Stories Archive | Page 63 of 84

Analyses

The history of the Islamic Republic of Iran—established in 1979 following the revolution that overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi—is marked by a dense sequence of developments that have progressively altered its political and institutional configuration. These changes, however, have only sporadically been recognized by Western analyses, which have instead tended to perpetuate a more functional and instrumental stereotype based on the image of a monolithic, highly verticalized religious autocracy. While such a characterization was broadly accurate during the first decade of the Islamic Republic, it has undergone a profound transformation since 1989.

Religion
Multicultural and Multireligious: the Albanian Model for Coexistence
Matteo Tacconi 16 November 2017

Preserved in the library of the Catholic seminary in Shkodër are a number of the very few books which have survived the blaze set alight by communists at the immediate aftermath of the war.
Human Rights, Migrations
Preventing the emergence of a lost generation
Education among Syrian refugees in Lebanon
Sonia Grieco 13 November 2017

Lebanon is hosting approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees, (almost 25 per cent of Lebanon’s population), of which one million are officially registered with the United Nation, and mostly live in informal camps (known as informal tented settlements) scattered around the country.
International Affairs
Russia: uncertain revolutions and future question marks
Giovanna De Maio 9 November 2017

While Moscow was getting ready for a fairly low-key hundredth anniversary celebration of the Bolshevik uprising, another revolution resonated in the anti-Putin activist circles.
Philosophy
Paper Leviathans. Exclusionary politics and democracy in Europe
Pasquale Ferrara 8 November 2017

Ethno-nationalism is at the centre of debates on the involution of the political sphere in Europe and in the western world. Some political analysts interpret this phenomenon as a re-edition of the nationalism of the XIX century and the first half of the XX.
International Affairs
Erdoğan is now banishing his own men
Cristoforo Spinella 6 November 2017

When Melih Gökcek was mayor of the Turkish capital of Ankara, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appeared on the national stage as Istanbul’s highest ranking official. It was 1994 and victory in the nation’s two most important cities achieved by representatives of political Islam, marked a turning point in the balance of power in a country still largely in the hands of secular elites and governed by the army.
Gender, Human Rights
Turkish Marriages between Religion and the State
Chiara Maritato 6 November 2017

On October 18, Turkish Parliament passed a law allowing muftis to perform civil marriages. “Want it or not, this will be passed by the Parliament!” announced Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in response to the opposition parties, women’s rights organisations, feminist associations and women’s right activists who have protested the bill since its draft version.
Human Rights
Osman Kavala: a significant anti-democratic arrest
Lea Nocera 6 November 2017

A little less than a year and a half after the attempted coup d’état, the political and social situation in Turkey continues to be extremely critical. The vice on the opposition and on civil society, which in spite of everything continues the struggle in defence of democratic rights, becomes tighter every day.
Human Rights
The Struggle for Cultural Power in Turkey
Nilgün Tutal 3 November 2017

After the failed coup attempt in Turkey in 2016, the AKP set about securing what Recep Tayyip Erdoğan referred to as ‘social and cultural power’. Nilgün Tutal studies processes of Islamisation in Ankara and Istanbul, showing how the political struggle in Turkey is about the imposition of a ‘legitimate’ cultural vision.
Religion
Counter-secularism and Religious Revival
Assaf Sharon 31 October 2017

It was not very long ago that religion was regarded as a relic, at least as far as politics are concerned. Now this picture itself seems an artifact of history. With the gods once again afoot in the public square, religion has returned to occupy political actors and theorists alike. Especially salient, of course, is the nationalist brand of religious revivalism, unmistakably associated with the indiscriminate political violence that has become a fixture of contemporary life.
Society
Russian Art Under Illiberal Regime
Sergei A. Medvedev 26 October 2017

This is the text of a lecture which will be delivered by prof. Sergei A. Mevdev (Higher School of Economics, Moscow) at the Conference Dimensions and Challenges of Russian Liberalism on Friday, Oct. 27.