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.
