INTL 440 – Spring 2014 / ASSOC. PROF. MURAT SOMER STUDY QUESTIONS II 1. (a) What is human security? (b) What are the three different components of human security according to our reading? Would you expect faith-based movements to affect every component in the same way? (c) Give examples of religious non –state actors from Turkey and elsewhere. How did Turkish secular reforms during the 1920s and 30s treat religious nonstate actors? 2. What is zakat? Does it compete or cooperate with modern state policies? Why? 3. Explain what these are and give examples whenever relevant: Mecelle; dahriyin; ladini; ilmani; official Islam; Folk Islam; direct rule; indirect rule. 4. Give examples of universal and indigenous forms of some modern institutions. What are the advantages and disadvantages of trying to develop indigenous forms? 5. How do Max Weber and Timur Kuran explain the relative economic backwardness of Islamic countries? Which explanation draws on “Islamdom” rather than Islam? Explain why. 6. According to Timur Kuran, which “institutional” factors led to the “Islamic commercial crisis” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Give examples. 7. According to Kuran, what might be the historical socio-economic reasons that Islamic law ruled out primogeniture? 8. What is the “tenacious misunderstanding” according to Filali-Ansary? How did it affect the development of secularism and modernity in the Arab world? Why was Turkey less affected by this phenomenon? 9. According to Filali-Ansary, why should Islam be more open to secularism and modernization than other religions? 10. (a) Is Turkey the only Muslim democracy? (b) Is Turkey the only secular Muslim country? (c) Is Turkey the only secular-democratic Muslim country? Critically answer by giving specific country examples. 11. (a) What are the four characteristics of unsecular politics according to Stathis Kalyvas? (b) Give an example of one type of party that cannot have a cross-class appeal and one type of party (other than religious) that can. (c) What is retrsopective extrapolation? 12. “In order to modernize, Muslim countries do not necessarily need to adopt the forms of western institutions, they can only import their functions, developing their indigenous institutions fulfilling the same functions.” Critically discuss this statement by giving examples of western institutions that Ottoman and modern Turks adopted in form and function. 13. According to Ibrahim, which historical developments prevented earlier waves of democratization in the Arab world? 14. According to Somer, what is “moderation” of religious politics and when does it lead to democratization? In other words, when would we expect moderate religious political actors to co cintribute to democratization? 15. (a) When did Turkish secular politics “moderate”? (b) How may the evolution of secular political rivals affect the (authoritarian versus democratic) evolution of the AKP? 16. According to Sami Zubaida, what is the difference between conservative and political Islamists? 17. Was the Ottoman state a theocracy, why or why not? What were its basic sources of legitimacy? 18. (a) What were Tanzimat reforms and which cleavages did they create in Ottoman and Turkish societies? (b) How did the ulama react to Tanzimat reforms? Were they always opposed to them? 19. According to Richard Falk, what are (a) the normative and (b) practical claims/demands that political Islamists put forward in international relations? 20. What are the moral and rational reasons the Vatican is involved in international relations?