming majority in the party still sees the EU as the primary anchor of Turkish democracy and modernisation despite the inferred limitations of cooperation on issues relating to the reform of Turkish secularism. Yet the growing mistrust towards the EU as a result of perceived discrimination and EU double standards is beginning to cloud positive views within the party. Decreasing levels of support for EU membership in Turkish society and the fact that explicitly Euro-sceptic positions are now coming from both the left and the right of the political spectrum suggest that the sustainability of the pro-European discourse within the party could be difficult to maintain in the longer run.
Topic:
Development, Politics, and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Arabia

26. The Relation between Democracy and Religion: Towards a European Discursive "Model";?

Author:
Camil Ungureanu
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
In this paper we advance the argument that, under certain socio-political and cognitive conditions, the manifestation of religion in the opinion-oriented public spheres can have an inherent value for democratic life. However, it is only after processes of selective interpretation and transformation through inclusive discursive practices that religious semantic contents may legitimately influence decisional interpretations of constitutional principles and rights. This “model” draws on republicanism and deliberative democracy: given that these two conceptions do not start out from an abstract principle of liberty as non-interference but from a multidimensional conception of freedom embedded in various historical contexts of mutual recognition, they are more predisposed to provide conceptual resources for envisaging a discursive relation between democracy and religion.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, Politics, and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe

27. France and its Muslims: Riots, Jihadism and Depoliticisation

Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
La France a un problème avec ses musulmans, mais ce n'est pas celui qu'elle croit. L'embrasement des banlieues d'octobre-novembre 2005 ainsi que la vague d'arrestations dans les milieux jihadistes ont ramené l'Islam au centre des préoccupations françaises et ont donné du souffle à ceux qui brandissent la me nace d'un monde musulman s'organisant à partir de l'islamisme politique. Pourtant, c'est tout le contraire: paradoxalement, c'est l'essoufflement de l'islamisme politique plus que sa radicalisation qui explique les violences à prédominance musulmane et c'est la dépolitisation des jeunes musulmans bien plus que leur prétendue re-communautarisation sur des bases radicales qui de vrait inquiéter. Afin de minimiser les risques de l'émeute et du militantisme jihadiste, il faudrait à la fois s'attaquer aux problèmes socio-économiques dont souffren t les cités, réduire les violences qui s'exercent contre elles, et favoriser la participation politique de ceux qui y résident.
Topic:
Ethnic Conflict, Human Welfare, and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe and France

28. Currents and Crosscurrents of Radical Islamism

Author:
Julianne Smith, Aidan Kirby, and Daniel Benjamin
Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The second phase of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Transatlantic Dialogue on Terror took place against a backdrop of rapid change. When the first conference in this series took place in Berlin in the spring of 2005, scholars and practitioners were still absorbing the details of the previous year's attacks against the Madrid light rail system, the murder of Dutch artist Theo van Gogh and a host of other attacks and foiled plots. Global radicalism continued to be shaped by the deepening insurgency in Iraq, in which radical Islamists from inside and outside that country play a pivotal role. In the months following the Berlin meeting, the bombing of the London Underground, the attacks in Sharm el-Sheikh and Amman, and a stream of revelations about radical Islamist activity from Europe to the Middle East to South Asia and Australia — where a group of conspirators were arrested for plotting an attack against that country's sole nuclear facility — had also to be taken into account.
Topic:
International Relations, Ethnic Conflict, Islam, Religion, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Europe, South Asia, Middle East, London, and Australia

29. Latin American Religious Responses to Socio-cultural changes of Globalization

Author:
Alice Hamui Sutton
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
At the beginning of this third millennium, we are witnessing the end of an era marked by the hegemony of European Christianity and the globalization of a deterritorialized and decentered Christianity. Evangelical Pentecostalism and the Catholic Charismatic Renovation Movement are examples of this type of individual salvation spiritualism in Latin America. This article illustrates how these movements base their success on their ritual pragmatism with regard to personal crisis situations and the image of a near and accessible God. Moreover, the success of these movements is because of the adjustment to new conditions of the global market, the adaptation to the new processes of citizenship typical of modern democracies, and the satisfaction of spiritual and affective needs in a context of intense shifts trying to create new identities to reestablish the social framework of society.
Topic:
Civil Society, Government, and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe, South America, and Latin America

30. A Special Part of Europe: Nation, State and Religion among Orthodox Slavs

Author:
Biljana Vankovska and Håkan Wiberg
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
The paper studies how nation, state and religion – in particular: churches – are related among Orthodox South Slavs: Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians and Montenegrins. The close relations between (self-conceived) nations and churches go back to the Ottoman Empire, and seem to have been strengthened by the conflicts in Former Yugoslavia since 1990. The close relation between state and nation go back to how the Ottoman empire was dissolved and have also been strengthened by the same conflicts, even though all states proclaim themselves as non- discriminatory in this respect. The close relation between church and state also has long historical roots, but is more ambiguous today, with elements of competition as well as cooperation – and the latter is seen by many as having gone too far under communism. It is notable that where there are attempts to stabilise a separate identity – in Macedonia and Montenegro – establishing separate churches is a part of this on par with defining separate languages, rewriting history, etc. and the churches are seen as important national symbols even among quite secularised groups; and the same is true for the resistance against separation from the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Topic:
Development, Government, and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Montenegro