Indian political space and religion

This article studies the transformations of the narrative of ‘the Vision of the New Middle East’ as a political myth in Israel from its conception in the early 1990s to this date. Borrowing its analytic framework from Georges Sorel's concept of political myth, the article opens by offering a narrative analysis of the paradigmatic vision, as formulated by Shimon Peres (then Israel's Foreign Minister). The article goes on to trace the reception of this narrative and the uses made of it in two of the main arenas of the Israeli political and public spheres: the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) and the mainstream Hebrew press. The article argues that, while ‘the New Middle East’ has become an idiomatic phrase synonymous to peace, a closer look at its appearances in the Israeli public and political spheres suggests that the uses and transformations of ‘the New Middle East’ in effect signal its failure to become a politically mobilizing myth or image. Instead, this notion has become an icon of a utopian, abstract, and rather apolitical notion of peace in the Middle East. This case study thus suggests an interesting lesson as to the potential and limitations of using peace as a mobilizing political myth.

The article discusses questions concerning the cultural public sphere in relation to empirical material from a media ethnography of young menąs use of extremely violent action and horror films on video, and how the young men’s cultural practices, including media reception and film swapping, relates to their cultural production in the form of fanzines and amateur video films. The aim is to analyse this practice of film swapping, fanzine writing and amateur video making, in terms of cultural publicness, in order to shed light on those micro processes of communication that result in the formation of public spheres of various kinds. In the first part of the article some theoretical implications of the concepts cultural and political public spheres are discussed. Then follows a discussion on the internal communicative patterns within this alternative cultural public sphere, organised informally around fanzines and amateur video festivals. The dynamic relation between this alternative public sphere and other public formations, alternative as well as dominating or bourgeois, is then dealt with, and the different approaches among the various individuals is discussed. This is then followed by a discussion on the alternative cultural public’s relation to the market and state systems. Lastly, some general conclusions are drawn, covering the need to analytically separate cultural and political public spheres in order not to forget the task of the cultural public in mediating between market system and lifeworld, and thus not to dismiss the political implications of the cultural.

There is a common understanding in much of the Western world that, before the advent of second-wave feminism in the late twentieth century, women were restricted to a ‘private’ sphere of home and family, and the ‘public’ sphere of politics, economics, business, war, education and culture was predominantly the domain of men. Feminist historians hoping to chart the move by women from the private to the public sphere have, however, complicated any clear binary between the public and private spheres, redefining concepts such as ‘work’ and ‘politics’ in the process. Recent feminist work in economic history shows that women have always had many roles in the ‘public’ sphere, particularly in the world of commerce.

This paper aims to analyze how “Vetëvendosja” movement has preserved its legitimacy since its creation and its actions, firstly as a movement and now as a political representative within the political system. Based on the analytical model of Constructivist Theory, Social Movement Framing Theory, data gathering and elaboration from interviews done to Albin Kurti as the first leader of this movement, The Ahtisaari’s plan, the political program and different public discourses, this paper will create a clearer research picture on this topic. This movement, born to contradict categorically and systematically the Ahtisaari’s Plan that stressed out the judicial, military and political sovereignty under the international protectorate, developed more and gain strength thanks to the thesis of national union. It organized a number of protests that caused the murder of a number of supporters and the imprisonment of the leader from the international forces. These new conditions led to the creation and put into action a number of strategies and techniques that brought the institutionalization of the movement within the political system as a political and parliamentary representative. In contrast with other movements who lost their legitimacy in the moment they entered the political system, this paper analyses how the “Vetëvendosja” movement managed to preserve its legitimacy, in both positions, in and out the political system.

Women Novelists and the French Revolution Debate: Novelizing the Revolution/ Revolutionizing the Novel Gary Kelly It is now accepted that the French Revolution was a cultural as well as political event, or rather that Revolutionary politics were enacted in cultural ways, among others.1 Yet fictionalizations of the Revolution might still seem either tangential to its political realities or a submission of literature, which is supposedly transhistorical, to mere temporality, in the form of propaganda. In fact much writing of the time remains outside the modern literary canon for precisely this reason.2 Even critical opinion of the time saw the novel as an unpromising vehicle for serious discussion of political ideas, let alone ideas inspired by an event that was considered historically unprecedented in its magnitude, consequences, and nature. Moreover, the novel was then widely if erroneously regarded as a "feminine" form, mainly read and written by women, and as a consequence outside the public, political sphere in which revolutions 1 See for example Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). 2 See Harriet Kramer Linkin, "The Current Canon in British Romantics Studies," College English 53:5 (Sept. 1991), 548-70. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 6, Number 4, July 1994 370 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION occurred.3 On the other hand, the polarization of the political and the literary that underwrites such judgments originated in reaction to the Revolution, and was part of an elevation of the literary over the political that masks its own political character and the political character of art. It could also be argued, after Mikhail Bakhtin, that "novelization," or the creation of a polyvocal, democratic, dialogical discursive order in place of authoritative, authoritarian, monological ones, was the project both of the Revolution and the novel.4 Thus fictionalizing Revolutionary themes and issues, whether directly or indirectly, would be a way of participating in the Revolution. Furthermore , the subordinate cultural status of the novel and its female writers and readers would make it apt for "novelizing" the literary and discursive order of the time, by introducing the marginal into the centre . Though novels were in fact produced and read equally by women and men, albeit with different inflections, there were cultural grounds for characterizing the novel as "feminine," accounting for its potential as oppositional discourse. By the nature of its claims, the Revolution not only invited "novelizing"—in Bakhtin's sense and as novelistic representation of Revolutionary events, characters, and ideas; the Revolution also enabled and even required revolutionizing of the novel, thematically and formally, in order that it might carry out these tasks. More important, by the outbreak of the Revolution certain kinds of novel had long been implicated in the cultural, social, and political critique that the Revolution embodied. Since the seventeenth century, at least, certain kinds of prose fiction had dealt with private relationships and domestic scenes of life. The domestic or feminine sphere was represented as authentic in contrast to the illusions and relativities of the masculine or public sphere, especially under court government, thereby making domestic fiction into oppositional writing. Varieties of anti-romance represented "reality" in a different set of modes to counter courtly culture, including picaresque low life, satire exposing courtly artifice , and the knowingly super-courtly, or decadent. These kinds of fiction, like those representing private and domestic life, were anti-courtly simply by implying that "reality" and "authenticity" lay elsewhere than at court. The same ideological and cultural work could be accomplished by both The English Rogue (1665-71) and La Princesse de Clèves (1678, in 3 See John Tinnon Taylor, Early Opposition to the English Novel: The PopularReactionfrom 1760 to 1830 (New York: King's Crown Press, 1943). 4 Mikhail M. Bakhtin, The Dialogical Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981). REVOLUTIONIZING THE NOVEL 371 English 1679), and by both The New Atlantis (1709) and Moll Flanders (1722). These varieties of fiction were modifed in the middle third of the eighteenth century, as Enlightenment theorists proposed models of "civil society " to revolutionize the public and political sphere by removing it from court hegemony and imbuing...

El conflicto actual entre mundo occidental y el “terrorismo islamista” es algo que va mucho más allá del problema que supone la violencia —trágica y dolorosa— que ejercen y en la que se basan estos grupos. Efectivamente, la brecha que divide a estos grupos de nuestras sociedades es civilizatoria: se sustenta en diferentes y antagónicas propuestas sobre cómo debe organizarse la vida social. En este sentido, el choque es entre una modernidad occidental y un modelo de organización social —también moderno— que no separa lo político, lo religioso, o social, etc. Sin embargo, los conceptos políticos occidentales “secularizados” siguen siendo de corte teológico: de aquí un choque de “civilizaciones”, entendidas como diferentes modelos de organización de lo social y de lo político­.

This study examines the use of television series as a tool of hegemony in the process of socialising the Neo-Ottomanism ideology of the political power in Turkey.The discourse of Neo-Ottomanism came to the agenda in the 1950s after the Second World War and its foundations began to be laid in the 1980s.Neo-Ottomanism, which has been used in varying tones and to varying extents by right-wing political governments throughout the historical process, has become entrenched in the political and social sphere in the 2000s.The neo-Ottomanist discourses of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which came to power in 2002 by defining its political identity as a conservative democrat, which have become prominent in domestic and foreign policy especially since 2009, have also been frequently used in shaping social and cultural life.Therefore, this study aims to reveal the use of television series in the hegemonisation of the neo-Ottomanist discourse in Turkey since the 2010s.In this context, the study, which is theoretically based on Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, presents quantitative data on the television series about the Ottoman and Seljuk period between 2010 and 2024.The data on the series in question were obtained through document analysis technique.As a result of the study, it has been concluded that after 2010, in parallel with the intensive use of the Neo-Ottomanism ideology in the policies and discourses of the political power, the number of Ottoman-themed television series has increased and the neo-Ottomanism discourse of the political power has been maintained through the aforementioned series.However, it is noteworthy that in the Ottoman/Seljukthemed television series, the scenario is constructed by referring to the current events in Turkey's domestic and foreign politics and the policies of the AK Party government in this regard.Structured Abstract: Neo-Ottomanism, as the ideology of adopting the political and cultural heritage of the Ottoman Empire, was first used by Turgut zal in the 1980s and revived in the 2000s during the AK Party governments and adopted as a central ideology in domestic and foreign politics as well as in social practices.Neo-Ottomanism, which has been used in varying tones and to varying extents by right-wing political governments throughout the historical process, has become firmly entrenched in the political and social sphere in the 2000s.After coming to power in 2002, AK Party's neo-Ottomanist discourses, which have become prominent in domestic and foreign policy especially since 2009, have been frequently used in the shaping of social and cultural life.Therefore, this study aims to reveal the use of television series in the hegemonisation of the neo-Ottomanist discourse in Turkey since the 2010s.In the study, which is theoretically based on Antonio

The article is devoted to the study of the value of the idea of gender equality. Legal (gender) equality implies equal rights and opportunities for both men and women. In the context of European integration processes, the issue of ensuring and guaranteeing social and legal equality in all spheres of public life, both de jure and de facto, is important and relevant for Ukraine. With this in mind, bridging the gap and guaranteeing gender equality, including analysing the legal framework and guaranteeing equal rights and opportunities for both men and women in all spheres of public life, makes this study very relevant. The purpose of the article is to study the provision of gender equality in society, analyse the legal framework, and to clarify the causes of gender discrimination and help to overcome gender gaps in the social, cultural, political and economic spheres and more. The study of this problem uses a wide range of methods of scientific knowledge: the theoretical method allows organising a variety of knowledge about gender. The sociological method helps to identify various gender parameters and compare them with social characteristics. The application of the historical method allows for a gender assessment of various historical processes. The prognostic method allowed to find out the prospects of gender development both in the region in particular and in the developed civilized society in general. Socio-psychological method allows exploring the social roles of men and women, the relationship between the sexes, their features and psychological characteristics. The article presents the results of the study of gender issues both in the world and in Ukraine; the specific features of the division of society into two social groups on the basis of gender are covered; it is clarified how the gender approach is implemented in politics, economics and social sphere; the main directions of ensuring gender equality, guaranteed by international and Ukrainian legislation, are identified. The scientific article substantiates the need to use the gender component in legislative activities, including in politics, economics, social sphere; the necessity of using the advanced world experience of ensuring and realisation of gender equality is substantiated; based on the results of systematic scientific analysis, the basic principles of gender policy implementation in modern national and foreign legislation are determined

The article studies the process of changing religious policy in the context of socio-political reforms of the 1980s; analyzes the factors that contributed to the soviet religious policy and the impact of the policy’s changes on the religious life of the 1990s. It discusses the period when Russian society was continuing to looking for a consensus on the role of religion in the public and political spheres. Based on the state archives materials (The State archive of the Russian Federation and The Russian State archive of modern history) this research aims to identify the functions of the Union and Republican Councils for religious Affairs as the key institutions implementing religious policy. The author comes to the conclusion that the 1980s religious policy was manifested in the conceptual rethinking of the place of religion in everyday discourse. Changes in religious policy have caused not only a development of the relationship between the state and the faithful. They contributed to the new phenomena of soviet society, for example, certain religious groups, previously recognized as “extremist”, have become actively involved in the legal field and “normal” social activities. An important event was the celebration a millennium since the 988 Baptism of Rus’ when Gorbachev received Patriarch Pimen and other Holy Synod members inside the Kremlin. The transition to new forms and methods of interaction with religious institutions was realized. The faith reemerged into the public sphere and believers engaged in charity, education, mission and publishing. As a result of the resurgence of religious freedom and the democratization of the legal regulation regarding religious organizations was the adoption in 1990 of the new law “On freedom of conscience and religious organizations”.

The article reveals the concept of worldview, its significance in every person`s life as an individual. The purpose of the study consists in considering the problem of worldview, based on the view of the students of the Far North. In accordance with the goal, the researchers were assigned the following tasks: disclosure of the concept and types of worldview, identifying their differences; definition of the problem of the emergence of a worldview in the context of changes and the origin of significant events in the political sphere; conducting a sociological survey among students from the Far North, to identify the main problematic issues concerning the variability of their worldview, as well as its stability; research of the work of the founder of Yakut literature, the first of the researchers of Yakutia, whose works occupy a significant place in the formation of the worldview of every inhabitant of the Far North. In the process of forming a worldview, a person faces limitationsthat is, with what we call distinctiveness, which implies nationality, religion, territory of residence, age, upbringing; in addition, at this stage, the formation of a political worldview takes place. The political worldview itself is associated with the individual's search for his place in the political or social sphere, which is manifested in the individual and subjective aspects of the political worldview, the peculiarity of which lies in the values of a particular society, where there is more often the influence of the dominant view. Such influence exists due to the hypertrophied authority of one person (or a limited circle of personalities). The arguments of these opinion leaders in favor of their own points of view are sometimes convincing to large masses of people. Also, people can perceive the beliefs of one person as their own, without an assessment of correctness or it own analysis, which in most cases is connected with the search for simple solutions. Choosing the path of a kind of "energy saving", people take on faith the opinion of another person who seems more competent. Based on the results of the study, in the second part of the work, the authors formulated some conclusions. In the mechanics of a difficult choice, when a decision is not made automatically, one of the reasons for uncertainty is highlighted: the instinctive resistance of a person, the feeling that he is going against himself, violating personal attitudes. Persuasion is a powerful tool not only for management, but also for strengthening the personal stability of the worldview. A leader with sufficiently developed persuasion skills is able to convince almost any opponent of the truth of his worldview.

The edicts of the Maurya Emperor Aśoka (c. 268–232 BCE) constitute the first self-representations of imperial power in ancient South Asia. Questioning the usual presuppositions and methodology of historical interpretations of Aśoka's inscriptions, this essay attempts a fresh, detailed analysis of the political philosophy expressed in the edicts, with a special focus on their ideas and arguments regarding the relationship between political power, violence, happiness, and the good. The ideas of a political and moral empire, the inclusion of humans and animals in the king's constituency, the political importance attached to emotions, the connection between the governance of the state and the self, the rationale for the mitigation of conflict and violence in the social and political spheres – all have to be understood as interconnected parts of a larger whole, firmly anchored in culturally rooted ideas of karma, merit, and the attainment of heaven. While constituting an exceptionally rich epigraphic source for political ideas, the edicts also vividly reveal how these ideas intersected with the problems and practice of governing a vast, very variegated empire. The methodological emphasis of the paper is that inscriptions have to be treated as inscribed texts and that excavating the world of ideas embodied in them is an important part of the analysis of these material remains of the past.

This study tries to assess the status of Islam in the context of the Swiss discursive public sphere. Relying on an empirical survey conducted with representatives from fifty Muslim organisations based in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, the study examines the relative position of Muslim organisations in the political public sphere and the role of Islam in public debate from the perspective of the organisations themselves. The empirical findings will be interpreted using two ideal types. The category “public sphere” known from Jürgen Habermas’ works will help to determine the social status of the Muslim community in the context of the Swiss public sphere, while the normative concept “public religion”, as developed by the sociologist José Casanova in his book Public Religions in the Modern World, will contribute to determine the role of Islam in Swiss public debate.

The aim is the daily life of inhabitants of the Dnipropetrovsk (Dnipro) are considered in the conditions of the first post-war years.Research methods: historical and genetic; historical and comparative, system.Main results. The situation in different spheres of city life, state of communal infrastructure, centralized water supply and heating, food supply, priority areas of development of the city economy are shown. The forms and methods of solving the acute problems of the post-war policy and each family, factors of the material and everyday condition of the working people are considered. The ways of restoring the residential area of the city are shown. The restoration of the housing stock was given in two directions: by repairing partially destroyed buildings and, to a lesser extent, by new construction. In the city, due to the lack of material and technical base, mostly one- and two-storey residential buildings were erected. The way out of the situation was the settlement of the incoming families in the apartment of the surviving state houses, as well as the provision of land to those who were ready to solve their housing problems at their own expense. The various spheres of life of the inhabitants of the city in 1944–1947, their social and economic problems are analyzed: the material and communal conditions of their everyday life, social behavior and strategies of survival of different categories of the population of the policy. The social deviations of the deviant character that took place at this time are shown. The situation in the city under conditions of famine of 1946–1947 was studied. The forms and methods of solving problems of specific categories of inhabitants of the city in this difficult period. The attention was paid to such categories as infants, children of nursery, kindergarten and schoolchildren and students of technical schools. The real situation with wages was investigated, it was found that due to the necessity of various types of voluntary and compulsory loans and mandatory taxes, it was low in itself, it could not ensure the proper existence of a person. It is shown that the system of ensuring food and real needs of the population, namely, normalized supply of food and cargoes through the trading network at government prices for cards. It was found that the supply of food and household goods was extremely unsatisfactory, incomparable with a negligible payment of labor, making the price even unattainable, even on the shelves. At the same time different norms were applied for the workers, for the unemployed, the workers of various sectors of the national economy, employees of different institutions and different rank. In parallel, there was state open (commercial) trade with high prices, and also - bazaars at their prices. Many residents of the city were forced to ride in the villages and exchange household items for food. An impoverished day-long menu of many inhabitants of Dnipropetrovsk consisted mainly of vegetable food. Despite the difficult conditions for the restoration of the industrial and residential sectors, the cityʼs social sphere was restored. Understand the destroyed buildings and exported garbage. Every year, thousands of trees were planted on the streets and in parks, new squares were broken, repairs of the pavement, sidewalks, dwelling houses were painted, and markets were adjusted according to sanitary requirements. Works were underway to increase the capacity of urban water supply. Hospitals, various kindergartens were restored. To provide everyday needs of the population, shops were open, workersʼ dining rooms, equipped sports, dance and playgrounds, parks were improved, new baths were renovated and new baths were introduced, working clubs were being built.Main results. It is concluded that the everyday life of the first post-war years of Dnipropetrovsk was characterized by the difficult conditions of the existence of its inhabitants. Despite the ongoing rehabilitation of the city material, domestic and communal conditions of their existence were determined by the complex socio-economic situation, severe socio-demographic consequences of the war, as well as causes of a natural climatic nature. All this determined the strategies of their existence in the difficult conditions in which the majority of the city population, despite the difficulties, continued to fulfill the basic purpose of the person – to live, work, raise and raise children.Practical significance. For the historians of the everyday life of Dnipropetrovsk in post-war times.Originality. On the basis of research materials and memoirs of participants of events, the situation of the city's everyday life was reconstructed.The scientific novelty. The article was first presented in the history of post-war Dnipropetrovsk through the prism of everyday life, the various spheres of the existence of its inhabitants.Type of article: empirical.

Many researches view the internet as a virtual public sphere or forum potential that provides a space for minority groups to voice their opinions. This article identifies the role of social media in creating political public sphere for voters with disabilities in Indonesia during Presidential Election in 2019. By applying the normative values provided by Public Sphere Theory and Sphere Public Subaltern Theory, this article determines various potentials as well as stumbling blocks of the internet as a virtual public sphere for internet users. Virtual ethnography method is used to determine the identity of virtual communities of disabled people on three most active social media platforms in Indonesia, namely Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Virtual Ethnography enables researchers to conduct an online observation on virtual communities three months prior to the 2019 Presidential Election. The data findings help the researchers draw conclusion that social media has technically advocated the endeavor of the disabled people’s political rights equality, proven by the existence of disabled people’s virtual communities and the narratives of struggle for their political rights equality. However, the data has shown an inadequacy of disabled people’s virtual community to create dynamic inter-activities between its members as this community has not been able to reflect a public sphere that is able to build public opinion which effectively influences public policy.

The article examines humanitarian issues that can and should be considered together with the social component, since in most cases humanitarian and social processes accompany each other. The social and humanitarian sphere, like others, is under the influence of various factors and processes. The results of the study highlight such main aspects that the intensive development of the social and humanitarian sphere is taking place, due to the fact that in the modern world, people and human capital are becoming more and more important. The collapse of the bipolar system of interstate relations did not lead to the disappearance of the ideological factor, and the social and humanitarian component in interstate interaction became especially important. In modern world politics, the socio-humanitarian component penetrates more and more intensively into other spheres: military-political and political-economic. It has been established that social and humanitarian aspects accompany almost all conflicts. Moreover, socio-humanitarian aspects are used in a twofold way: on the one hand, phenomena of informational, "hybrid wars" arise to counter the enemy, on the other hand, to reduce tension and resolve conflicts. In the political and economic sphere, a global agreement is emerging, which forms the social responsibility of business on a global scale. In addition, various discussion platforms on political and economic issues, organized by both business structures and power structures, are receiving development. Global challenges, changes in the social and humanitarian sphere can affect global challenges, such as climate change, the fight against crime, the fight against natural disasters, they can require cooperation and coordination between countries. It was found that the increase or decrease of trust in political institutions, the transformation of the social and humanitarian sphere can affect the level of trust in political leaders and institutions in different countries, it can affect the stability and legitimacy of the government. The social and humanitarian sphere is also developing on its own, and at present it is mainly connected with the problems of higher education. In the future, other directions of development of the social and humanitarian sphere of world politics are planned, in particular, health care, international tourism and others, since the state has taken a course to increase its presence in the social and humanitarian field. It is substantiated that the mentioned issues acquired a new color and intensified, which gave a new impetus to the development of the social and humanitarian field. In addition, it was established that the social and humanitarian sphere is intensively involved in the solution of military-political issues. As a result, information and hybrid wars arise as tools for fighting the enemy, what happened for many years is happening today and on the territory of Ukraine from the side of the aggressor in the person of the Russian Federation and its regime. Today, in the modern world, there is a significant growth of the social and humanitarian component of world politics, which is manifested in all spheres of activity. At the same time, the social and humanitarian components are a single complex, and in most cases they accompany and mutually condition each other with various negative factors.