Search

Byline: Niels Spierings (1,2), Jeroen Smits (2), Mieke Verloo (1) Keywords: Democracy; Islam; Women's labor market participation; Modernization Abstract: Although the Muslim world is sometimes depicted as a homogeneous civilization lacking democracy and gender equality, Muslim countries show tremendous economic, political and cultural variation. In this paper, this variation is used to gain insight into the determinants of women's labor market participation (LMP) in the Muslim world. We use data on 45 Muslim countries and apply SEM models to determine effects of modernization, democracy, cultural background, and state Islamization on women's participation in the formal economy (absolute LMP) and on the share of women in the labor force (relative LMP). Women's absolute LMP is higher in Muslim countries with higher levels of economic development and in the oil-exporting countries. For women's relative LMP, practical democracy (the degree to which people actively participate in the system) takes in a key position. It has a strong positive effect on women's relative LMP and mediates the effects of economic development (positive), formal democratic structures (positive) and state Islamization (negative) on women's relative LMP. Results indicate that in these countries modernization may lead to empowerment of women by increasing their absolute LMP, but that for attaining gender equality the political opportunity structures is most important. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Political Science, Institute of Management Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9108, 6500 HK, Nijmegen, The Netherlands (2) Department of Economics, Institute of Management Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands Article History: Registration Date: 29/05/2008 Received Date: 07/02/2008 Accepted Date: 27/05/2008 Online Date: 27/08/2008

The harem has not been properly historicized. It has suffered from the timelessness of the Orient that Edward Said discussed in Orientalism, that is the Orient as a zone of [...]

Accounting for accounting demands renewed attention to the knowledge practices of the accounting profession and anthropological analysis. Using data and theory from Islamic accountancy in Indonesia and the global network of Islamic financial engineers, this article challenges work on accounting's rhetorical functions by attending to the inherent reflexivity of accounting practice and the practice of accounting for accounting. Such a move is necessary because critical accounting scholarship mirrors, and has been taken up by, Islamic accountancy debates around the form of accounting knowledge. The article explores the work that accounting literature shoulders in carving up putatively stable domains of the technical and rhetorical, and makes a case for a reappreciation of the techniques for creating anthropological knowledge in the light of new cultures of accounting. Rendre compte de la comptabilite exige que l'on accorde une attention renouvelee aux pratiques du savoir de la profession comptable et de l'analyse anthropologique. En me servant de donnees et de theories tirees de la comptabilite islamique en Indonesie et du reseau global d'ingenieurs financiers islamiques, cet article remet en cause le travail fait sur les fonctions rhetoriques de la comptabilite en portant l'attention sur la reflexivite inherente tant a la pratique comptable qu'a la pratique comptable a l'egard de la comptabilite. Une telle demarche est necessaire car les etudes critiques sur la comptabilite ont ete relevees par les debats islamiques sur la forme des savoirs comptables, autant qu'elles en sont le reflet. Cet article examine le travail que la litterature comptable endorse en decoupant des domaines putativement stables du technique et du rhetorique, et il presente des arguments en faveur d'une reevaluation des techniques utilisees pour creer le savoir anthropologique a la lumiere des nouvell es cultures comptables., Accounting and the form of anthropological knowledge Scholars across the disciplines seem to agree that it is time for a new accounting of accounting. For sociologists Carruthers and Espeland (1991), [...]

Low socioeconomic status of women is often linked to their relegation to familial roles. This tendency is particularly evident, in, but certainly not limited to Islamic societies. A combination of […]

AfghanistanEs discussion on future policy related to narcotics is highlighted. The key issues would be creation of a new, permanent state to replace the transitional Islamic state of Afghanistan and to tackle the country's continuing role as a global supplier of opiates.

The vengeful abuse of women by husbands and other sexual partners and by male kin and male in-laws that persists worldwide is discussed. The historical roots of heat-of-passion crimes and honor killings in Islam per se are described by Mathew Goldstein.

When I planned my two weeks trip to Tunisia earlier this month, I envisioned peaceful, eventless visits to the old palaces, domed mosques and minarets, the country's medinas (old cities [...]