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With the death of John McCracken in 2017, Malawi lost a pre-eminent historian. This book celebrates McCrackens contribution to the study of Malawis history and seeks to build on his legacy. Part of his genius was that he identified themes that hold the key to understanding the history of Malawi in its broader perspective. The authors contributing to this volume address these themes, assessing the progress of historiography and setting an agenda for the further advance of historical studies. The book is a valuable resource for students, researchers and all who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of Malawis past and present.
First published in 1977 and now in its third edition, this book has been recognised as one of the most successful studies to be made of the impact of a Christian mission in Africa. Starting with a survey of the economy and society of Malawi in the mid ninetieth century, the book goes on to examine the home background to the Livingstonia Mission of the Free Church of Scotland and the influence of David Livingstone upon it. It then describes the failure of 'commerce and Christianity' around the south end of Lake Malawi and the subsequent positive response which the mission evoked among the people of Northern Malawi. African responses and the relationship between Christianity and politics dominate the second half of the book. Comprehensive reassessments are made of the origins of the Watch Tower movement; the growth of Christian independence and the character of interpolitical associations. This revised edition includes a new introduction, and up-dated bibliography, and some revised text.
This study is one of the outputs of a three-year study of the institutional context of the 2004 elections in Malawi. Comprehensive coverage is given of the main concepts, institutions and mechanisms of government and politics in Malawi. The study combines a historical perspective with current developments, covering: Conceputal and Contextual Background; The Constitution; the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary; Local Government; Elections; Political Parties; The Media; Civil Society; Trade Unions; Public Sector Reform; Public Policymaking; Foreign Policy and International Relations. The sixteen contributors are linked to political science institutions in Malawi and Norway. Dr. Nandini Patel is a political scientist, formerly a Senior Lecturer at Chancellor College, University of Malawi. Lars Svasand is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen.
Notes -- References -- 9 Bangladesh: Muslim Identity, Secularism, and the Politics of Nationalism -- Identity Politics -- Linguistic Construction of Identity -- Religious Construction of Identity -- A Fragile Systhesis? -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Conclusion -- References -- Index
Religion and democracy can make tense bedfellows. Secular elites may view religious movements as conflict-prone and incapable of compromise, while religious actors may fear that anticlericalism will drive religion from public life. Yet such tensions are not inevitable: from Asia to Latin America, religious actors coexist with, and even help to preserve, democracy. In Faithful to Secularism, David T. Buckley argues that political institutions that encourage an active role for public religion are a key part in explaining this variation. He develops the concept of "benevolent secularism" to describe institutions that combine a basic division of religion and state with extensive room for participation of religious actors in public life. He traces the impact of benevolent secularism on religious and secular elites, both at critical junctures in state formation and as politics evolves over time. Buckley shows how religious and secular actors build credibility and shared norms over time, and explains how such coalitions can endure challenges from both religious revivals and periods of anticlericalism. Faithful to Secularism tests this institutional theory in Ireland, Senegal, and the Philippines, using a blend of archival, interview, and public opinion data. These case studies illustrate how even countries with an active religious majority can become and remain faithful to secularism.
This is the first attempt to comprehend the whole of Malawi's church history in a single volume. The focus of this book is about documenting the religious experience which was at the centre of founding the new nation of Malawi as we have come to know it. The book strikes a balance in covering issues pertaining to both mission activities and African agency. In many instances interesting pieces of evidence have been marshalled to corroborate or emphasize some of the conclusions reached.
Religious concerns stand at the center of international politics, yet key paradigms in international relations, namely realism, liberalism, and constructivism, barely consider religion in their analysis of political subjects. The essays in this collection rectify this. Authored by leading scholars, they introduce models that integrate religion into the study of international politics and connect religion to a rising form of populist politics in the developing world. Contributors identify religion as pervasive and distinctive, forcing a reframing of international relations theory that reinterprets traditional paradigms. One essay draws on both realism and constructivism in the examination of religious discourse and transnational networks. Another positions secularism not as the opposite of religion but as a comparable type of worldview drawing on and competing with religious ideas. With the secular state's perceived failure to address popular needs, religion has become a banner for movements that demand a more responsive government. The contributors to this volume recognize this trend and propose structural and theoretical innovations for future advances in the discipline.
The culmination of years of fieldwork in southern Malawi, River of Blood reconstructs the beginnings of the Mbona martyr cult, follows its history to the present day, and reveals the fascinating intersections of an indigenous belief system with European Christianity. In the cult of Mbona, the central African mythology of the snake that is beheaded to make the rains come has been combined with a more spiritual interpretation: the snake has been transformed into a human martyr and redeemer. According to the cult, the rainmaker Mbona was tracked down by his enemies; they cut off his head, and his blood formed the River of Blood. Mbona returned as a storm wind and asked that a shrine be dedicated in his name. J. Matthew Schoffeleers recounts how the Portuguese presence in Zambezia in the period 1590-1622 led to more than three decades of internecine warfare and caused the people of southern Malawi tremendous suffering. In response to this political oppression and social upheaval, Schoffeleers shows, the people looked to Mbona, their "black Jesus," for redemption. Beyond reconstructing the cult's genesis, Schoffeleers traces its recent history, particularly in political context. He provides texts of seven cult myths from different historical periods in both Chimang'anja and English. His analysis presents the Mbona myth as a continuous social construction and deconstruction. Emphasizing the impact of political and spiritual oppression on the cult, he distinguishes between the differing versions of the myth preserved by the aristocracy and by the commonalty and demonstrates how these disparate views unite to preserve historical information. In so doing, he shows that cults serve as valuable repositories for historical information.
Since the 1979 revolution, scholars and policy makers alike have tended to see Iranian political actors as religiously driven—dedicated to overturning the international order in line with a theologically prescribed outlook. This provocative book argues that such views have the link between religious ideology and political order in Iran backwards. Religious Statecraft examines the politics of Islam, rather than political Islam, to achieve a new understanding of Iranian politics and its ideological contradictions. Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar traces half a century of shifting Islamist doctrines against the backdrop of Iran’s factional and international politics, demonstrating that religious narratives in Iran can change rapidly, frequently, and dramatically in accordance with elites’ threat perceptions. He argues that the Islamists’ gambit to capture the state depended on attaining a monopoly over the use of religious narratives. Tabaar explains how competing political actors strategically develop and deploy Shi’a-inspired ideologies to gain credibility, constrain political rivals, and raise mass support. He also challenges readers to rethink conventional wisdom regarding the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, the U.S. embassy hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq War, the Green Movement, nuclear politics, and U.S.–Iran relations. Based on a micro-level analysis of postrevolutionary Iranian media and recently declassified documents as well as theological journals and political memoirs, Religious Statecraft constructs a new picture of Iranian politics in which power drives Islamist ideology.