Archive
Volume 4, Issue 1 (2013)
Geopolitics of the Islam World and world leadership in the post-Cold War geopolitical developments
Saeid Naji & Jayum A. Jawan
Clashes of the world's major civilizations and religions are still the main challenge in the post-Cold War geopolitical developments. This is in spite of attempts at reconciling them. In the post-Cold War scenario, there is the US attempt in order to sustain its world leadership. This is the main challenge in the post-Cold War and in this context the rise of the Muslim world has also been quite noticeable in giving the former the challenge to the claim of leadership. The important question here is whether the Islamic World with its disintegrated geopolitics will be able to offer a coherent leadership among many rivalries for the same leadership position. This paper attempts to study the hard and soft power resources of Islamic countries from the global geopolitical perspective in an attempt to situate the Islamic world in this leadership competition.
History of Media in Bengal: A Chronological Overview
Arani Basu
Attempts have been made to chronicle the journey of media in Bengal from the end of the 18th till today, with reference to the concomitant political changes that the state has faced along with. Whether vernacular or English, or print or electronic, media in Bengal has been in close association with the former's political affiliations and functioning. Therefore, this article would try to capture the evolution of media in the state of West Bengal, which was the Mecca of journalistic discourse right from the renaissance period, and still holds its relevance at the national level.
Understanding Contemporary Change. What is the "Global Systemic Shift" of our days - and how does it work? A seven-dimensional approach of reconstruction, analysis and foresight to address "post-ideological", "post-9/11" and
"post-Empire" complexity
Roland Benedikter
This piece, written as a question-answer dialogue in the (neo-)platonic tradition, investigates the current global systemic shift in an introductory and open manner. In order to identify the basic patterns of this shift, a seven-dimensional method of reconstruction, analysis and foresight is chosen. This method consists of the experimental inclusion of six basic discourse systems - or, in other terms, six macro-societal rationality types - which are those of 1) economics, 2) politics, 3) culture, 4) religion, 5) technology and 6) demography, into a multidisciplinary, complexely interwoven picture. The overall process of what is happening today is considered as the seventh, overarching dimension which is more than the sum of its parts and cannot thus be reduced to any of its constituent dimensions, nor to their specific interferences. In analyzing the interweavement of these basic logics of contemporary change by applying them to "symptomatic" cases, questions about the mechanisms and potential laws at work behind the curtains of the current phase of globalization are posited.
Reviews
Akira Suzuki (ed.): Cross-National Comparisons of Social Movement Unionism: Diver- sities of Labour Movement Revitalization in Japan, Korea and the United States.
A Review by Ercüment Çelik.
Aasha K. Mehta, Andrew Shepherd, Shashanka Bhide, Amitah Shah, Anand Kumar:
India Chronic Poverty Report: Towards Solutions and New Com- pacts in a Dynamic Context.
A Review by Gernot Saalmann.
