In political science studies, it is not often that one reads of American Imperialism. The term imperialism is almost exclusively associated with colonial exploits of major European powers such as Britain, France and Germany in the West; and China and Japan in the East. Although a late joiner of the imperial club, the United States…
Category: Politics
All the articles that come under politics domain.
Why is constitutional engineering crucial but difficult for the former communist countries?
When communism was imposed as the incontestable political doctrine at the culmination of the Second World War, many Eastern European nations set upon a new chapter in their respective histories. During the forty odd years as part of the Soviet Union a degree of economic, political and constitutional homogeneity was brought into this region, which…
How does neo-Marxist or post-Marxist theories of ideology differ from the classical Marxist tradition?
In a recent BBC online poll for finding the greatest thinker of the Millenium, Karl Marx came first. That Marx beat Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking among other leaders in their fields amounts to a big statement of Marx’s relevance in the new millenium. The relevance of the results is magnified when we…
Farid Esack’s concept of the “clash of fundamentalisms”
In the reading titled In Search of Progressive Islam Beyond 9/11, author Farid Esack makes several valid observations. At the outset, he admits that the word ‘progressive’ is very hard to define due to elements of subjectivity and scope. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and other…
Does the British education policy uphold class privilege over competitive pressures of globalization?
British society is one of the most stratified in terms of social class. In contrast to the United States, where politicians at least pay lip-serve to the notion of a class-less society, class divisions are woven into the fabric of the nation’s social, political and economic institutions. Barring occasional rhetoric from Labour benches, Realpolitik considerations…
Overview of Orientalism by Edward Said
Orientalism as a geo-political and sociological concept has attracted much controversy. It remains author Edward Said’s definitive work, alongside other titles such a The Question of Palestine and Covering Islam. Orientalism as a scholarly work is the combined study and analysis of Oriental “philology, linguistics, ethnography, and the interpretation of culture through the discovery, recovery,…
Max Weber’s views on bureaucracy
Sociologist and philosopher Max Weber has contributed significantly toward our understanding of social and political institutions’ role in everyday situations. If economists such as John Kenneth Galbraith and, more recently, Joseph Stiglitz have brought clarity to the study of dominant institutions, it was Weber who paved the way for this field of study. Weber’s work…
Challenges for the gay rights movement in America
The United States of America is renowned for the rights and freedoms that it endows upon its citizens. But what is not well recognized is the fact that such rights and privileges are seldom offered the citizens on a platter. Behind every progressive legislative achievement is a long and hard struggle, usually led by the…
Review of ‘Assata: An Autobiography’
Assata Shakur was an important figure during and after the civil rights movement. Being an African American woman, she was disadvantaged both in terms of race and gender. Hence her social activism served a two-fold purpose. But her association with the militant wings of the civil rights movement, such as the Black Panther Party and…
The extent of reform of House of Lords membership in the century since the Parliament Act of 1911
The reform of the upper house of the Parliament has been attempted since the establishment of parliamentary democracy in the UK. Some of these attempts have fetched positive results whereas the rest have at best been nominal and ineffective. The Parliament Act of 1911 is a cornerstone legislation in this context as the provisions within…