Democratization Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World
...and Syria seem the most stagnant of the Arab authoritarian regimes with no openness to report and repressive security services fully in charge of domestic politics. A third group of Arab regimes comprises the Iraqi, Lebanese, and Palestinian cases. While various political parties and movements in these countries operate freely, their participation in politics takes place in a chaotic environment either because foreign occupation has caused the collapse of state institutions (Iraq and Palestine) or because continuing, intractable internal discord has constantly...
Governance System, Dual Reference library
John G. Blair and Jerusha H. McCormack
Berkshire Encyclopedia of China
...generated within the Party apparatus end up as officialized by the National People’s Congress. Through all these levels, the key factor is control over who will occupy positions in the Party hierarchy as well as in the State. Appointments remain under the control of the Party leadership. There are roughly 70 million members of the Communist Party, not quite 6 percent of the population. This group defines the political class in today’s China and functions as a leadership oligarchy. The PRC dual system allows the vast governing apparatus to be responsive to an...
Baʿth Parties Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World
... the Baʿth consistently reaffirmed the domination of politics over religion. Although the Baʿthist party was obviously the major actor in Syrian and Iraqi politics at least until the last years of the twentieth century, proponents of its ideology (if not of the symbol of repressive rule associated with the persons of Assad and Hussein) attempted over the years to play a role in other political systems, most notably in Jordan and Lebanon. Specific characteristics governing the politics of other Arab countries, however, reduced this to a minor role when...
Jamāʿat al-Islāmīyah, al- Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World
...in Egypt use the name al-Jamāʿat (al-Gamāʿa or al-Jamāʿah) al-Islāmīyah (Islamic Groups). Along with the Egyptian Islamic Jihād group, the Jamāʿat aims to overthrow the military government of President Hosni Mubarak , which it perceives as corrupt and repressive, and replace it with an Islamist state. Most Egyptian congregations operate primarily through independent mosques and student unions on university campuses and appeal primarily to Egyptian youths. There appears to be no unifying leadership; instead, the groups reflect the general trend in Egyptian...
Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Reference library
Bruce Cumings
The Oxford Companion to American Politics
...10 million people between the ages of sixteen and forty-nine are “fit for military service,” usually meaning that they have served—or are serving—long years in the military. The result is perhaps the most amazing garrison state in the world, so deeply dug-in that some 15,000 underground facilities are part of the national security apparatus. Few countries have a more unfortunate geopolitical position than the DPRK, sharing a common border with China and Russia, as well as a still-tense confrontation with the United States and South Korea along the DMZ...
Hussein, Saddam (1937–2006) Reference library
Efraim Karsh
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History
...absolute ruler. Driven by an overriding insecurity arising from a stark perception of politics as a ceaseless struggle for survival—in which the ultimate goal of staying alive, and in power, justifies all means—Saddam transformed Iraq into one of the most repressive police states in the world. His was a state where a joke or a reported thought could cost a person his or her life, where tens of thousands of civilians were brutally murdered by their government, and where millions starved while their unelected ruler spent incredible sums of money on monuments and...
Islamism Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World
...the articulation of scripturally based claims to justice. Such activities shape a “public Islam” more than a “political Islam.” They challenge the discourse of secular elites and the official, largely authoritarian, frames of legitimacy as well as the regulatory and repressive apparatus of state authorities, whose ideologies oscillate between a “weak secularism” and a selective and often instrumental incorporation of Islamic norms and symbols. Egalitarian and voluntaristic modes of interaction make Islamist movements effective and sometimes dominant within...
Tafsīr Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World
...called because it was published in the journal Al-shihāb ), are cases in point. Shawkānī uses the medium of tafsīr to make a severe criticism of taqlīd (unquestioning acceptance of authority). Tafsīr remains an important avenue for expressing dissident opinion in closed or repressive societies, and Muslim scholars are not afraid to exploit its potential. A notable feature of modern tafsīr is the assumption it makes of the Qurʿānic sūrah s as unities. The sūrah s in their received arrangement are believed to possess naẓm (order, coherence, or unity),...
Jiāng Qīng (1914–1991) Reference library
Natascha GENTZ
The Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography
...chief of the Communist underground apparatus in Qingdao. A large number of biographical sources mention Yu Qiwei as Jiang Qing’s first husband. It is also generally accepted wisdom that it was through him that Jiang Qing first made contact with the CCP, although sources differ about whether she was a regular party member at that time. She also established contact with the Left-Wing Drama League (Zuǒyì xìjùjiā liánméng 左翼戏剧家联盟 ), a leftist alliance of progressive theater workers formed against the increasingly repressive cultural policies of the Nationalist...
Islam Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World
...being reconceptualized alternately as “un-Islamic” or as representing the true indigenous form of Islam. There is also important new research that takes advantage of improved archival access to look at the complex relationship between Islam and the Soviet state—which was by no means exclusively repressive—as well as the religious positions and social agendas of Muslim leadership figures both in the official institutions that the Soviet regime supported and in the “underground.” Recent scholarship has also given much attention to the developments that were...
