Religion and nationalism are not only two distinctive but also closely related concepts when it comes to nation-building. Their role in language policy and linguistic nationalism is pervasive. Today, in Turkey, two religious movements of the same origin play a key role in linguistic nationalism and decision-making in language policy: the Gülen movement and the Med-Zehra movement. These two non-governmental affinities are important groups in the Nur movement. The Gülen movement is supportive of Turkish nationalism and thereby Turkish language and identity, while the Med-Zehra group emphasizes Kurdish identity and separatism. This study makes a comparison between the two movements and investigates in detail their role in language policy and linguistic nationalism.

Israel seeks to have good relations with most members of the international community, and establishes friendly relations with as many states as possible. As part of the Asian continent, Israel has been interested from its inception in good ties with China and India in particular. In this regard, besides India and China, another important Asian country with which Israel's relations are flourishing is Japan. Over recent years, the two countries’ relations have steadily progressed. Cooperation between the two countries could be productive, and both Israel and Japan have much to gain from developing a relationship. In this context, this article firstly gives a brief summary of Israel's developing relations with two important countries of Asia, India and China, then tries to explain the nature of the developing relations between Israel and Japan, and aims to point out possible future areas of cooperation.

Subnational diplomacy has come to life in India. Although still nowhere near in the same league as their counterparts in North America, Europe, parts of Asia, and even other developing countries, subnational governments (SNGs) in India are increasingly engaged abroad through involvement in regional and global affairs, questioning the central government on international matters, seeking foreign direct investment, organizing trade fairs and investment summits, leading economic missions, and hosting visiting dignitaries to showcase their jurisdiction's economic potential. These new and emerging actors on India's foreign affairs landscape are pluralizing and decentralizing India's foreign policy, albeit in a limited way and on small scale, as all states and territories are not as yet actively involved in foreign affairs. The paper argues that management of India's external relations is no longer informed or conducted simply by a select group of diplomats, high-ranking political leaders, and other specialist foreign policy advisers in New Delhi. Today subnational actors are becoming an essential component in India's foreign affairs. They are joining the huge traffic of SNGs from countries around the world that are linking with counterparts and others across national borders to serve the interests of local constituencies. It is a trend that is changing not only diplomatic roles, but also the nature of economic and political relationships among government actors worldwide.

This study examines the effects of civic consciousness and civil disobedience on individual attitudes toward, and participation in, contentious politics. Using the newly collected survey data on civic consciousness and civil disobedience in Taiwan in 2015, this study finds that both civic consciousness and civil disobedience are significantly associated with individual support for and engagement in contentious politics. Specifically, people with strong civic consciousness and civil disobedience are more likely to support the Sunflower Movement and take part in contentious political activities such as rallies, marches, and strikes. The findings imply that as the ideas of civic consciousness and civil disobedience prevail in a democracy, the public will be more likely to choose to use contentious political activities to express their opinions instead of institutional and legal approaches when the government is unable to respond to public needs in a timely manner.

This research study attempts to map out the career network of selected members from the Politburo and Central Military Commission (CMC) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), by adopting social network analysis techniques, calculating various network indices, and quantifying the value and importance of each position. The purpose of this research is to uncover the crucial positions leading to the CCP's political and military power center, as well as to how these positions interrelate. The results show the following. First, in the Jiang Zemin era (Jiang's era), Politburo members were mainly promoted from the central party committee or Central Government. Secondly, in the Hu Jintao era (Hu's era), key members from administrative regions started to step into the power center. Third, in the era of Xi Jinping (Xi's era), most Politburo members were promoted directly from administrative regions, especially from the coastal areas, such as Shanghai and Guangdong province. The research also indicates that being a military commander for Military Regions appears to provide experience necessary for promotion, whilst being an officer at the central military departments, such as a (Deputy) Chief General of Staff or Commander of Armed Services, is considered a major stepping stone. Although the succession trend defined by the innovative analysis of this research might not match the fixed model used by the CCP for its succession plan, under the circumstances of probable further institutionalization of the CCP, a quantified analysis of network position could be considered a more promising method of prediction.

On 19 December 2012, Park Geun-Hye won the presidential election in Korea. How should we understand the surprising comeback of ‘the strong man's daughter’ in a country that has been touted as having experienced a successful transition from dictatorship to democratization? To answer this question, it is necessary to reformulate modernization theory, of which Korea has been cited as a ‘dream case’. Modernization theory is overly process-oriented; a process of economic growth leads to a successful democratization with a temporal gap. However, when we take into account the question of agency, which was missing in modernization theory, a series of interesting questions arise. First, who led the process of modernization in the Korean case? Second, who led the process of democratization? Finally, what happens if the temporal gap between modernization and democratization is relatively short so that ‘modernizers’ and ‘democratizers’ occupy the same political landscape? In such a scenario, we should expect a society deeply divided between the two agencies of modernization theory. The recent return of ‘the strong man's daughter’ is the latest symptom of increasing social divisions between modernizers and democratizers in contemporary Korean society.