Habibul Haque Khondker

Role of the New Media in the Arab Spring

This article examines the role of the new media in the ‘Arab Spring’ in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It argues that although the new media is one of the factors in the social revolution among others such as social and political factors in the region, it nevertheless played a critical role especially in light of the absence of an open media and a civil society. The significance of the globalization of the new media is highlighted as it presents an interesting case of horizontal connectivity in social mobilization as well signaling a new trend in the intersection of new media and conventional media such as television, radio, and mobile phone. One of the contradictions of the present phase of globalization is that the state in many contexts facilitated the promotion of new media due to economic compulsion, inadvertently facing the social and political consequences of the new media. Este artículo examina el papel de los nuevos medios en ‘la primavera árabe’ en la región del Medio Oriente y Norte de África (MENA, por sus siglas en inglés). Sostiene que aunque los nuevos medios hacen parte de los factores en la revolución social entre otros, como los factores sociales y políticos en la región, aun así, jugaron un papel muy importante especialmente en vista de la ausencia de medios independientes y una sociedad civil. La importancia de la globalización de los nuevos medios se hace resaltar al presentar un interesante cado de conectividad horizontal en la movilización social como también al señalar una nueva intersección de nuevos medios y medios convencionales como la televisión, la radio y el celular. Una de las contradicciones de la fase actual de la globalización es que el estado en muchos contextos, facilitó la promoción de un nuevo medio debido a la compulsión económica, afrontando inadvertidamente las consecuencias sociales y políticas de los nuevos medios. 本文考察发生在西亚北非地区的“阿拉伯之春”中新兴媒体的角色。文章认为尽管新兴媒体同其他政治和社会的因素一样，是该地区发生社会革命的因素之一，但却扮演了至关重要的角色，尤其是在缺乏开放的媒体和公民社会的条件下。由于代表了一种在社会动员中建立水平连通的有趣事例并同时预示着新兴媒体和传统媒体（如电视、电台和移动电话）交叉的新趋势，新兴媒体全球化的重要性被凸显出来。全球化现阶段的矛盾之一就是，在很多不同环境下国家由于经济强制而促进了新兴媒体发展，却正无奈地面对新兴媒体带来的社会和政治后果。

Power and Civil Society in Pakistan

Pakistani society finds itself in a morass because of the mad scramble for power in almost all sectors. This has resulted in extreme structural distortions. The attainment of power is both a means of domination and a recourse to survival. Unequal power relations are historically entrenched and their perpetuation is deepening the crisis. In this text, two experts conduct a dialogue between eminent scholars and social activists, from which emerges the issues underpinning the re-negotiation of power in Pakistan.

The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh: What is the Relevance For The Muslim Majority Democracies?

Abstract Bangladesh, the second largest Muslim democracy in the world, presents an interesting case study of a secular state for Muslim majority countries in other parts of the world. Bangladesh presents the hope that, in theory, a Muslim majority developing country can have a functional democracy. Nevertheless, the temptation of using religion for political ends remains ever present. Secularism was one of the four tenets in Bangladeshs Constitution of 1972. However, with a changing political situation at home and the appearance of political Islam abroad, the secular basis became increasingly problematic. The article examines tensions between secularist and Islamist forces in Bangladesh over time. It asks the question to what extent, if at all, the ‘Bangladesh model’ is relevant for other Muslim majority countries trying to democratise.Abstract Bangladesh, the second largest Muslim democracy in the world, presents an interesting case study of a secular state for Muslim majority countries in other parts of the world. Bangladesh presents the hope that, in theory, a Muslim majority developing country can have a functional democracy. Nevertheless, the temptation of using religion for political ends remains ever present. Secularism was one of the four tenets in Bangladeshs Constitution of 1972. However, with a changing political situation at home and the appearance of political Islam abroad, the secular basis became increasingly problematic. The article examines tensions between secularist and Islamist forces in Bangladesh over time. It asks the question to what extent, if at all, the ‘Bangladesh model’ is relevant for other Muslim majority countries trying to democratise.

Globalization, Glocalization, or Global Studies: What's in a Name?

It is only in the concluding section of a painstaking article on the life and time of global studies that Nederveen Pieterse comes to make peace with the competing terminologies and says: ‘The issu...

Globalization and State Autonomy in Singapore

This paper revisits the concept of state autonomy in the context of globalization. Earlier literature either considered state autonomy from the social forces in broad institutional and cultural terms or from the dominant classes in a restrictive sense. However, in either case the focus remained on domestic/national society, not the global society. The discussion of relative autonomy of the state began among the Marxists in the 1970s and then graduated into the mainstream social sciences in the 1980s and 1990s. In the upshot, the notions of developmental state and the embedded autonomy have significantly added to our knowledge of the role of the state. This paper broadens the idea of embedded autonomy by locating the sources of embeddedness in both local as well global institutions and norms. The paper uses the Singapore case to illustrate some of the possibilities and limitations of the reconfigured role of the state in the face of globalization.

Modern Law, Traditional ‘Shalish’ and Civil Society Activism in Bangladesh

This chapter examines problems of legal pluralism in Bangladesh by focusing on shalish, the informal dispute resolution and mediation often involving women and their various alleged transgressions of moral conduct. It deals with the efforts of civil society organizations in Bangladesh in general, with specific focus on the Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), a legal aid organization and an important member of the civil society organizations in Bangladesh, to flesh out confrontations between formal law and informal law, rationalization of public life, and the interface between state and civil society and between civil society and traditional rural society. This chapter also explores whether shalish, as an alternative dispute resolution, has a place in the judicial system of Bangladesh. The chapter deals with the challenges and promises of effective implementation of alternative dispute resolution, and problems of indigenization of the adjudication process in conformity with the ideals of a modern judicial system, i.e., neutrality, fairness and equality.

Social transformation, development and globalization

This article presents the various theoretical approaches to the study of social transformation and sociology of development since the emergence of this sub-field in sociology. In discussing various par - adigms of social change and social transformation, the article questions the Eurocentric assumptions of a seemingly linear trajectory. In summarizing the developments in the field of sociology of development, this article synthesizes various theoretical strands such as modernization theories, dependency and world- systems theories, and globalization and multiple modernity theories.

Cultural Conflicts, Fundamentalisms, and Globalization

More than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the King of Swaziland’s 13th wife yesterday in a ceremony which critics say ill befits a country with the world’s highest HIV/Aids rate. King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, arrived dressed in a leopard-skin loincloth to watch the Reed Dance ceremony, which he has used since 1999 to pluck new brides from the girls dressed in little more than beaded mini-skirts. . . . the girls danced around the royal stadium in the hope of catching the eye of the 37-year-old monarch. ‘I want to live a nice life, have money, be rich, have a BMW and cellphone,’ said one dancer, 16-year-old Zodwa Mamba, who wore a traditional brightly coloured tasselled scarf. Critics say Mswati, who has courted controversy for his lavish lifestyle while two thirds of his subjects live in abject poverty, sets a bad example by encouraging polygamy and teenage sex in a country where 40 per cent of adults live with HIV. . . . ‘The Reed Dance has been abused for one man’s personal satisfaction,’ Mario Masuku, leader of the banned opposition party, said. ‘The king has a passion for young women and opulence.’ But many Swazis say the young monarch has a right to do as he pleases, defending his penchant for young brides as Swazi tradition and arguing that ceremonies like the Reed Dance, which this year drew a record 50,000 maidens, cement national identity. ‘The king takes a wife whenever he wants and that’s the way it is. This is our culture and we will never change,’ said Tsandzile Ndluva, 21, another dancer. (The Washington Times, 30 August 2005, emphases added)

Making Sociology Universal: Revisiting the Contributions of Syed Hussein Alatas

This chapter examines two related problems: first, the discourse of corruption as a social problem, and secondly, certain problems of agenda-setting in sociology, which continues to be dominated by Anglo-American sectarian and national interests. The chapter calls for making sociology truly universal as an academic discipline. An understanding of such questions as to why corruption remains largely outside the purview of sociology and how sociological agendas are set can be found in the works of Syed Hussein Alatas, a prominent Southeast Asian sociologist. Alatas examined the subject of corruption as far back as the 1950s. Sociology of corruption as a sub-field failed to take off despite the ubiquity of this phenomenon. In recent years, a number of new books, including an updated version of Alatas’s book, have been published. Studies of corruption remain very much a prerogative of political scientists and public policy experts. Economists see corruption as a market-distorting externality and treat it as a peripheral subject. Gunnar Myrdal, who was an exception, in his Asian Drama identified the problem of corruption as a serious bottleneck for Asian development. The problem still persists forty years after Myrdal’s analysis. In a number of countries in the developing world, corruption has become a part of the fabric of society. Yet sociological theorization and empirical studies are lacking. This chapter examines corruption both as a social problem as well as an indicator of the “corruption of sociology” for which we can draw from the writings of Alatas, especially his notion of “captive mind” and the absence of intellectual autonomy on the part of Third World sociologists.

Glocalization, consumption, and cricket: The Indian Premier League

With India’s robust, neo-liberal economic growth and the growing buying power of the Indian consumers, cricket, a popular sport in India, too, has been transformed. Indian Premier League is a short-format, high-value cricket league that features major international cricket stars who come to India to join one of the eight franchised teams that take part in this competitive tournament. Using the sociological framework of glocalization, this article argues that the intersection of the global economic forces and the local culture that celebrates cricket has created a glocal space for its performance, and with the mediation of communication technology, it has widened the viewership globally. Infused with Indian money, motifs, and meanings, a new spectacle of consumption is on offer. The emergent consumer culture has transformed the game itself, adding a showbiz quality to it. Through the analysis of Indian Premier League cricket, this article sheds light on the consequences of cultural globalization, at once homogenizing and heterogenizing, an essential characteristic of glocalization.