This book provides a new theory for how democracy can materialize in the Middle East, and the broader Muslim world. It shows that one pathway to democratization lays not in resolving important, but often irreconcilable, debates about the role of religion in politics. Rather, it requires that Islamists and their secular opponents focus on the concerns of pragmatic survival-that is, compromise through pacting, rather than battling through difficult philosophical issues about faith. This is the only book-length treatment of this topic, and one that aims to redefine the boundaries of an urgent problem that continues to haunt struggles for democracy in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.

This volume focuses on indigenous knowledge in analyzing the traditions and communication processes within various communities of Northeast India. It deals with the historical and theoretical trajectory of communication for social change as a discipline, bringing together a series of interesting case studies from the sphere of meaningful learning where individuals and communities engage in a cooperative and dialogic environment to promote change at multiple levels. The case studies cover a range of media - radio, video, 'forum theatre' - and considers both practitioners and audiences. The authors' focus on narration, diversity, participation, and interaction is timely, and expands knowledge relating to these areas by linking them in new ways. It is of interest to an academic audience as well as practitioners researching and working in areas of education, communication, community development, and social work.

This book examines international education in Turkey after World War I. In this period, a movement for peace and international education among American educators emerged. This effort, however, had to be reconciled with the nationalist projects of new nation-states emerging from the war. In the case of the Near East that meant coming to terms with the radically nationalist modernization project of Kemal Atatuerk's Turkish Republic. Using the case of Robert College, an American educational institution in Istanbul, which aimed to foster a future local elite of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious student body, the book sheds light on the negotiation between two conceptions of modernity, as represented by American internationalist ideals and the tenets of Kemalism the Westernizing, yet deeply ethnocentric national ideology of post-1923 Turkey. Based on recently declassified archival sources, this study addresses the educational intentions and strategies for adjustment of college faculty. It also offers a rare insight into the mindset of young students attempting to make sense of what internationalism and religious, ethnic and national identity meant in the Ottoman past and in the new republican Turkey. Focusing on Robert College and the forgotten case of its dean and social studies instructor, Dr. Edgar Jacob Fisher, it addresses the little-researched field of internationalism and peace education in interwar Turkey.

This book discusses the issues of inequality and marginalization in India. The first section of the book contextualizes sociological traditions for the scrutiny of subaltern discourse on discrimination. The chapters in the section explore self-identity, 'margins' in sociological traditions, subalternity and exclusion, citizenship issues of de-notified tribes, the role of religion for scheduled tribe Dalits and Ambedkar's ideas on tribes. The second section deals with the political economy of higher education, health and employment. The efforts of BR Ambedkar and the consequences of those efforts, his critique of education policies during British time and its alteration for independent India have been meticulously dealt with. The third section illustrates an application of theoretical understanding through narratives of labour bondage in Varanasi, sanitation workers in Mumbai and rickshaw pullers in Delhi. The last section establishes that unequal access to resources is a consequence of discrimination and marginalization induced by social identities. The book argues for equitable access to resources and opportunities to ensure health equity. The audience for this publication includes academics, researchers, health professionals, policymakers engaged with discrimination, exclusion, marginalization and inequity in health.

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of regional integration in East Africa in the last century, reflecting the general trends of integration processes in the East Africa sub-region with a focus on the East African Community. Particular attention is paid to the cyclicality of integration dynamics, as well as the analysis of the interconnection and competition between different regional organizations in East Africa. In this context, the specificity of the so-called overlapping membership of African states in regional organizations with similar roles but conflicting treaties and mandates is explored. This situation to a certain extent affects the relations of states in the region with external actors specifically trade negotiations with EU that the book comprehensively analyses. This book therefore offers a deeper understanding of the processes of regional integration in East Africa that had been missed before, which reflects the general integration dynamics on the African continent.

This book discusses the interaction between and the impact of overlapping actions by regional organizations while dealing with critical events. It compares all the sub-regions in South America and Africa from this perspective and creates new knowledge through cross-regional gleanings. The book analyses types of institutional interaction among regional organizations and the effects of overlapping actions on the coexistence or fracturing of regional processes. It examines and compares the dynamics of these interactions in both South America and Africa. The book contributes to the study of comparative regionalism by providing generalization and institutional learning based on a cross-regional approach. It gives to students, researchers and interested readers an understanding of the complexity of regional affairs in multi-organizational environments.

This book takes a social psychological perspective to study the ways in which identity, religious beliefs and well-being are related to and affect each other in the contemporary world. It simultaneously draws upon intellectual resources from the extant interdisciplinary literature to build connections within the broader societal context. In view of the social diversity and changes in post-globalization India, issues of identity, religion and well-being emerge as dynamic and vibrant aspects of social reality in both individual and group contexts, across age groups and genders.

The current social-cultural-political scenario in the India, therefore, points to the need to investigate the outcome of personal and social well-being in relation to identity and religion. As contexts change, these issues take different shades and influence human conditions differentially. This book undertakes the investigation by going beyond the traditional tropes of behavioral science and discussing the dynamic interplay and confluence of socio-cultural-political variables in changing times. It draws from a large sample from the four major religious faiths in India-Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism-and enables readers to understand significant interactions among facets of identity (personal and social), religious beliefs and practices and well-being (personal and social) with age and gender in an important segment of the global population.

Nepal has a non-neutral history. As an imperial and expansionist power in the Himalayas from the days of its unification in 1769 AD to the Anglo-Nepal war of 1815, Nepal never remained neutral. Also, during the period of Colonialism in South Asia, and particularly after losing the war with the British in 1816, Nepal never exercised the policy of neutrality. Rather, Nepal was raiding Tibet; assisting British India in Sepoy Mutiny; and stood by Britain in the two world wars. Besides, Nepal militarily backed independent India in 1948 over Hyderabad question. But why Nepal suddenly had to take a refuge in neutrality after the political change of 1950? Was it because of Nepal's internal politics, or an attempt to cope with new arrangements in regional security? Nepal's fascination with neutrality was so swifter and inadvertent that Kathmandu, hitherto, has never initiated any policy debates over the all-weather choice. Power elites in Nepal still misperceive neutrality as non-alignment. The aim of the book, however, is not only limited to distinguishing neutrality with non-alignment in the Nepali context but weighs Nepal's claim to neutrality through the Indian and Chinese perceptions to underline the presence of ambiguity and uncertainty in Nepal's claim to neutrality. Illustrating Nepal's attempt to neutrality as a mere survival strategy, this study is less hopeful about Nepal's foreign policy institutions abandoning their Cold War worldview by embracing the strategy of sustenance in today's interdependent and globalized world. Because, as the book suggests, power elites in Kathmandu are customarily lured by the ephemeral yet sporadic geopolitical ambitions, either through discourses or deeds.

This book argues that "race" and "whiteness" are central to the construction of the modern world. Constructive Theology needs to take them seriously as primary theological problems. In doing so, Constructive Theology must fundamentally change its approach, and draw from the emerging field of Philosophy of Race. Christopher M. Baker develops a genealogy of race that understands "whiteness" as a kind secular soteriology, and develops a counternarrative theological method informed by resources from Philosophy of Race. He then deploys that method to read science fiction cinema and superhero stories as cultural, racial, and theological documents that can be critically engaged and redeployed as counternarratives to dominant racial narratives.

The book addresses why the Pakistani state is facing persistent challenges in extending and consolidating its governance (authority) throughout its territories, especially in the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (ex-FATA)? Even after the de jure merger, the question still remains valid that how Pakistani state could establish its governance in these tribal areas? Through multi-dimensional approaches and multi-pronged analysis of state-centric (top-down), society-centric (bottom-up) and state-in-society (mixed-horizontal) approaches, the book explains factors and dimensions that pose challenges to Pakistani state governance in ex-FATA. The main hypothesis is that societies, where state governance is absent, turn to informal governance and create informal institutions as a substitute for the weak central state governance thereby challenging the domination and control/authority of the state. The book presents policy recommendations for bringing these tribal areas into the mainstream governance system of Pakistan.

On August 4, 1983, Captain Thomas Sankara led a coalition of radical military officers, communist activists, labor leaders, and militant students to overtake the government of the Republic of Upper Volta. Almost immediately following the coup's success, the small West African country-renamed Burkina Faso, or Land of the Dignified People-gained international attention as it charted a new path toward social, economic, cultural, and political development based on its people's needs rather than external pressures and Cold War politics. James E. Genova's Making New People: Politics, Cinema, and Liberation in Burkina Faso, 1983-1987 recounts in detail the revolutionary government's rise and fall, demonstrating how it embodied the critical transition period in modern African history between the era of decolonization and the dawning of neoliberal capitalism. It also uncovers one of the revolution's most enduring and significant aspects: its promotion of film as a vehicle for raising the people's consciousness, inspiring their efforts at social transformation, and articulating a new self-generated image of Africa and Africans. Foregrounding film and drawing evocative connections between Sankara's political philosophy and Frantz Fanon, Making New People provides a deeply nuanced explanation for the revolution's lasting influence throughout Africa and the world.

This book explains changes to Iranian grand strategy over the past four decades, and it does so by advancing a multicausal model that unifies the three main paradigms of International Relations (IR) theory. Hence, ideas (constructivism) mediate between the structure of material capabilities (realism) and agents (liberalism) and interact with each to produce, respectively, threat perception and political preferences. Using these two explanatory factors, the author demonstrates how the Islamic Republic's grand strategy has systematically varied over time to produce a mix of outcomes that includes balancing, expansionism, bandwagoning, appeasement, engagement and retrenchment. Beyond its theoretical contribution, this book is policy-relevant in that it explains - and predicts - the external conduct of what is arguably the Middle East's most consequential actor, with implications reverberating far beyond the region. Academic in conception and rigor, the book is intended not only for specialists and practitioners but appeals to the lay reader interested in the broader Middle East/West Asia, the region's relationship with major powers, and regional conflict dynamics.

This book analyzes the transformation of ethnic and religious political parties in Turkey with special focus on their role in the country's democratization and regime changes. Turkey went through a process of autocratization under the rule of the AKP government over the last two decades. Scholars question the structural, agent-centered and cultural factors that led the country on this path, and provide the lessons learnt from this case for other cases of democratic decline or breakdown. This book contributes to this debate. It treats the three national elections (2002, 2007, 2015-June) as opportunities for democratization, in which the Islamist-successor AKP (in 2002, 2007) and the Kurdish-successor HDP (in 2015-June) managed to overcome identity politics and received the organized support from social groups outside of their traditional constituency. This book argues that in a semi-democratic context where repressive acts of the state (e.g. banning of parties, arresting politicians)have been subject to widespread public criticism, confronting the state becomes a salient issue. When these parties manage to frame this issue as one of democracy, they take ownership of it, and this then becomes an opportunity for democratizing the regime. This opportunity, yet, can be missed if the party follows an office-seeking strategy rather than a policy-seeking one.

This open access book provides insights into challenges, threats and opportunities of urban development in Africa. It discusses how and why African cities need localised urban planning concepts and theories to deal with challenges and threats of rapid urbanisation and climate change. The book delivers an in-depth view of the nature and gaps of the framework on which current planning practice and education in Africa are based. With that, it discusses the potentials of African cities to mobilise local knowledge, resources and capacity building for sustained and resilient urban growth.

This work is addressed to educationists and practitioners in the field of urban development management, climate change adaptation and urban resilience. Specifically, such audiences include researchers, spatial planners, graduate students and member of civil societies working on urban development management.

This book investigates indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) in sub-Saharan Africa, thereby highlighting its role in facilitating adaptation to climate variability and change, and also demystifying the challenges that prevent it from being integrated with scientific knowledge in climate governance schemes. Indigenous people and their priceless knowledge rarely feature when decision-makers prepare for future climate change. This book showcases how Indigenous knowledge facilitates adaptation to climate change, including how collaborations with scientific knowledge have cascaded into building people's resilience to climatic risks. This book also pays delicate attention to the factors fueling epistemic injustice towards Indigenous knowledge, which hampers it from featuring in climate governance schemes across sub-Saharan Africa.

This book investigates the relation between left-wing populism and feminist politics by analysing three specific aspects. First, whether left-wing populist parties promote gender equality policies, against charges of a general inconsistency between both political projects; Second, how do these parties form their policy-making coalitions in the field of gender equality; Third, how much impact on policy do women's movements have when left-wing populists are in power. The book is focused on the case of Bolivia during the first twelve years of Evo Morales's presidency. The empirical analysis is based on the qualitative content analysis of documents and semi-structured interviews with women's movements' activists, policy-makers and experts in women's movements. The central issue of the book is present throughout the volume, but each empirical chapter can be also read as a semi-autonomous analysis of a specific aspect of the relation between left-wing populism and feminist politics, whichincreases the interest of the book for different audiences including experts in gender and politics and feminist activists, specialists in Latin American politics, indigenous politics and social movements.