This thesis focuses on the role of agency during political transition processes in divided societies. To be more specific, it examines how the Iraqi political elites view democracy and what type of political institutions they support. The years between 2012 and 2015 are of great…
"34" Result
Sort By:
This thesis provides a theoretical and empirical examination of the contentious “sovereignty” dispute between Taiwan and China, especially following the signing of the Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) in 2010. Distinctive from many contemporary studie…
In the last two decades, following the Rushdie affair and the emergence of Islamic extremism as a security issue in the UK, there has been a surge of interest in British Muslim communities from academics, politicians and popular commentators. Discourses of Muslims as ‘others’ an…
This thesis studies the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s capacity to rule in contemporary China by examining (a) its quest for popular legitimacy and (b) its search for party cohesion. In explaining the CCP’s ruling basis, a plethora of political science and economics literature …
This thesis offers a perspective on why majority-poor democracies might fail to pursue pro-poor policies. In particular, it discusses why in Bihar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) party led by Lalu Prasad Yadav, which claimed to represent the poor and under-privileged, did not cl…
By using genealogy, this study analyzes the dispositive of humanitarianism/trusteeship, which has constituted the power relationship between trustees and target societies and fields of intervention of power in international society. This dispositive has been reproduced from the …
This thesis entails an analysis of the relationship between space and politics in the construction and legitimisation of modern China. The thesis argues that the production of space has since the onset of modernity in China, in itself very much a spatial process, played a substa…
Medieval Iberian literary tradition constitutes a vast corpus of writings with which to study interfaith relations - in particular, Christian attitudes towards Muslims. This thesis focuses on works produced in the thirteenth century under king Alfonso X of Castile-Leon. Scholars…
The Special Collections of the Cadbury Research Library at the University of Birmingham hold seven early Qur'ānic pieces on parchment and papyrus dating from the seventh century. Alphonse Mingana purchased them from the antiquarian dealer von Scherling in 1936. Through investiga…
This work aims to look into the question of authenticity and inauthenticity within the Muslim discourse. How muslim can Muslims really be? Within the Muslim world the concept of authenticity is usually coupled with questions of adherence to the canonical and historical. Despite …
This study analyses Qurʾānic references purported to be allusions to the Prophet Muḥammad's early life. Observations of the use of Qurʾānic references in the early sīra sources substantiate the fact that each of the authors of sīra employed greatly differing numbers of Qurʾānic …
This study investigates Yusuf al-Qaradawi's and Tariq Ramadan's conceptualizations of European Islam centering on three thematic issues: ""European-Muslim"" identity and the role of Muslims in Europe, reform in Islam pertaining to fiqh and Islamic ethics, and the question of inc…
This thesis examines Tibetan perspectives on the causation, management and treatment of mental illness (Tib.: sems nad) within a Tibetan exile community in Darjeeling, northeast India. Based on two six-month periods of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2011 and 2012, it examin…
This thesis aims to determine whether the teaching of Tajwid science in the UK is of a sufficient standard. This stems from the author's experience in professional studies and teaching experiments performed in Britain in this field, which have indicated that current instruction …
This thesis explores British Muslims' counter discourse to the 'war on terror' through revealing the impact of the dominant 'war on terror' discourse created by the state. The research explores the counter discourse through investigating the impact of the 'war on terror' on Birm…
This thesis presents a case study of a single mosque, Jamia Masjid. It provides a description of everyday life, with attention to the congregation and the construction of sacred space. Its claim to originality is that it is an ""insider"" ethnographic perspective of a mosque in …
The status of Christian-Muslim relations (CMR), which are difficult to assess, has been ambiguous in contemporary Lebanon. Analysts, as well as individuals within Lebanese communities in Lebanon and within the diaspora have made conflicting claims. One major claim has been that …
The present thesis is an enquiry into the nature and consistency of the idea of music as a metaphor throughout the works of the English philosopher and physician Robert Fludd (1573/4-1637). Fludd was very fond of a view of the world in which man is made of the same elements and …