Project Directors: Miriam F. Elman (Political Science) and Madelaine
Adelman (School of Justice and Social Inquiry)
Project Overview
The Democracy in the Middle East Project (DIME) centers on
diverse aspects of religion and conflict in the Middle East,
with participating
faculty focusing on a series of interrelated and cross-disciplinary
questions:
- How has religion formed and informed the contested notion
of "democracy" in the Middle East?
- To what extent is the meaning of democracy shared across
national and state borders in the Middle East, and among
citizens, non-state actors and state agents?
- How might distinctions in the meaning and practice of democracy
in the Middle East be linked to local and global struggles
over the place of religion in the state and society?
- In turn, how might these struggles over religion's role
intensify conflicts over the meaning of democracy in the
Middle East?
- Will further gains in democracy, however varied and contested,
help to resolve religious conflicts in the Middle East
or diminish religiously-motivated violence?
The project (DIME) draws on the expertise of a multi- and transdisciplinary
group of scholars at Arizona State University (ASU) who consider
these timely and provocative questions in an effort to enrich
their respective and collective research agendas via submission
of both individual and multi-authored research manuscripts, and
single and collaborative grant applications. At the culmination
of the seed grant, this unique assembly of scholars will together
generate insights and responses to these critical questions that
will advance theoretical, methodological and pragmatic approaches
to the study of religion and conflict.
Faculty Participants
Miriam Elman (project director),
Associate Professor, Political Science
Madelaine Adelman (project director), Associate Professor,
School of Justice and Social Inquiry and Women Studies
Souad T. Ali, Assistant Professor
of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, Languages and Literatures
Abdullahi Gallab, Assistant Professor,
Religious Studies
Yoav Gortzak, Assistant Professor,
Political Science
Ramazan Kilinc, Graduate Student,
Political Science
Arieh Saposnik, Assistant Professor,
Languages and Literatures
Mark Woodward, Associate Professor,
Religious Studies
