Politics and Power
Mahbubatur Rahman Ankhi
PPE: 9500 Introduction to Comparative Politics
Research Proposal: Protest, in the Name of Religion
Most of the religions, including Islam teach their followers how to live peacefully. If that is so, why have there been violent protests against the video, “Innocence of Muslim”? The most significant fact about this ongoing protest is that, people in some Muslim-majority countries are protesting violently and some are not. Why is there such difference? The violent protests in some Muslim majority countries suggest that the followers of Islam in these countries are outraged because their prophet was insulted horribly in the video, which is likely to be insulting to all Muslims. Is it the only reason to protest violently or there are other hidden reasons for this? Based on deductive reasoning and adopting an instrumentalist and institutionalist approach, I will argue that, groups are protesting violently in some Muslim majority countries to stay in power or to grab power in their domestic politics while other Muslim communities are not protesting also because of their own political interest. Also, weak political institutions are another important reason of the protest to be carried on. To test my hypotheses I will conduct interviews with protestors and non-protestors, leaders of the protests from countries where there were protests, as well as the politicians and leaders from Muslim majority countries where protests did not occur. I will also investigate the political and institutional landscape of countries where protests occurred and where they did not and present critical analysis of the relationships between these factors to support my hypotheses.
Before proceeding with this proposal, I will define some of the key terms I will use throughout the paper. First, it should be very clear what deductive reasoning is. According to Patrick O’ Neil (2010), deductive reasoning implies that “starting with a puzzle and from there generating some
PPE: 9500 Introduction to Comparative Politics
Research Proposal: Protest, in the Name of Religion
Most of the religions, including Islam teach their followers how to live peacefully. If that is so, why have there been violent protests against the video, “Innocence of Muslim”? The most significant fact about this ongoing protest is that, people in some Muslim-majority countries are protesting violently and some are not. Why is there such difference? The violent protests in some Muslim majority countries suggest that the followers of Islam in these countries are outraged because their prophet was insulted horribly in the video, which is likely to be insulting to all Muslims. Is it the only reason to protest violently or there are other hidden reasons for this? Based on deductive reasoning and adopting an instrumentalist and institutionalist approach, I will argue that, groups are protesting violently in some Muslim majority countries to stay in power or to grab power in their domestic politics while other Muslim communities are not protesting also because of their own political interest. Also, weak political institutions are another important reason of the protest to be carried on. To test my hypotheses I will conduct interviews with protestors and non-protestors, leaders of the protests from countries where there were protests, as well as the politicians and leaders from Muslim majority countries where protests did not occur. I will also investigate the political and institutional landscape of countries where protests occurred and where they did not and present critical analysis of the relationships between these factors to support my hypotheses.
Before proceeding with this proposal, I will define some of the key terms I will use throughout the paper. First, it should be very clear what deductive reasoning is. According to Patrick O’ Neil (2010), deductive reasoning implies that “starting with a puzzle and from there generating some