State

In certain polities, the nature of the state can best be captured as a contract whereby the central administration delegates taxation in the countryside to provincial elites. More specifically, due to technological necessities, the center relies on delegates to exact taxes, and …

The study examines the politicization of religion in comparative perspective. Its focus is on state actors in three countries where commitments to secular norms were displaced by religious politics: Egypt, India and the United States. In each case, the question is asked: why did…

The current research examines the relationship between the Israeli state and its migrant community in the United States. It argues that under conditions of accelerated globalization, the Israeli state has sought to reach out and re-territorialize its migrants' identities in orde…

This dissertation examines the relationship between neo-liberal restructuring, political transition, and the reorganization of urban space in Palestine/Israel and South Africa over the last 20 years. My research combines comparative historical, ethnographic, and visual methodolo…

My research provides an ethnographic analysis of the interactions of Brogpas (an ethnic minority living in Ladakh, Kashmir, along the border between India and Pakistan) with the development practices and discourses of the Indian civil-state and the military that were instituted …

This dissertation examines the survival and recasting of the Iraqi state between 1988 and 2003. Through four case studies, it suggests that the chaos following the 2003 invasion and the survival of the state between 1988 and 2003 can be understood through a reconsideration of st…

This thesis deals with the emergence of the modern state in Iran under the Pahlavi regime from 1926. The emphasis of the examination is on the political encapsulation of two Iranian tribal groups, the Turkmen and the Baluch, and the effects their subordination by the Iranian sta…

The role of women pioneers, who worked through the new medium of the Iranian women's press to initiate and direct reforms for women in the domains of education, dress, family law, and professional opportunities, is examined. An explanation is offered as to why these women were s…

The period from 1870 to 1941--spanning the period of the late Qajar dynasty and the first Pahlavi Shah--represents the period of transformation for the Iranian state from a pre-modern monarchical state grounded in traditional Persianate and Islamicate patterns and norms to a mod…

The global rise of fundamentalism and the vital importance of the relationship between religion and politics and the role of the state in this process have given a new relevance to Hegel's thought on these issues. To investigate Hegel's thought concerning this matter, the disser…

This dissertation examines the struggle of nationalist leaders and intellectuals to create a meaningful and coherent language of political identity in the final years of the Ottoman Empire and the first decades of the Turkish Republic. In so doing, it attempts to demonstrate two…

The key to understanding Islam and civil society is the state. However, this key issue has been decentered due to the prevailing focus in the literature, that is the compatibility/incompatibility between Islam and civil society. The findings of this thesis reveal emergent Islami…

The present dissertation studies the Islamic nature of the Acehnese state in the seventeenth century--a subject much neglected by area scholars and Islamicists alike due to the hybrid nature of Southeast Asian Islam. It examines not only the state's Islamic institutions but also…

This study explores the role of Islam and the state in the integration of Muslim communities into the Russian empire between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. Other studies have focused on state policy or told the history of Islam from the perspective of Muslim …

This study examines the ways in which Malay Muslim ("Nayu") residents navigate their lives in the southeastern border region of Thailand. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted in Nayu communities in Sungai Kolok district in Thailand as well as in Kelantan and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia…

This dissertation, based primarily on 15 months of anthropological fieldwork on Soqotra, the largest and most populated island of the Republic of Yemen's Soqotra Archipelago, examines the material and social effects of the making of a national Protected Area and a global World H…

This dissertation is concerned with the interaction between the Ottoman state and the institution of the Greek Orthodox Church from the mid-fifteenth to the sixteenth century. Attention is directed towards the Church's transformation from a Byzantine state sponsored religious an…

A common view of revolutions that bring religious authorities to power is that popular fanaticism allows priests to dominate the masses. Contrary to that view, Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution demonstrates the fundamental importance of political processes, and especially of the ul…