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CIAO DATE: 04/07
Spring and Summer 2007 (Volume 6, Number 1&2)
Convergence and Glocalization – Not Counter-Penetration and Domestication: A Response to Prof. Ali Mazrui (PDF, 14 Pages, 84 KB)
Jacob Aliet
In this essay, we critically examine the strategies proposed by Prof. Ali Mazrui, which are aimed at providing Africans with intellectual and cultural independence through decolonization of the African universities. We unpackage these strategies in an African environment and assess their validity and practicality. Several difficulties emerge when the strategies are tested in an African country and Kenya is used as an example in this paper. Where the strategies are found wanting alternative suggestions that factor in global trends, like convergence and collaboration, are presented.
Quantitative World System Studies Contradict Current Islamophobia: World Political Cycles, Global Terrorism, and World Development (PDF, 67 Pages, 700 KB)
Arno Tausch
In this article, we draw some optimistic, socio-liberal conclusions about Islam in the world system. Countering some alarmist voices in the West, neither migration nor Muslim culture are to be blamed for the contemporary crisis, but the very nature of unequal capitalist accumulation and dependency that is at the core of the world capitalist system.
For one, our analysis is based on current thinking on Kondratiev waves of world political development inherent in recent work by IIASA and the NATO Institute for Advanced Studies. First we present a rigorous re-analysis of United States Department of State data on acts of global terrorism in the framework of Kondratiev cycle waves.
The data presented show that before the present war in Iraq the global war on terrorism already showed very positive effects, and that the strong linear downward trend in global terrorism, to be observed during the last two decades, coincided with rising globalization in both the centers and the peripheries of the world system, and that the percentage of people with less than 2 $ a day even declined in the Middle East and North Africa. We also found no systematic interaction between the differentials of growth in the center and the periphery or inequality differentials in the center and the periphery and patterns of global terrorism. I. e. a western socio-liberal, multi-lateral and non-interventionist policy could have won the fight against international terrorism. We then refute empirically the Huntington hypothesis about the incompatibility of Islam and successful socio-economic development.
Winning the war against global terrorism would imply arriving at more inclusive and less unilateralist structures of global governance. While our analysis on world development 1990 – 2003 shows the detrimental effects of dependency and globalization on the social and ecological balances of the world, data on membership in the Organization of the Islamic Conference or Muslims per cent of total population were compared in their effects on a number of dependent variables of socio-economic development in 140 countries of the world with complete data:
- economic growth, 1990-2003
- eco-social market economy (GDP output per kg energy use)
- female economic activity rate as % of male economic activity rate
- freedom from % people not expected to survive age 60
- freedom from a high quintile ratio (share of income/consumption richest 20% to poorest 20%)
- freedom from civil liberty violations, 1998
- freedom from high CO2 emissions per capita
- freedom from political rights violations,1998
- human development Index
- life expectancy, 1995-2000
Ceteris paribus, Muslim culture (measured by the percentage of Muslims in the respective population of a given country) significantly and positively affects the human rights record, human development, and the ecological balances.
Foreign Aid, Democracy and Political Stability in Post Conflict Societies (PDF, 10 pages, 152 KB)
Marijke Breuning and John Ishiyama
What is the relationship between development aid and political stability in post conflict societies? Although there has been a considerable amount of literature that empirically investigates the relationship between development aid and corruption (Tavares. 2003; Alessina and Weder, 2002; Knack, 2000; Rimmer, 2000; Svensson 1998; Ijaz, 1996), the quality of governance (Knack 2001) ethnic conflict (Esman and Herring, 2003; Herring, 2001) and post conflict economic growth (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004; 2002; Hamburg, 2002; Casella and Eichengreen, 1994) no study of which we are aware has examined the direct effects of both the quantity and timing of development aid on promoting political stability in post conflict societies.
In this study we examine twenty-six post conflict countries across whose civil wars ended after 1980: Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Burundi, Chad, Croatia, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Rwanda, Serbia and Montenegro, Somalia, Tajikistan and Uganda. The dependent variable is measured using Kauffman et al’s (2003) measure of political stability for 1996-2002. The principal independent variables are the amount of aid provided in the periods following the conflict settlement, the timing of aid as well as domestic political factors (such as the extent to which democracy has taken root) and ethnolinguistic homogeneity/heterogeneity.
Democracy Culture And Practice In Iraq: A Comparative Analyze of Saddam and Post-Saddam Era (PDF, 22 Pages, 296 KB)
Ferhat Pirincci
Democracy practices may change from one state to another, as well as within a state from one era to another. When the recent developments considered, Iraq may be the most striking example of this variability. In this context, with the intervention made in 2003 and the closure of the Saddam era, Iraq has a new constitution and Iraqi people have new “rights and liberties”. Post-Saddam era brought hope for some groups in Iraq while rage for others: Hope especially for Shiites and Kurds who could not find fair representation for years and suffered from oppressive policies of Saddam; but, rage mostly for Sunni Arab tribes who had close ties with Saddam regime and for ex-Baathists and military elites who lost their posts and social status with the collapse of the regime. Also it is certain that the new era still contains ambiguities and state of chaos and disorder prevail.
Democratic Deficit in EU: Is there an institutional solution to over-institutionalization? (PDF, 25 Pages, 288 KB)
Hüsamettin Inanc and Hayrettin Ozler
The question whether the European citizens are fully represented democratically in the institutional structure of the EU is a frequently asked one especially in the last decade in which a restructuring is underway towards a cultural union. The accusation of lacking democratic legitimacy leveled at the governance of Europe is not surprising as long as we conceive democratic legitimacy as a generalized degree of trust in the political system or in the institutionalized procedures which are designed to check and balance the powers and interests of those who govern and to ensure that collectively binding decisions are the result of mass participation of the people. This paper focuses on these accusations of democratic deficit in Europe. Yet the problem of democratic deficit is the byproduct of some peculiar aspect of the EU such as being a multi-cultural and multi-linguistic entity. Scholars therefore attempt to develop new concepts like transnational, global and regional democracy in search of constructive implemental suggestions. This paper is an attempt to contribute to the search for an appropriate model of governance particularly suitable to the EU and to examine the allegations of democratic deficiency leveled at the EU. The conclusion of this paper is that a cognitive and ideological emancipation from the restrictions set by nation-state paradigm is vital to foresee a pluralist multicultural European community. Only within a pluralist policy network can European demos be visible and can a European wide democracy be realized. Otherwise overcoming the democratic deficit in the EU and realization of a well-functioning system of governance takes much longer than the EU can sustain.
Religion as a Site of Boundary Construction: Islam and the Integration of Turkish Americans in the United States (PDF, 17 Pages, 131 KB)
İlhan Kaya
The United States’ religious and ethnic landscape has dramatically changed since alterations to its immigration laws went into effect in 1965. Among the reasons for this change are the increasing number of Muslim immigrants and conversions to Islam in the U. S. (Eck 2001). Although no reliable figures exist regarding the size of the Muslim population in the U. S., it has been estimated that the number ranges between 7 and 8 million (Kaya, 2005). The United States has a larger Muslim population than the predominantly Muslim countries of Kuwait, Qatar, and Libya combined (Haddad and Esposito 1998). However, the U. S. has a more diverse Muslim population than any Muslim country, as Muslims of all nationalities and ethnic groups have been immigrating to the United States for decades. While this is the case, Muslim Americans are often represented as a monolithic group. Their cultural, national, social, and political differences are overlooked and their successes are frequently unrecognized. Muslim immigrants are one of the most highly educated immigrant groups in the United States, with a figure of forty-nine percent reportedly having at least a bachelor’s degree (Camarota 2002). Fifty-five percent of Middle Eastern immigrants hold American citizenship (Camarota 2002). This information indicates that Islam is no longer a distant or ‘foreign’ tradition in America; it is part of American social, cultural, and political life regardless of any efforts to represent it otherwise (Takim 2004). Muslim landscapes can be seen in many of American cities as over 3000 mosques exist throughout the US. Two thirds of these mosques were founded after 1980, which indicates that the vast majority of Muslim Americans are recent immigrants (Wuthnow and Hackett 2003).
Secular State, Citizenship and the Matrix of Globalized Religious Identity (PDF, 20 Pages, 135 KB)
Tahmina Rashid
There seems to be a general consensus that Islamic/Muslim values are incompatible with secular/western values. Before delving into further details, this paper would revisit the developments and characteristics associated with secularism and secular state. The concept of secular state emanated from the idea of secularism and secularisation of society and state, following the revolutionary developments particularly in Europe and North American. The multiplicity attached to these concepts has given them different meanings and understandings; having negative and positive connotations; exposing the diversity and complexity of these ideas. However, in general, ‘secular’ is understood as the belief that religious influence should be restricted; and that education, morality, and the state (etc.) should be particularly independent of religious influence.
The EU's Middle East Policy and Its Implications to the Region
Kenan Dagci
Book Reviews (PDF, 14 Pages, 163 KB)
Reviews by Kezban Acar, Percyslage Chigora, and Metin Boşnak,
Books Reviewed:
- The Goat and the Butcher. Nationalism and State Formation in Kurdistan Iraq since the Iraqi War by Robert Olson (Mazda Publishers: Costa Mesa, California, 2005)
- Micheal Barnett and Raymond Duvall (eds) Power in Global Governance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, pp, 367. ISBN 0-521-54952-3.
- The New American Imperialism: Bush’s War on Terror and Blood for Oil. Vassilis K. Fouskas and Bülent Gökay (Westport, Connecticut and London: Praeger Security International, 2005. Pp. xi, 247.