I’m constantly glad I’ve signed up for the Teaching Comparative Politics blog newsletter. Today it linked to a story in the New York Times about Iran’s attempts at “Molding the Ideal Islamic Citizen.” They suggest using it to make comparisons w/ similar efforts to create “new” citizens in the Soviet Union & China. But I have other ideas.
The article will fit perfectly w/ today’s discussion. Students were assigned three articles to read from Essential Readings in Comparative Politics:
Samuel Huntington (1993), “The Clash of Civilizations”—which argues that the world is now divided into “civilizations” (Western-Christian, Islamic, Hindu, etc.) as the fault lines of political conflict.
Amartya Sen (2002), “Civilizational Imprisonments: How to Misunderstand Everybody in the World”—which argues that Huntington is reductionist: civilizations are more complex than many realize & individuals can hold multiple identities.
Mark Juergensmeyer (1995), “The New Religious State”—which argues that “theocratic” states (in particular Islamic ones, but he mentions others) are similar to “secular” nation-states (if we accept that nationalism is a “secular religion”).
Last week they read about states & the historical-institutional development of modern states. This week they’ve been reading about nations, society, and political culture. Today was set aside for “in class discussion”—particularly as Huntington & Sen clearly hold conflicting views. The Times piece will (I hope) make the Juergensmeyer article more salient.
Miguel: Off topic, but did you see this?
Looks like the government is accelerating or ramping up efforts...but to what end?
Yes, Cuban medical doctors have been arriving in Bolivia for some time. Not sure if this is an increase or not. Also, note that several of them defect from time to time, too.
That's a lot of doctors...sorry if I'm a little incredulous.