Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T23:00:57.210Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

(Not) Getting Religion: Has Political Science Lost Sight of Islam?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2011

Sultan Tepe  and
Betul Demirkaya
Sultan Tepe*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Chicago
Betul Demirkaya
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Chicago
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Sultan Tepe or Betul Demirkaya, University of Illinois, Department of Political Science, 1007 W. Harrison Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607. E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this analysis, we expand the debate on the place of religion in political science by using the predictions of Wald and Wilcox as our starting point. Following in their footsteps, we ask how political scientists have studied Islam since 2002 and identify the studies on Islam and Muslims at the flagship conference of the discipline, the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. We evaluate not only the quantity but also the approaches employed by these studies. In order to gauge the balancing of roles (or lack thereof) between the discipline and area studies, we also take a closer look at the Middle East Studies Association, the largest association focused on the Middle East, North Africa and the Islamic world and its annual meetings during the same period. Our findings suggest that, unless carefully addressed, the prevailing patterns are likely to result in a crippling knowledge gap among political scientists.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , August 2011 , pp. 203 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, Lisa. 1986. The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1830–1980. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Lisa. 2006. “Searching Where The Light Shines: Studying Democratization In The Middle East.” Annual Review of Political Science 9:189–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aspinwall, Mark, Callahan, William, and Welch, Stephen. 2002. “God Said So: Fundamentalism, Cultural Conflict, and International Relations.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston.Google Scholar
Bayat, Asef. 2000. Social Movements, Activism, and Social Development in the Middle East. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.Google Scholar
Ben-Dor, Gabriel. 1983. State and Conflict in the Middle East: Emergence of the Postcolonial State. New York, NY: Praeger.Google Scholar
Bill, James A. 1996. “The Study of Middle East Politics, 1946–1996: A Stocktaking.” The Middle East Journal 50:501–512.Google Scholar
Binder, Leonard. 1958. “The Middle East as a Subordinate International System.” World Politics 10:408–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, Ray Jr., and Siegel, David. 2007. “The Impact of Social Identity on Third-Party Mediation.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Carapico, Sheila. 1998. Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carla, Adrea. 2006. “Pointless Representation: The Tyranny of the Majority in Proportional Electoral System.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Coppedge, Michael. 1999. “Thickening Thin Concepts and Theories: Combining Large N and Small in Comparative Politics.” Comparative Politics 31:465–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Helen Miller. 1953. Constitutions, Electoral Laws, Treaties of States in the Near and Middle East. New York, NY: AMS Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, Larry. 2002. “What Political Science Owes the World.” PS: Political Science and Politics Online Forum. www.apsanet.org/imgtest/PSOnlineDiamond911.pdf (Accessed on February 21, 2010).Google Scholar
Flynn, Jeffrey. 2004. “Towards Human Rights as a Basis for Transnational Solidarity.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Gruberg, Martin. 1999. “Participation by Women in the 1999 APSA Annual Meeting.” Political Science and Politics 32:761.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hale, William. 1994. Turkish Politics and the Military. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. 2007. The Politics of Secularism in International Relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jamal, Amaney. 2007. “When Is Social Trust a Desirable Outcome? Examining Levels of Trust in the Arab World.” Comparative Political Studies 40:1328–1349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karawan, Ibrahim. 2002. “Middle East Studies after 9/11: Time for an Audit.” Journal of Democracy 13:96–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lahav, Gallya. 2002. “Public Opinion towards Immigration in the European Union: Ignorant or Informed?” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston.Google Scholar
Landau, Jacob M., ed. 1972. Man, State, and Society in the Contemporary Middle East. London, UK: Pall Mall Press.Google Scholar
Lerner, Daniel. 1958. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Google Scholar
Losco, Joseph. 1998. “Whither Intellectual Diversity in American Political Science? The Case of APSA and Organized Sections.” Political Science and Politics 31:836–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lustick, Ian S. 2000. “The Quality of Theory and the Comparative Disadvantage of Area Studies.” Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 34:189–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 2003. “The Middle East in the Past and Future of Social Science.” In The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines, ed. Szanton, D. http://repositories.cdlib.org/uciaspubs/editedvolumes/3/3 (Accessed on February 21, 2010).Google Scholar
Mokhtari, Shadi. 2004. “International Human Rights Norms and Women's Rights in Post-Revolutionary Iran.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Norton, Augustus Richard, ed. 1995. Civil Society in the Middle East. New York, NY: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Omelicheva, Mariya. 2004. “‘Global Civil Society’: An Empirical Portrayal.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Patterson Dennis, , and Jangsup Choi, . 2007. “The Political Behavior of Muslim Americans: Voting Patterns in Two Presidential Elections.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Rustow, Dankwart Alexander. 1971. Middle Eastern Political Systems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Sadowski, Yahya. 2006. “Political Islam: Asking The Wrong Questions?,” Annual Review Of Political Science 9:215–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, Ranjit. 2002. “Precluding Transition Politics: The Durability of Post-Colonial Arab Authoritarianism.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston.Google Scholar
Somer, Murat. 2007. “When are Moderation and Democratization Sustainable? Theory and Lessons from Political Islam in Turkey.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Stuckey, Mary. 2003. “Celebratory Othering in the Contemporary Presidency: The Cases of George H. W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Teti, Andrea. 2007. “Bridging the Gap: IR, Middle East Studies and the Disciplinary Politics of the Area. Studies Controversy.” European Journal of International Relations 13:117–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Jack H. 1966. Modernization of the Arab World. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.Google Scholar
Valbjørn, Morten. 2004. “Toward a ‘Mesopotamian Turn: Disciplinarity and the Study of the International Relations of the Middle East.” Journal of Mediterranean Studies 14:47–75.Google Scholar
Wald Kenneth D., , and Clyde Wilcox, . 2006. “Getting Religion: Has Political Science Rediscovered the Faith Factor?” American Political Science Review 100:523–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Michelle. 2002. “What's Left of the Right? Measuring the Impact of Radical Right-Wing Parties in Western Europe on Institutions, Agendas, and Policy.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston.Google Scholar
Wiktorowicz, Quintan, ed. 2004. Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar