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Secularism’s Magic

Peter van der Veer

in The Modern Spirit of Asia: The Spiritual and the Secular in China and India

This chapter addresses the question of “popular religion” and the relation between religion and magic in India and China. The categories of popular belief, superstition, and magic have been used by ... More

This chapter addresses the question of “popular religion” and the relation between religion and magic in India and China. The categories of popular belief, superstition, and magic have been used by modernizers in India and China to intervene in people's daily practices and remove obstacles to the total transformation of their communities. These attempts have developed in different ways in India and China, but in neither case have they been entirely successful. After a historical discussion of heterodoxy, messianic movements, and political protest, the chapter delineates the transformation of popular religion in India and China under the influence of liberalization of the economy and globalization.Less

The Nature of the Headscarf Controversy in Turkey: Popular Discourse

Hilal Elver

in The Headscarf Controversy: Secularism and Freedom of Religion

The Turkish headscarf debate since the 1980s and current political problems in the Turkish internal setting is the focus of this chapter. The power struggle between seculars and religious political ... More

The Turkish headscarf debate since the 1980s and current political problems in the Turkish internal setting is the focus of this chapter. The power struggle between seculars and religious political parties; the role of the military and judiciary; the relevance of legal, political, and economic reforms; the emerging new Turkish political and economic elite during the two terms of the governing party Justice and Development starting from 2002 are the major issues in this chapter. At the end, the chapter deals with the victimization of the religious women during the last three decades in Turkey by exclusion of females who wear headscarf from education and public spaces.Less

The Future of Ethnic Violence

Matthew Lange

in Killing Others: A Natural History of Ethnic Violence

This chapter summarizes the book's major findings regarding ethnic violence before considering the future of ethnic violence and potential policy prescriptions that might help to limit the prevalence ... More

This chapter summarizes the book's major findings regarding ethnic violence before considering the future of ethnic violence and potential policy prescriptions that might help to limit the prevalence of ethnic violence. The book has presented strong and consistent evidence that modernity promoted ethnic violence by strengthening and proliferating ethnic consciousness. It has also identified two motives that commonly trigger ethnic violence: emotional prejudice and ethnic obligations. Furthermore, modernity enhanced diverse resources that facilitated the mobilization of ethnic violence. The chapter concludes the book by discussing the risk of ethnic violence among early and late modernizers, with a focus on Western Europe and North America. It also considers three policy options for limiting ethnic violence: multiculturalism, federalism, and consociationalism. Finally, it predicts that ethnic violence will continue near present levels over the next decade but should decline slightly due to lower levels of violence among late modernizers.Less

Social Science as History

Andrew E. Barshay

in The Social Sciences in Modern Japan: The Marxian and Modernist Traditions

The theme of Japan as the only successful modernizer or “power” in Asia has been endlessly played out since the 1890s. Japanese elites undertook a forced march to industrialization and military ... More

The theme of Japan as the only successful modernizer or “power” in Asia has been endlessly played out since the 1890s. Japanese elites undertook a forced march to industrialization and military strength based for some decades on the relentless taxation of peasant production. This effort was initially supported by a somewhat freewheeling Anglophilia, with the appropriation of American and French models in various domains as more or less significant subthemes. Social Darwinism, the theory of progress, and an ethic of individual and national advancement, formed the keynote of systematic Westernizations. Japan, in short, had modernized through, not despite, tradition; a new, neotraditional mode of modernization had emerged on the world historical stage. However, success brought frustration and anxiety.Less

From Worst to First: Declining Ethnic Violence in Early Modernizers

Matthew Lange

in Killing Others: A Natural History of Ethnic Violence

This chapter examines a paradox in the connection between modernity and ethnic violence: the earliest and most successful modernizers experienced severe ethnic violence prior to World War II, yet ... More

This chapter examines a paradox in the connection between modernity and ethnic violence: the earliest and most successful modernizers experienced severe ethnic violence prior to World War II, yet cases of ethnic violence have been relatively rare among early modernizers over the past seven decades. It begins with a comparison of Nazi and postwar Germany to show how the country transformed from extreme ethnic violence—and more specifically genocide—to relative peace. To further elucidate the causes of relative peace in early modernizers, the chapter considers the conflict resulting from the Quebec nationalist movement, which gained strength beginning in the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing on the German and Canadian experiences, it discusses a variety of factors that limited ethnic violence after World War II by shaping the strength and contours of ethnicity, reducing emotional motivation, limiting ethnic obligations, and minimizing the opportunity for mass violence.Less

High Technology in the Jungle

Willie Hiatt

in The Rarified Air of the Modern: Airplanes and Technological Modernity in the Andes

This chapter examines how coastal and jungle elites mobilized airplanes in an attempt to integrate, domesticate, and civilize a new frontier, and the consequences thereof. Despite technology’s ... More

This chapter examines how coastal and jungle elites mobilized airplanes in an attempt to integrate, domesticate, and civilize a new frontier, and the consequences thereof. Despite technology’s precarious domination of nature, airplanes appeared to choreograph unquestioned Western superiority in Peru’s Amazon region. Coastal and jungle modernizers envisioned airplanes almost magically harvesting natural resources, integrating a region in which roads were an endangered species, and civilizing “savages” who were perceived as stranded outside history. However, myriad accidents created compelling cultural encounters among survivors, Amazon “savages,” and geography. In a reversal of the conquest paradigm, crashes challenged coastal views of technological superiority when natives led survivors out of forests on foot, in canoes, or on their own shoulders, sometimes with luggage in tow.Less

Watching the World Go By

in We'll Always Have Paris: American Tourists in France since 1930

Many middle-class tourists followed the upper class and opted for leisure tourism over cultural tourism, they were condemned for turning European tourism into an exercise in perkiness. In 1920, ... More

Many middle-class tourists followed the upper class and opted for leisure tourism over cultural tourism, they were condemned for turning European tourism into an exercise in perkiness. In 1920, French leaders were quite divided over the significance of the United States' emergence as the world's premier industrial power. Some “modernizers” observed it as the result of Americans' freedom from thralldom to the past and their willingness to experiment and take risks. The French government also encouraged tourism by other presumed American opinion leaders, including what it called the “young intellectual elite.” In the summer of 1936, government officials put on a lavish reception in Paris's ornate Hôtel de Ville for an undistinguished group of one hundred touring American college students.Less

Revolt and restoration

Lewis Minkin

in The Blair Supremacy: A study in the politics of Labour's party management

This second historical chapter examines two phases of intra party management after 1979 and indicates their consequences for the Blairite future. The party became focused on an internal revolt ... More

This second historical chapter examines two phases of intra party management after 1979 and indicates their consequences for the Blairite future. The party became focused on an internal revolt involving an unprecedented attempt to exert new constitutional control over the parliamentary party and its leadership. In reaction, in 1983 a new Leader, Neil Kinnock, sought reforms which would strengthen the parliamentary leadership, and improve party management. Later, from a moderniser group led by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson there were pressures for a more radical approach to party reform including strengthening further the role of the party leadership in policymaking, reinforcing the role of media management and political marketing, improving relations with business and encouraging the ending of union collective affiliation.Less