Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

How to Do Things With Words

The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

Much has been written about theory and practice in the law, and the tension between practitioners and theorists. Judges do not cite theoretical articles often; they rarely "apply" theories to particular cases. These arguments are not revisited. Instead the Essay explores the working and interaction of theory and practice, practitioners and theorists. The Essay starts with a story about solving a legal issue using our intellectual tools - theory, practice, and their progenies: experience and "gut." Next the Essay elaborates on the nature of theory, practice, experience and "gut." The third part of the Essay discusses theories that are helpful to practitioners and those that are less helpful. The Essay concludes that practitioners theorize, and theorists practice. They use these intellectual tools differently because the goals and orientations of theorists and practitioners, and the constraints under which they act, differ. Theory, practice, experience and "gut" help us think, remember, decide and create. They complement each other like the two sides of the same coin: distinct but inseparable.

Of Theory and Practice

Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe.

In recent years, several observers of Turkey have recognised a novel development in Turkish politics: the rise of Erdoganism. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s personality and style have come to emb...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01436597.2018.1447371

The AKP after 15 years: emergence of Erdoganism in Turkey

Contents: Law, politics and society in the post-modern condition Dynamic legal pluralism Muslim legal pluralisms Muslim legal pluralism in England Muslim legal pluralism in Turkey Muslim legal pluralism in Pakistan Post-modern Muslim legality and its consequences Looking to the future Bibliography Index.

Muslim Laws, Politics and Society in Modern Nation States: Dynamic Legal Pluralisms in England, Turkey and Pakistan

Some scholars have asserted that the different perceptions of Islam throughout the world in various local contexts have led to different ‘Islams’ since “considerable disagreements are apparent over what the fundamentals of Islam are and how they should be interpreted.” As one writer strongly emphasizes, “there are as many Islams as there are situations that sustain it.” In the same vein, I argue in this article that there are different Islams in Turkey from a sociological perspective and put the spotlight on these different types of co-existing unofficial and official Islams in Turkey. This article looks briefly at the secularization of Turkey and argues that despite the rhetoric, there has always been an official version of Islam in Turkey that this study calls Lausannian Islam. Even though the Turkish state has always desired to have only the state version of Turkish Islam, unofficial Islam has persisted. This article will focus on two versions of the unofficial Islam: political Islam of the Milli Gorus movement and Anatolian Islam of the faith-based Fethullah Gulen movement.

State, Law, Civil Society and Islam in Contemporary Turkey

This essay argues that sixteen years after coming to power, successive AKP governments have managed to remove Kemalism and replace it with a Islamist nation- building and social-engineering project that is as, if not more, authoritarian, conservative, and regressive than its Kemalist predecessors. The Turkish education system, together with its various private and public institutions, has been transformed into a political tool to manipulate youth and mold them into a peculiar Islamist ideology supported by the Erdoganist regime in Turkey. Four institutions under the AKP government’s control have primarily been utilized to manipulate the Turkish youth and shape their worldview. These are the national education curriculum, religious IHSs, Quran courses, and Islamic foundations.

Ihsan Yilmaz

Papers

The AKP after 15 years: emergence of Erdoganism in Turkey

Muslim Laws, Politics and Society in Modern Nation States: Dynamic Legal Pluralisms in England, Turkey and Pakistan

State, Law, Civil Society and Islam in Contemporary Turkey

State, Law, Civil Society and Islam in Contemporary Turkey

Islamic Populism and Creating Desirable Citizens in Erdogan’s New Turkey