Praise for the first edition: "... this masterful and concise volume overviews the range of approaches social scientists have applied to explain events in the Third World." --Journal of Developing Areas Understanding Third World Politics is a comprehensive, critical introduction to political development and comparative politics in the non-Western world today. Beginning with an assessment of the shared factors that seem to determine underdevelopment, B. C. Smith introduces the major theories of development--development theory, modernization theory, neo-colonialism, and dependency theory--and examines the role and character of key political organizations, political parties, and the military in determining the fate of developing nations. This new edition gives special attention to the problems and challenges faced by developing nations as they become democratic states by addressing questions of political legitimacy, consensus building, religion, ethnicity, and class.

Examines and analyzes the position of Islam and Christianity, the two global religions, within the context of Third World political change from the 1970s. The book addresses the topic in a thematic focus, and draws parallels between religions, cultures, political systems and geographical areas.

Examines developing countries from social, cultural, political, and economic viewpoints, exploring the factors contributing to the presence or absence of democratic institutions

This book is a welcome new edition, which completely updates and revises the very popular first edition, Politics and Society in the Third World. Mehran Kamrava has brought the book in line with the major changes in global politics, and the politics and social issues of the developing world. The book examines key issues such as democratisation: civil society organisations and NGOs, 'political society', state collapse, democratic bargains and transition, consolidation and problems of legitimacy, elections, multi-party politics; industrial development; dependency theory and globalisation; the roles of the IMF and the World Bank, the GATT and other multinational institutions; urbanisation; social change; the increasing influence of western values, capital and institutions; urbanisation; social change; the increasing influence of western values, capital and institutions; political culture: its role and impact in newly democratic developing countries; revolution; and gives more examples from Africa, East Asia and rural societies.

This fully revised edition offers a comprehensive overview of the many theories of religion and politics and provides students with an accessible, in-depth guide to the subject’s most significant debates, issues, and methodologies. It begins by asking the basic questions of how social scientists see religion and why religion remains relevant to politics in the modern era. Fox examines the influence of religious identity, beliefs, institutions and legitimacy on politics, and surveys important approaches and issues found in the literature on religion and politics. Four new chapters on religious policy around the world, political secularism, and religious freedom and human rights have been added to fully revised content covering religious identity, rational choice approaches to religious politics worldviews, beliefs, doctrines, ideologies, institutions and political mobilization, fundamentalism, secularization, and religion and conflict. This work will be essential reading for all students of religion and politics, comparative politics, international relations, and security studies.

This title was first published in 2003. This subject area of this work cross-cuts conventional sub-disciplinary boundaries in the study of comparative politics. Connections between religion and and politics can be identified in all of the thematic areas covered by the articles within.

This book examines the highly politicized religious groups and movements that have surfaced since the late 1970s in the United States, Central America, South Africa, the Philippines, India, and the Middle East. Sahliyeh and others analyze this trend toward the politicization of religious conservatism and question a number of assumptions central to concepts of modernization. For example, it has been assumed by development theorists that the interrelated components of modernization would enhance the trend toward secularization of societies. This book shows that in many societies today religious revivalism and fundamentalism seem to be direct products of modernization. A global, comparative approach is utilized to formulate general explanations for religious revivalism and its implications for modernization, development, and politics.

The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems – both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.