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In the 21st century, many people will live transnational lives, belonging to several societies and cultures at once, and they will use religion to do so. This chapter discusses how immigrants from Pakistan, India, Ireland, and Brazil living in the Boston area are reshaping the religious landscape and, by so doing, calling into question fundamental assumptions about nations, immigration, and religion.

Malaysia and Pakistan sought to address their problems through economic growth and the management of ethnic tensions. Malaysia pursued the New Economic Policy (NEP) to favor Malay bumiputras (sons of the soil), and Pakistan, under a military government, pursued aggressive economic growth. However, these strategies did not resolve ethnic tensions as in Malaysia it did not alleviate the economic problems facing Malays, and in Pakistan it favored Punjab at the cost of other provinces, especially East Pakistan. Both states continued to experience serious challenges to their authorities in the form of racial tensions in Malaysia and the Bangladesh movement in Pakistan.

Vali Nasr examines the political dynamics behind the crucial 1969–71 negotiations on the shape of Pakistan's territory. The author examines how power‐elite interests and their perception of the malleability of state borders influenced the pattern of state formation and policy‐making. The author argues that the tension that is inherent in the ideological posture of state leaders and their pragmatic political practices has provided both opportunities to manage challenges to borders, as in Sind, and to loss of territory, as in East Pakistan.

Demonstrates that the United Nations has been at the centre of key field operations and policy debates relating to humanitarian intervention since the end of the Cold War. However, the issue of humanitarian intervention also poses a challenge to the UN and its member states, and could even undermine the organization. At the heart of the UN’s difficulty is a delicate balance between the rights of individuals and the rights of states. For its first 45 years, the body was associated with the principle of non-intervention and the non-use of force, yet, since 1990, it has endorsed a series of interventions for humanitarian purposes. After considering the history and causes of this shift, the author discusses nine cases of intervention between 1990 and 2001. These cases reveal a number of issues and controversies, including reliance on the UN Security Council for authorization, the stance of the UN Secretary General, and the impact of the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States.

Includes all relevant information on national elections and referendums held in Pakistan since its independence in 1947. Part I gives a comprehensive overview of Pakistan's political history, outlines the evolution of electoral provisions, and presents the current electoral legislation in a standardized manner (suffrage, elected institutions, nomination of candidates, electoral system, organizational context of elections). Part II includes exhaustive electoral statistics in systematic tables (numbers of registered voters, votes cast, the votes for candidates and/or parties in parliamentary and presidential elections and referendums at both the national and regional level, the electoral participation of political parties, the distribution of parliamentary seats, etc.).

Most studies of Islamism have focused on the role of oppositional forces. Increasingly, states are also important Islamist actors. States pursue Islamization not only in reaction to Islamist challenges but also because in Islamism they see the opportunity to address the inherent weaknesses of the postcolonial state structure, and to significantly increase the power and capacity of the state. This trend is most evident in Pakistan and Malaysia where both the weakness of the postcolonial state and the opportunity inherent in Islamization have been greatest. These cases deviate from other models of state formation in the Muslim world, and provide new insights not only into state formation in the Muslim world but also into the study of the role of religion in state expansion in comparative politics.

Malaysia and Pakistan were created from the rump of British colonialism in India and Southeast Asia. Both states lacked national identity or a unified polity that preceded independence. Both confronted social divisions that were the legacy of the colonial era. In fact, in both countries the struggle for independence was not directed against the British, but was a competition of racial, religious, and ethnic rivals. As weak states, they were unable to proceed with effective state formation. Economic Disparities in Malaysia led to racial and ethnic tensions. Weak state institutions and constitutional crises led to ethnic tensions in Pakistan.

The 1970s was a period of Islamic resurgence in Malaysia and Pakistan. In Malaysia, ABIM and dakwah movements, and in Pakistan, the Jama`at‐i Islami spearheaded Islamist challenge to the secular state. These movements grew in popularity, and became the voice of the disgruntled political elements. They also floated new and powerful political concepts and ideas that quickly gained in popularity and framed public debates and influenced political culture.

The Zia ul‐Haq regime adopted state‐led Islamization to shore up waning state power. It adopted aspects of Islamist ideology to reshape the country's judicial and political structures. This strategy expanded state power after years of domestic strife and at a time when Pakistan was involved in the Afghan War. The policy was also used to legitimate military rule, providing a justification for its continuation as demands for democratization grew. The Islamization strategy firmly entrenched the postcolonial state in Islamic ideology and allowed the military to ally itself with Islamist forces to achieve its goals.

Why did only Malaysia and Pakistan adopt state‐led Islamization as a strategy for expansion of state power? How did this strategy serve their interests? What was the impact of this strategy on these countries and their societies? In the end, Islamization did serve state interests, but at the cost of laws and procedures that were neither viable in the long run nor were they socially beneficial. Furthermore, Islamization strategy ultimately proved untenable as interests of the state and those of Islamist actors began to diverge, especially with the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis, and implementation of IMF reforms.

In India, an impressive labour movement based on political unionism developed and exercised some influence over economic policy. In Pakistan, an assertive and often militant workers’ movement emerged, was severely repressed, and exercised little influence over economic policy. The paper assesses the ability of trade unions in each country to oppose recent economic reforms, specifically the privatization efforts of each government. The capacity to oppose industrial restructuring is traced to the differing structure of labour institutions, specifically trade union relationships with political parties and workers’ representation in trade unions. In conclusion, the paper draws from a debate within the Indian trade union movement concerning the limitations of political unionism and the need for new union strategies. It suggests that a new unionism, with wider networks among other social organizations and deeper roots in local communities, must also include a new political dimension.

Examines the justifications, motives, and outcomes surrounding India's use of force against Pakistan in December 1971. It shows how international society as reflected in the positions taken by the Security Council and the General Assembly interpreted India's action as a breach of the legal rules prohibiting the use of force rather than as a rescue of the Bengali people.

Looks at the different levels of change in the countries of South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) since the end of the cold war, and attempts to determine how, and to what extent, the end of the cold war has been a long‐term determinant in defining the region's foreign and domestic policies. The different sections of the chapter address: the security dimension (including consideration of the effect of Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan); democratization; and economic liberalization and regional cooperation.

Recognizing that the construction and institutionalization of religious liberty rights is at once a political and a legal project, this chapter proceeds in two main sections. The first focuses on the political and socio-cultural processes in Muslim states that have interacted over time to institutionalize Islamic law and identity at national and transnational levels. This history is essential, not least because the modern constitutions of many relevant states were adopted during the 1970s and 1980s amidst struggles marked by Arab nationalism, Islamism, and Islamic identity formation. Hence, in the second section, the constitutional consequences of these historical-political processes are explored via specific examination of religious liberty in the laws and practices of four influential countries—Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan.

Hajj growth closely tracks the power struggles and ideological shifts that shaped and demolished Pakistan’s political regimes. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his Pakistan People’s Party helped to invent modern hajj management, spreading its benefits across all regions and ethnic groups in order to gain support from voters who were skeptical of his Islamic credentials. Zia-ul-Haq supported a smaller hajj that favored Punjabi and Pashtun groups who prospered the most from his dictatorship. Benazir Bhutto used state-sponsored pilgrimage to build a nationwide coalition of voters from many regions and sects, including women from families that usually supported the Pakistan Muslim League of her main rival, Nawaz Sharif. Nonetheless, control over the hajj does not give politicians control over the hajjis because many Pakistanis believe that in an Islamic state every government has a duty to support pilgrimage no matter what its ideology or economic policy.

This chapter describes Islamist terrorists’ developed ideology and how to them this explains and justifies their brutalities. It then contrasts their stated motives and rationales with press coverage of their attacks in Yemen, Bali, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, seeking to show that both the terrorists’ goals and the identity of their victims are repeatedly misstated. Whereas Al Qaeda consistently describes its intended targets in religious loaded terms—as Christians, Jews, Crusaders, followers of the cross, Hindus, Buddhists, apostates, idolaters, infidels, and polytheists—and will frequently spare people, even Americans, if they are Muslims, many journalists consistently describe Al Qaeda strikes as attacks on “westerners,” “non-Arabs,” or “Americans” and their allies. Consequently, the connection between Australian and United Nations actions in East Timor and the bombings in Bali and of the UN compound in Baghdad were missed almost entirely.

This chapter scrutinizes some of the elements of the “minoritization” of Muslims in India and China. Indian Muslims have a history that gives them a centrality in processes of state formation in India, as exemplified by the Mughal Empire, but also by the postcolonial formation of Pakistan and Bangladesh, which cannot be found in the history of Chinese Muslims. In the comparison between India and China, the chapter highlights that despite the differences in numerical strength it is the transformation of Muslims from a variety of different groups into a “minority” that in both cases require scrutiny in relation to the construction of a national majority.

This chapter discusses the life of Abdus Salam. He was born in British India and was a subject of George V, who was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and Emperor of India. In 1947, what had been British India was torn into two new nations — India, with a majority Hindu population, but with no official state religion, and a new Muslim country, Pakistan. Salam became a citizen of Pakistan while he was an undergraduate at Cambridge University. Among his achievements are setting up his International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, under the banner of the United Nations. He received the Nobel Prize in 1979, which he shared with American scientists Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg.