The Politics Of Social Transformation In Afghanistan Iran And Pakistan

This volume comprises the work of some of the leading authorities in Southwest Asian and Middle Eastern studies concerning the state-initiated interventions to restructure the socio-political order in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.

The Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran is a watershed in the history of Iran where Islam had played a dominant role in restructuring and reshaping society as a whole. The fusion of religion with politics and working as ideology is unique in the history of Islam. The structural nature and functional scope of the three branches of the government has been changed along Islamic lines since the establishment of the Islamic Republic. Islam’s penetration is so extensive that its manifestation has come up in the form of the institutionalized role of Islam. In the aftermath of the revolution, a new constitution was enacted which declared Twelver Shiism as state religion. Islam has profound impact on social, political and economic system of Iran. Iranian economy has also been restructured along Islamic line. Its influence is deep and far-reaching in the economic system of Iran. The author, in this book has analysed the role of Islam in the Transformation of Social, Political and Economic structure of Iran post Islamic Revolution of 1979.

The essays collected in this book place this issue in its historical context and offer case studies of Muslim societies from North Africa to Southeast Asia. These fascinating studies shed light on the impact of the Islamic resurgence on gender issues in Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Oman, Bahrain, the Philippines, and Kuwait. Taken together, the essays reveal the wide variety that exists among Muslim societies and believers, and the complexity of the issues under consideration.

Ethnic and tribal loyalties in Afghanistan provided the lethal cocktail for the violent conflict that engulfed the country following the collapse of the Soviet backed government in 1992. The ensuing fighting between mujahideen groups paved the way for the tectonic social and political shifts, which continue to shape events today. What accounts for the emergence of ethnicity, as the main cause of conflict in Afghanistan? What moved people to respond with such fervour and intensity to calls for ethnic solidarity? This book attempts to make sense of ethnicity’s decisive role in Afghanistan through a comprehensive exploration of its nature and perception. Based on new data, generated through interviews, field notes and participant observations, Sharma maps the increased role of ethnicity in Afghan national politics. Key social, political and historical processes that facilitated its emergence as the pre-dominant fault-line of conflict are explored, moving away from grand political and military narrative to instead engage with zones of conflict as social spaces. This book will be of interest to students and scholars working in politics, ethnic studies and security studies.

This book examines the globalization of production and its impact on work and gender relations, the impact of technology on workers around the world, the economic problems associated with debt crisis, the political opportunities associated with democratization, the impact of global warming, the reasons behind China's rise as an economic superpower, and the problems in countries across the Middle East that culminated in the attacks of 9/11.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of Iran's political economy since the 1979 revolution and examines the country's energy sector.

Drawing on theories of legal pluralism, this book tests whether and to what extent claims of the modern nation-state laws to exclusive dominance over other spheres are tenable, and reassesses the operation of law in society. Incorporating a combination of legal theory, post-modern critique and socio-legal analysis of three current jurisdictions in which Muslims play an important role, the volume identifies Muslims' current socio-legal situation and attitudes from different perspectives and reconciles them with modern legal systems in three key countries. It analyzes the conflict between the assumptions of modern legal systems and plural legal realities, and also examines attempts by modern legal systems to impose official laws in the face of resistance from unofficial Muslim laws and discusses possible responses to the challenge of dynamic Muslim legal pluralism. A valuable resource for students, researchers and academics with an interest in the areas of Islamic law and politics, and the interplay between secular law and religious/cultural traditions.

Ethnic and religious identity-markers compete with class and gender as principles shaping the organization and classification of everyday life. But how are an individual's identity-based conflicts transformed and redefined? Identity is a specific form of social capital, hence contexts where multiple identities obtain necessarily come with a hierarchy, with differences, and hence with a certain degree of hostility. The contributors to this book examine the rapid transformation of identity hierarchies affecting Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, a symptom of political fractures, social-economic transformation, and new regimes of subjectification. They focus on the state's role in organizing access to resources, with its institutions often being the main target of demands, rather than competing social groups. Such con- texts enable entrepreneurs of collective action to exploit identity differences, which in turn help them to expand the scale of their mobilization and to align local and national conflicts. The authors also examine how identity-based violence may be autonomous in certain contexts, and serve to prime collective action and transform the relations between communities.