http://hdl.handle.net/2144/905 2013-05-16T01:57:38Z 2013-05-16T01:57:38Z Tewarie, Pradyuman http://hdl.handle.net/2144/5450 2013-05-15T06:02:04Z 2013-05-14T00:00:00Z

State power and the Colonial Mindset: Defining state legitimacy in postcolonial South Asia Tewarie, Pradyuman Abstract: This paper will argue that the way in which the Pakistani and Indian states have legitimized their rule over the past sixty year is influenced by the legacy British colonialism. This case is made by analyzing and contrasting the way pre-colonial empires legitimized their rule to the British Raj. This investigation has shown that the pre-colonial empires were accompanied by an ideology that sought legitimacy exclusively through the furthering of Dharma. Dharma in the context of state power meant the promotion of “good governance” that was specifically contingent on the fulfillment by the ruler of basic forms of citizenship rights. Absent in these pre-historic documents was an emphasis on “divine rights” or “absolutist” rule that was accorded to state authorities. As such, the administrative structures in India’s pre-colonial empires were highly decentralized and boasted many measures of checks-and-balances on the power wielded by the state. On the contrary, the British ruled India through an ideology that was tinted with a Euro-centric, racialist lens. This had the effect of delegitimizing the previous form of Indian rule and promoting a political culture in which post-enlightenment ideas founded on the premises of a powerful and coercive unitary state were imported to replace the pre-colonial political system of layered and shared power. But there was embargo on the export of rights of citizens of sovereign states to Europe’s colonies. This distortion of in ideas of state power and citizenship rights has had fundamental implications in post-colonial South Asia, resulting in a crisis of political legitimization that has plagued the Indian and Pakistani state for the past 60 years. Since this analysis has shown how ideas and discourse can affect the way states legitimize their rule, this paper concludes by arguing that the path to progress for both nations lies in undergoing an ideational shift in the way the states have legitimized their rule.

2013-05-14T00:00:00Z Ammerman, Nancy T. http://hdl.handle.net/2144/5449 2013-05-10T06:00:33Z 2013-06-01T00:00:00Z

Spiritual but not Religious?: Beyond Binary Choices in the Study of Religion Ammerman, Nancy T. "Spirituality" has often been framed in social science research as an alternative to organized "religion," implicitly or explicitly extending theoretical arguments about the privatization of religion. This article uses in-depth qualitative data from a religiously-diverse U.S. sample to argue that this either-or distinction not only fails to capture the empirical reality of American religion, but it does not do justice to the complexity of spirituality itself. An inductive discursive analysis reveals four primary cultural "packages," that is, ways in which the meaning of spirituality is constructed in conversation -- a Theistic Package that ties spirituality to personal deities, an Extra-Theistic Package that locates spirituality in various naturalistic forms of transcendence, an Ethical Spirituality that focuses on everyday compassion, and a contested Belief and Belonging Spirituality tied to cultural notions of religiosity. Spirituality is, then, neither a diffuse individualized phenomenon nor a single cultural alternative to "religion." Analysis of the contested evaluations of Belief and Belonging Spirituality allows a window on the "moral boundary work" (Lamont 1992) being done by the cultural discourse of being "spiritual but not religious." The empirical boundary between spirituality and religion is far more porous than the moral and political one. This is a postprint (author's final draft) version of an article to be published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion in June 2013. The final version of this article will be found at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1468-5906 (login may be required). The version made available in OpenBU was supplied by the author. PLEASE NOTE: per publisher rules, the text of the article is embargoed until twelve months after publication. If it's after June 1, 2014, and the article is still not available for download, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu.

2013-06-01T00:00:00Z Rutenberg, Rebecca http://hdl.handle.net/2144/5447 2013-05-08T06:02:55Z 2013-05-07T00:00:00Z

Running in Heels: Evaluating Women Candidates for Office in the Age of Appearance Rutenberg, Rebecca

2013-05-07T00:00:00Z Ridley-Kerr, Abby http://hdl.handle.net/2144/5446 2013-05-08T06:02:50Z 2013-05-07T00:00:00Z

Education through Engagement and Empowerment: The Impact of An Action Civics Program on Student Academic Engagement Outcomes Ridley-Kerr, Abby There has been relatively little research on the effectiveness of civic engagement programs at promoting student achievement. This thesis attempts to provide some context for the potential of civic engagement programs like Generation Citizen. It examines the link between student participation and attendance and student achievement for those students enrolled in the Generation Citizen program. It builds on previous academic studies around absenteeism and student participation to determine more conclusively the potential benefits of civic engagement programs on student academic achievement.

2013-05-07T00:00:00Z