The Revival of Buddhist Nationalism in Thailand and Its Adverse Impact on Religious Freedom

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Adverse Impact ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
The Government

Abstract Triggered by the sense of crisis, the Thai state and Thai Buddhism are renewing their traditional relationship kindled by the monarch-led reform over a century ago. Thai Buddhism is reviving its lost aura and hegemony while the political conservatives are looking for legitimacy and collective identity in a time of democratic regression. The result is the rise of the Buddhist-nationalistic movement, Buddhist-as-Thainess notion. The phenomenon has grown more mainstream in recent years. These extreme Buddhists pressure the government to adopt a new constitutional relationship that brings the two entities closer to a full establishment. They also target both religious minorities as well as non-mainstream Buddhists. The revival of Buddhist nationalism foretells rising tension as well as diminishing religious freedom.

Offensive Speech, Religion, and the Limits of the Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Hatzis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
Strong Claim ◽  
Offensive Speech

Is the government ever justified in restricting offensive speech? This question has become particularly important in relation to communications which offend the religious sensibilities of listeners. It is often argued that insulting a person’s beliefs is tantamount to disrespecting the believer; that insults are a form of hatred or intolerance; that the right to religious freedom includes a more specific right not to be insulted in one’s beliefs; that religious minorities have a particularly strong claim to be protected from offence; and that censorship of offensive speech is necessary for the prevention of social disorder and violence. None of those arguments is convincing. Offence is an unpleasant mental state caused when our expectations of being treated in a particular way are frustrated. Drawing on law and philosophy, the book argues that there is no moral right to be protected from offence and that, while freedom of religion is an important right which grounds negative and positive obligations for the state, it is unpersuasive to interpret constitutional and human rights provisions as including a right not to be caused offence. Rather, we have good reasons to think of public discourse as a space for the expression of all viewpoints about the ethical life, including those which some listeners will find offensive, as this is necessary to sustain a society’s capacity for self-reflection and change.

Charles Taylor’s Work after A Secular Age

2018 ◽  
pp. 174-192
Author(s):  
Craig Browne ◽  
Andrew P. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
French Language ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
The Status ◽  
Secular Age ◽  
The Government

This chapter explores what Taylor has been working on since publishing A Secular Age. This includes his work on religious freedom, his contribution to a report for the Government of Quebec on diversity and multiculturalism in the province, and his study on language and its place and role in the political and social debates that are shaping our world. The chapter examines Taylor’s arguments about religious freedom and its importance for harmonious social conditions in modern societies that are struggling to negotiate the boundaries between the religious and the secular realms, particularly at a time when both religious and secular viewpoints remain important to many citizens in modern democracies. The chapter then provides an overview of Taylor’s work on a report for the Government of Quebec that was commissioned at a time of intense scrutiny in the province about the status of the French language, the maintaining of French cultural traditions, and issues to do with jobs and incomes as the region faces high levels of immigration and increased diversity. Taylor’s book The Language Animal is also examined, and his views about how we understand language as being expressive or functional is assessed.

scholarly journals „Twardogłowi fanatycy” i „beneficjenci dobrej zmiany” — o „innych” Komitetu Obrony Demokracji

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-139
Author(s):  
Anna Radiukiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The Government ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Political Scene

The author addresses the question of how a collective consciousness is shaped, using the example of KOD (Komitet Obrony Demokracji — the Committee for the Defense of Democracy), a social movement that emerged in Poland to protest the activities of the government installed after the parliamentary elections of 2015. As collective identity is to a high degree defined by the characteristics of an “other,” the statements of activists and followers of the KOD movement are analyzed. These statements come from voluntary interviews whose aim was to obtain a characterization of the opposing side. On the basis of this analysis, the author provides a portrait of the current political scene and essential parts of the political discourse.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Spencer W. McBride
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
History Of ◽  
Discriminatory Effect

The Introduction to the book explains the reasons that Joseph Smith ran for president in 1844. Though electoral victory was extremely unlikely for Smith, his unlikely campaign is significant to the history of the United States because it encapsulates the discontent of thousands of Americans with the political status quo. The campaign also illuminates the political obstacles to universal religious freedom in nineteenth-century America. In particular, it demonstrates that political philosophies such as the states’ rights doctrine, which, on the surface, had nothing to do with religious freedom, had a discriminatory effect on religious minorities when implemented. Accordingly, Joseph Smith found himself on the vanguard of Americans calling for a stronger federal government, one that could enforce the Bill of Rights in individual states.

Nazistowski mord na Żydach w prasie polskich komunistów (1942–1944).

2006 ◽  
pp. 54-75
Author(s):  
Klaus Peter Friedrich
Keyword(s):  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

Facing the decisive struggle between Nazism and Soviet communism for dominance in Europe, in 1942/43 Polish communists sojourning in the USSR espoused anti-German concepts of the political right. Their aim was an ethnic Polish ‘national communism’. Meanwhile, the Polish Workers’ Party in the occupied country advocated a maximum intensification of civilian resistance and partisan struggle. In this context, commentaries on the Nazi judeocide were an important element in their endeavors to influence the prevailing mood in the country: The underground communist press often pointed to the fate of the murdered Jews as a warning in order to make it clear to the Polish population where a deficient lack of resistance could lead. However, an agreed, unconditional Polish and Jewish armed resistance did not come about. At the same time, the communist press constantly expanded its demagogic confrontation with Polish “reactionaries” and accused them of shared responsibility for the Nazi murder of the Jews, while the Polish government (in London) was attacked for its failure. This antagonism was intensified in the fierce dispute between the Polish and Soviet governments after the rift which followed revelations about the Katyn massacre. Now the communist propaganda image of the enemy came to the fore in respect to the government and its representatives in occupied Poland. It viewed the government-in-exile as being allied with the “reactionaries,” indifferent to the murder of the Jews, and thus acting ultimately on behalf of Nazi German policy. The communists denounced the real and supposed antisemitism of their adversaries more and more bluntly. In view of their political isolation, they coupled them together, in an undifferentiated manner, extending from the right-wing radical ONR to the social democrats and the other parties represented in the underground parliament loyal to the London based Polish government. Thereby communist propaganda tried to discredit their opponents and to justify the need for a new start in a post-war Poland whose fate should be shaped by the revolutionary left. They were thus paving the way for the ultimate communist takeover

Capital californiano, necesidad presupuestal y cambio político: Juan Temple y el arrendamiento de la Casa de Moneda de México, 1827–1857

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-351
Author(s):  
Omar Velasco Herrera
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Las Casas ◽  
Siglo Xix ◽  
The Government

Durante la primera mitad del siglo xix, las necesidades presupuestales del erario mexicano obligaron al gobierno a recurrir al endeudamiento y al arrendamiento de algunas de las casas de moneda más importantes del país. Este artículo examina las condiciones políticas y económicas que hicieron posible el relevo del capital británico por el estadounidense—en estricto sentido, californiano—como arrendatario de la Casa de Moneda de México en 1857. Asimismo, explora el desarrollo empresarial de Juan Temple para explicar la coyuntura política que hizo posible su llegada, y la de sus descendientes, a la administración de la ceca de la capital mexicana. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the budgetary needs of the Mexican treasury forced the government to resort to borrowing and leasing some of the most important mints in the country. This article examines the political and economic conditions that allowed for the replacement of British capital by United States capital—specifically, Californian—as the lessee of the Mexican National Mint in 1857. It also explores the development of Juan Temple’s entrepreneurship to explain the political circumstances that facilitated his admission, and that of his descendants, into the administration of the National Mint in Mexico City.

Beyond Religious Freedom

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Religious Tolerance ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
Power Difference ◽  
Ways Of Being

In recent years, North American and European nations have sought to legally remake religion in other countries through an unprecedented array of international initiatives. Policymakers have rallied around the notion that the fostering of religious freedom, interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, and protections for religious minorities are the keys to combating persecution and discrimination. This book argues that these initiatives create the very social tensions and divisions they are meant to overcome. It looks at three critical channels of state-sponsored intervention: international religious freedom advocacy, development assistance and nation building, and international law. It shows how these initiatives make religious difference a matter of law, resulting in a divide that favors forms of religion authorized by those in power and excludes other ways of being and belonging. In exploring the dizzying power dynamics and blurred boundaries that characterize relations between “expert religion,” “governed religion,” and “lived religion,” the book charts new territory in the study of religion in global politics. The book provides new insights into today's most pressing dilemmas of power, difference, and governance.

Perempuan dalam Kungkungan Budaya Politik Patriarkhis

MUWAZAH ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Nurbaity Prastyananda Yuwono
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Awareness ◽  
Cultural Reconstruction ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
The Government ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Women's Networks ◽  
Women's Political Participation

Women's political participation in Indonesia can be categorized as low, even though the government has provided special policies for women. Patriarchal political culture is a major obstacle in increasing women's political participation, because it builds perceptions that women are inappropriate, unsuitable and unfit to engage in the political domain. The notion that women are more appropriate in the domestic area; identified politics are masculine, so women are not suitable for acting in the political domain; Weak women and not having the ability to become leaders, are the result of the construction of a patriarchal political culture. Efforts must be doing to increase women's participation, i.e: women's political awareness, gender-based political education; building and strengthening relationships between women's networks and organizations; attract qualified women  political party cadres; cultural reconstruction and reinterpretation of religious understanding that is gender biased; movement to change the organizational structure of political parties and; the implementation of legislation effectively.

Land Reform in Zimbabwe: a Balance of Political Expediency and Economic Inevitability?

2020 ◽  
pp. 14-29
Author(s):  
Lyubov Prokopenko
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
Union Leader ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Region ◽  
Political Aspect ◽  
National Union ◽  
Reform Program ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government

The article considers the political aspect of land reform in the Republic of Zimbabwe. The problem of land reform has been one of the crucial ones in the history of this African country, which celebrated 40 years of independence on April 18, 2020. In recent decades, it has been constantly in the spotlight of political and electoral processes. The land issue was one of the key points of the political program from the very beginning of Robert Mugabe’s reign in 1980. The political aspect of land reform began to manifest itself clearly with the growth of the opposition movement in the late 1990s. In 2000–2002 the country implemented the Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP), the essence of which was the compulsory acquisition of land from white owners without compensation. The expropriation of white farmers’ lands in the 2000s led to a serious reconfiguration of land ownership, which helped to maintain in power the ruling party, the African National Union of Zimbabwe – Patriotic Front (ZANU – PF). The government was carrying out its land reform in the context of a sharp confrontation with the opposition, especially with the Party for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by trade union leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The land issue was on the agenda of all the election campaigns (including the elections in July 2018); this fact denotes its politicization, hence the timeliness of this article. The economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe in the 2000–2010s was the most noticeable phenomenon in the South African region. The analysis of foreign and domestic sources allows us to conclude that the accelerated land reform served as one of its main triggers. The practical steps of the new Zimbabwean president, Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa, indicate that he is aware of the importance of resolving land reform-related issues for further economic recovery. At the beginning of March 2020, the government adopted new regulations defining the conditions for compensation to farmers. On April 18, 2020, speaking on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the independence of Zimbabwe, Mr. E. Mnangagwa stated that the land reform program remains the cornerstone of the country’s independence and sovereignty.

Referendum konstytucyjne we Włoszech. Jak głosowanie ludowe wpływa na system polityczny państwa?

2017 ◽  
pp. 110-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Kużelewska
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

This article analyses the impact of constitutional referendums on the political system in Italy. There were three constitutional referendums conducted in 2001, 2006 and 2016. All of them have been organised by the ruling parties, however, only the first one was successful. In the subsequent referendums, the proposals for amending the constitution have been rejected by voters. The article finds that lack of public support for the government resulted in voting „no” in the referendum.

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