Search Results (102)

(1) Background: This article aims to understand the forms and elements through which the inhabitants of the city of Medellin have configured their subjectivity in the context of the application of neoliberal policies in the last two decades. In this way, we can approach the frameworks of understanding that constitute a fundamental part of the individuation processes in which the incorporation of their subjectivities is evidenced in neoliberal contexts that, in the historical process, have been converging with authoritarian, antidemocratic and neoconservative elements. (2) Method: A qualitative approach with a hermeneutic-interpretative paradigm was used. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 41 inhabitants of Medellín who were politically identified with right-wing or center-right positions. Data analysis included thematic coding to identify patterns of thought and points of view. (3) Results: Participants associate success with individual effort and see state intervention as an obstacle to development. They reject redistributive policies, arguing that they generate dependency. In addition, they justify authoritarian models of government in the name of security and progress, from a moral superiority, which is related to a negative and stigmatizing perception of progressive sectors and a negative view of the social rule of law and public policies with social sense. (4) Conclusions: The naturalization of merit as a guiding principle, the perception of themselves as morally superior based on religious values that grant a subjective place of certainty and goodness; the criminalization of expressions of political leftism, mobilizations and redistributive reforms and support for policies that establish authoritarianism and perpetuate exclusion and structural inequalities, closes roads to a participatory democracy that enables social and economic transformations. Full article

This article explores Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī’s political thought in relation to modern debates on secularism and Islamic reform. While often invoked by Islamist thinkers to support their anti-secular stance, al-Afghānī’s reflections on reason, religion, and constitutional politics show that he engaged with modernity in a more nuanced way than is commonly recognized. This article examines al-Afghānī’s writings and their reception. It argues that his thought was not about choosing a side between religion and secularism. Instead, his thought is better understood as a pragmatic anti-colonial strategy aimed at the revival of Muslim civilization. This reframing challenges the widely cited genealogical narrative that links him to later Islamists. His attempt to reconcile religious traditions with the imperative for reform provides valuable insights into the responses of Muslim reformers to modernity—insights that remain highly relevant today. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed critical deficiencies in the United States’ legal system’s handling of emergency injunctions, particularly concerning religious freedom. This article examines the challenges courts faced in balancing public health measures with constitutional rights, focusing on the use of shadow dockets and the frequent dismissal of cases due to mootness. Analyzing key Supreme Court decisions and lower court rulings, we highlight the inconsistencies and delays that arose when addressing First Amendment challenges to pandemic-related restrictions. Arguments for procedural reforms, including expedited hearings and avoiding mootness dismissals in cases of national importance, are provided to protect fundamental rights during future public health crises. Full article

Environmental sustainability constitutes a strategic priority for Germany, with the circular economy serving a crucial function in its realization. Circular practices foster sustainable development by decreasing reliance on finite resources, minimizing waste, and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The circular economy provides ecological advantages and strengthens economic resilience through the promotion of innovation, enhancement of supply chain efficiency, and creation of green jobs. Complementary measures, including the preservation of natural capital, the enactment of structural economic reforms, and the implementation of environmental taxes, enhance sustainability objectives. Ecosystem conservation enhances carbon absorption, structural changes facilitate low-emission industries, and environmental taxes incorporate environmental costs. In contrast, industrial activity continues to be a significant contributor to GHG emissions, necessitating policy examination. This study analyzes the relationships between the circular economy, natural capital, structural change, environmental taxation, and industrial activities on GHG emissions in Germany from the first quarter of 2010 to the fourth quarter of 2022. The study employs wavelet coherence analysis (WCA), fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS), and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), demonstrating that circular economy practices, natural capital, structural changes, and environmental taxes significantly reduce GHG emissions. Conversely, industrial activities continually elevate GHG emissions in Germany. Moreover, WCA further reveals the time–frequency dynamics and co-movement patterns between key variables and GHG emissions, enabling the detection of both short-term and long-term dependencies. The results indicate that enhancing environmental sustainability in Germany could be effectively achieved by mandating the integration of recycled materials within key industrial sectors to improve environmental sustainability, which would help lower resource extraction and related GHG emissions. Full article

Objective: This study explores the impact of public policies that promote social equity and rights to nature on subjective well-being (SWB). The focus is on how sustainability policies, particularly environmental protection and poverty reduction, have influenced life satisfaction in Ecuador. Design/methodology/approach: The research uses ordinal logistic regression models to analyze data from Ecuador’s National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment. Life satisfaction is the dependent variable, while independent variables include income, education, job satisfaction, concern for the environment, and regional differences. The analysis covers data from 2007 and 2014, representing periods before and after Ecuador’s 2008 constitutional reform. This highlights the study’s temporal focus on changes in subjective well-being. Findings: The results indicate that implementing public social investment policies increases life satisfaction, particularly in regions such as the Coast. After the policy was implemented, income, higher education, job satisfaction, and concern for the environment were associated with higher levels of subjective well-being. However, disparities persist, with lower life satisfaction among Indigenous groups, women, the elderly, and those living in poverty. Originality/value: This study provides valuable insights into the relationship between sustainable policies and subjective well-being, highlighting Ecuador’s unique constitutional framework. It offers lessons for other developing nations seeking to balance social equity, economic growth, and environmental sustainability to improve overall quality of life. Full article

As described in several recent studies, the appropriation of the concept “religion 宗教” in modern Japan made “Buddhism 仏教” enter a transformation process that led, ultimately, to the reimagining of its very content; according to historian of religions Isomae Junichi, one of these elements was, for instance, an emphasis on “belief” to the detriment of “practice”. However, in terms of Buddhism’s reframing into the category of “religion”, we should also pay attention to the construction of the idea of “superstition 迷信”, which appears during this time as a concept relative to “belief” or “faith”. Often considered the epitome of this belief-centered version of the dharma, the so-called New Buddhism movement (shinbukkyō undō 新仏教運動) that occurred in the turn of the 20th century played a fundamental role in establishing the concept of “superstition”. This paper focuses on Sakaino Kōyō (境野黄洋 1871–1933), a pioneer of Chinese Buddhist studies in modern Japan and one of the main leaders of the movement. In order to explore the intellectual context that gave birth to such reformist efforts, I explore his ideas during the later 1890s, a period in which he was dedicated to differentiating “belief” from “superstition”. During this time, he emphasized the eradication of “superstition”, arguing that it constituted an unsound element both socially and intellectually. Sakaino offered the idea of “poetical Buddhism” (shiteki bukkyō 詩的仏教), a method for interpreting scripture in general, and segments thereof contemporarily regarded as “superstitious” specifically. This paper situates Sakaino’s contributions to Buddhist reform—analyzed through historical and hermeneutical methods and influenced by liberal Christian theology—within the global discourse on religion and science, while critically examining how his reinterpretations navigated tensions between modern rationality and the preservation of Buddhist truth in Meiji Japan. Full article

Contrary to popular notions of a perpetual antagonism between ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Islam’, played out on Indian soil over the centuries, this article examines the relatively recent origins of a Hindu–Muslim conflict in South Asia, situating it in the reconfigurations of ‘religion’ and religious identity that occurred under British colonial rule in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The multivalent and somewhat fluid categories of religious identification found in pre-modern India gave way to much more rigid and oppositional modern and colonial epistemic categories. While much has been written on how colonial policies and incipient Hindu and Muslim nationalisms shaped the contours of modern Hindu–Muslim conflict, little work has been done on the important role religious actors like Muslim and Hindu scholars and reformers played in shaping the discourse around what constituted Hinduism and Islam, and the relationship between the two, in the modern period. This study examines the first-known public theological debates between a Hindu scholar and a Muslim scholar, respectively, Swami Dayānanda Sarasvatī (1824–1883), founder of the reformist Arya Samaj and first exponent of a Hindu polemic against other religions, and Mawlānā Muḥammad Qāsim Nānautvī (1832–1880), co-founder of the seminary at Deoband and an important exponent of Islamic theological apologetics in modern South Asia, and how they helped shape oppositional modern Hindu and Muslim religious theologies. A key argument that Nānautvī contended with was Dayānanda’s claim that Islam is idolatrous, based on the contention that Muslims worship the Ka’ba, and thus, it is not a monotheistic religion, Hinduism alone being so. The terms of this debate show how polemics around subjects like monotheism and idolatry introduced by Christian missionaries under colonial rule were internalized, as were broader colonial epistemic categories, and developed a life of their own amongst Indians themselves, thus resulting in new oppositional religious identities, replacing more complex and nuanced interactions between Muslims and followers of Indian religions in the pre-modern period. Full article

The Sufi dimension is usually underestimated within the debate on Islam and modernity as well as in discussions about resistance to Western ideas within contemporary Islamic culture. In contrast, Islamic modernism is often defined as the result of a coherent process of modernization and reform, which stems from cultural confrontation with European Western thought and is accelerated by certain key historical events between the 19th and 20th centuries. This modernization, in the last decades of the 19th century, led to the emergence of a cultural Arab renaissance, known as naḥḍa, and a religious reform, iṣlāḥ; both are strongly influenced by modern Western thought. At the opposite end of this current of thought is the perspective of Sīdī Salāma al-Rāḍī, who denounced the damage that the scientistic view of Western origin was doing to Egyptian culture. His most important work, from this point of view, is an untranslated book entitled al-Insāniyya (“Humanity”), in which the author criticizes, from a traditional perspective, the biochemical, medical, evolutionary, and spiritualist conceptions of the physical, psychic, and spiritual constitution of the human being. The general tenor of this work is highly critical of modern Western civilization and represents an attempt to propose a traditional Islamic viewpoint, which is of extreme interest due to its uniqueness. Al-Insāniyya highlights a topic rarely addressed in academic literature on early twentieth-century Sufism: the involvement of a Sufi master in the dialogue between Western modernity and the Sufi Islamic tradition. This reveals a historical framework in which the Sufis of Cairo’s cosmopolitan environment, while mastering scientistic themes, reject modernity in favor of a classical Sufi vision of evolution understood as an initiatory path of spiritual perfection. Full article

The ongoing existence of health disparities in marginalized communities in India can be attributed to social health determinants such as poverty, caste, gender, and limited access to education and healthcare. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, an iconic figure in Indian social reform and the driving force behind the Indian Constitution, acknowledged the significance of the social determinants of health influencing health outcomes. This paper explores Dr. Ambedkar’s vision of addressing health disparities, with a focus on his contributions to public health policy and the promotion of social justice. Additionally, it analyses the ongoing perpetuation of inequality through the examination of social determinants of health and explores how Ambedkar’s vision can provide guidance for present public health strategies. The analysis highlights the importance of strong primary healthcare systems, recognizing universal healthcare as an essential human right through the vision of Dr. Ambedkar. It also advocates for greater government funding and policy coordination to effectively tackle health disparities. Full article

Being considered a driver of economic growth as well as social participation and inclusion, skill development and vocational education and training (VET) policies constitute possible solutions to present challenges and ongoing problems. Therefore, VET has been the distinct subject of attempts toward development and improvement over time. For more than two decades, VET reforms have been a specific focus of Indian educational governance. However, in the subcontinent, reform initiatives have only partially succeeded in terms of their successful and sustainable implementation. This paper investigates promoting and inhibiting factors for vocational education and training policy implementation in Indian skill ecosystems. Taking the example of bottom-up policy implementation in the form of the Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship (MGNF) programme, factors that affect the VET policy initiative are identified, based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Through a comprehensive questionnaire administered to a sample of 63 graduates of the programme, their perceptions on key implementation challenges regarding the local policy context, stakeholder cooperation, and institutional as well as implementer capacity were identified. The findings point to areas of further focus for policymakers for the effective implementation of VET initiatives while at the same time adding theoretical contributions to understanding and evaluating VET initiatives. Full article

The Holy See is an absolute monarchy, both as a political and as a spiritual entity. The Second Vatican Council indicated, retrieving biblical terms and metaphors, a new way of giving value to the whole people of God, the laity (laos theou), constituted by baptism. Rather than a societas perfecta in a pyramidal system, the intention was to declericalise and in this sense democratise the church and its decision-making, not least seeking to secure its witness in an ever more secular world. Even if a sacramental and ontological difference is maintained, this indicates clergy are no longer a first class of believers against which the laity would be a second class; rather, they are rooted and stand with and within the whole people of God with their specific vocation and ordination. The notion of the royal and universal priesthood of believers, taken from 1 Peter 2:9 and emphasised by Luther and other reformers as they distributed power between ordained and not ordained leaders, was visible in the Second Vatican Council and finds new enactment in the synodality process which culminated in the Ordinary Synod in Rome, in October 2024. Based on his own theology of the people of God, developed during the dictatorship and economic oppression in Argentina, with strong cultural and religious connotations, Pope Francis seeks to further major involvement of the laity and especially of women in the church’s administration and transformation processes. Not surprisingly, this process has been receiving criticism both from those who find it is not going far enough and from those who believe the process has already gone far too far. Based on bibliographical and documental research, the intention of this article is to describe and analyse the notion of the people of God as proposed by Pope Francis and its forms of concretisation including its deficiencies, as well as, in dialogue with ongoing debates on populism, highlight the precariousness of any “people” as a concept and as a reality. A dynamic notion of “people” and a theological accountability of the people and the clergy towards each other, towards God and towards the world can do justice to both the ambiguities and the irreplaceability of the people as citizens of the church as well as the world. Full article

Mariculture is a key practice to promote the supply-side reform of fishery, and it is of strategic significance to explore the causes and paths of its high-level development. Based on the TOE (Technology-Organization-Environment) theoretical framework and the configuration methodology, this paper adopts the dynamic qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) method and panel data from 10 coastal provinces and cities in China from 2013 to 2021 to explore the configuration effects of six antecedents, namely, the intensity of technology promotion, investment in scientific research, personnel specialization, industry intensification, nearshore water quality, and offshore pollution discharge, along temporal and spatial dimensions, on the level of mariculture development. The results show that (1) individual driving factors do not constitute the necessary conditions for a high level of mariculture industry development, but the necessity of the three conditions—research funding, industry intensification and nearshore seawater quality—shows a general increasing trend; and (2) the results of the path analysis show that a total of seven configuration paths for a high level of development are generated, which can be further classified into “organization-led and technology synergistic”, “technology-organization-environment multiple-driven type”, and “technology-environment dual-driven type”. Based on the panel data, this study explores the impact of spatial and temporal changes in factor combinations on the development level of mariculture and provides a theoretical basis and practical insights for the development of locally adapted execution pathways. Full article

In the aftermath of the 2003 Casablanca bombings, the Moroccan state emphasized, through official public discourse, the components that constitute “official Moroccan Islam” to combat extremist ideologies. These religious elements include Mālikism in jurisprudence, Ashʿarism in theology, and the Sufism of Imam Al-Junayd (d. 298/910), all balanced by the pledge of allegiance to King Mohammed VI (a descendant of the Sharifian lineage), the constitutionally designated Commander of the Faithful and sole religious leader. Since the reform policy initiated in 2004, the Moroccan state has constructed a narrative on the distinctiveness of Moroccan Islam—moderate and tolerant—and promoted it among its own citizens and beyond its borders. However, while the Moroccan state claims to have a unique form of Islam, controversial arguments have been raised questioning the nature of the state’s purported Islam. Other criticisms include investigating the state’s endorsement of Sufism and its broader policy of institutionalization. Yet, this article argues that the state supports any form of Islam, not necessarily Sufism, that aligns with its religious and political leadership. Like other Arab and Muslim states, Morocco’s religious policy is impacted by the global context, where Salafism is now perceived as a threat to established worldviews. In addition, this article argues that Morocco’s support for Sufi Islam is based not merely on its perceived political passivity, but because it complements the state’s policies and gains advantages from this support. It concludes that the official narrative of Moroccan Islam, which emphasizes a Sufi-oriented approach to counter extremism, is open to question, particularly given that Salafism was the state’s preferred form of Islam in post-colonial Morocco. This highlights the complex and often conflicting relationship between political actors and religious leaders in shaping Morocco’s religious discourse. Full article

François Hotman (1524–1590) was one of the leading Reformed jurisconsults of his time. Past research has stressed his innovative interpretations and practices in the study of Roman, feudal, and French constitutional law. Little has yet been said about his views on canon law, another fundamental legal body in Western history that experienced renewed intellectual scrutiny during the sixteenth century. This paper investigates some of Hotman’s early work on canon law, focusing on his legal–historical reconstruction of the early Church in De statu primitivae Ecclesiae (1553) and his contribution to a budding historical field in Catholic circles: conciliar history. Despite the general lack of interest in the history of councils on the part of some leading Protestant theologians (Luther, Calvin, Bullinger), Hotman clearly believed that the textual tradition of councils provided a prime example of sustained popish efforts to control and deform the historical narrative and the legal structure of the Church. Yet, although he seems to have worked on demonstrating just that over more than forty years, he never again voiced his views on the matter in a dedicated work. Comparing in its conclusion De statu primitivae Ecclesiae with Antitribonian, this paper suggests that, in parallel to his better known ‘complex of Tribonian’ (Pierre Mesnard), Hotman seems to have suffered from a ‘complex of Gratian’: the doctrinal unity and institutional accomplishments of the early Church, as represented by the first councils, may well have dazzled Hotman and kept him from writing some definitive work against Gratian. Full article

This study aims to develop a flow rule for evaluating the relaxation and redistribution of residual stresses during the post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) of hydroelectric runners made from low-carbon martensitic stainless steel (13Cr-4Ni composition). During the PWHT, austenite reforms in the filler metal and surrounding areas of the base metal near welded joints. The evolving inelastic strain rate with reformed austenite led to defining two distinct flow rules in the pure martensitic (α′) and austenitic (γ) phases. A linear rule of mixture was then applied to assess global effective stress based on the inelastic strain rate and current austenite fraction during the PWHT. A unified constitutive model incorporating drag stress and back stress, evolving with creep and plastic deformation mechanisms during the PWHT, described the stress–strain behavior. To validate this analysis, a third flow rule was determined in the 18% tempered austenitic microstructure, compared with the rule of mixture’s effective stress contribution from each phase on the inelastic strain rate. Isothermal constant strain rate tests in stabilized crystalline microstructures evaluated constants specific to their respective flow rules. This study demonstrates the stability of reformed austenite at elevated temperatures during slow cooling and its significant influence on the mechanical properties of 13Cr-4Ni steels. The effectiveness of estimating yield stress using the rule of mixture based on individual phase behaviors is also confirmed. Full article