The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (135 page)
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Authors: Iain McLean
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iron law of wages
A doctrine imputed by
Marx
to the German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–64) and vituperatively denounced in Marx's
Critique of the Gotha Programme
(1875). It is the idea that under capitalism wages are necessarily held at the barest level of subsistence that allows the worker just to survive in order to work and reproduce the children who will be the next generation of the working class. Marx denounces this as no more than a reworking of
Malthus
. Some of Marx's earlier work nevertheless gives the distinct impression that Marx also believed in the iron law of wages at one time in his life.
Marx
to the German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–64) and vituperatively denounced in Marx's
Critique of the Gotha Programme
(1875). It is the idea that under capitalism wages are necessarily held at the barest level of subsistence that allows the worker just to survive in order to work and reproduce the children who will be the next generation of the working class. Marx denounces this as no more than a reworking of
Malthus
. Some of Marx's earlier work nevertheless gives the distinct impression that Marx also believed in the iron law of wages at one time in his life.
iron triangles
irredentism
The term ‘irredentism’ comes from the Italian,
irredenta
, meaning unredeemed. After the unification of Italy in 1870 with the annexation of the Papal States, there still remained certain pockets of ethnically Italian territory in Austrian hands, including Trieste (Austria's only port), Istria, Trentino, and South Tirol, which the irredentists claimed. The term has been extended to any movement or aspiration to recover territory that, for ethnic or linguistic reasons, is believed to have been wrongly alienated.
CB
irredenta
, meaning unredeemed. After the unification of Italy in 1870 with the annexation of the Papal States, there still remained certain pockets of ethnically Italian territory in Austrian hands, including Trieste (Austria's only port), Istria, Trentino, and South Tirol, which the irredentists claimed. The term has been extended to any movement or aspiration to recover territory that, for ethnic or linguistic reasons, is believed to have been wrongly alienated.
CB
Islamic fundamentalism
A disputed term, widely used in the United States and Britain to denote any movement to favour strict observance of the teachings of the Qur'
n and the Shari'a (Islamic law). On the Continent and amongst many scholars of Islam and the Middle East, there is a preference for terms such as ‘Islamism’, ‘Islamicism’, ‘Islamists’, or ‘Islamicists’ in referring to the current activist political trend. In particular, there is a reluctance to associate the Islamic trend of reform which began in the nineteenth century and continues to the present with the religious (Christian) fundamentalism that bears the label in the United States.
Essentially, what is being referred to in the Islamic world is the increasing number of groups, associations, and movements critical of the earlier Islamic reform movements from the nineteenth century onward. The earlier movement was regarded as having been co-opted to the Western agenda. These groups also criticize the secular rulers and governments in the region for failing to safeguard the well-being of the
Umma
(Community of Believers), for not fulfilling Islamic obligations to the Islamic Community, or for corruption. This trend of Islamic reform was launched in the nineteenth century with Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1837–97) and Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905). Thereafter, the defence and revitalization of Islam and Islamic society came to dominate this trend as the fate of the Islamic world was increasingly seen as being in the hands of European power to do with as it would.
There was a dual response to what was perceived to be a European and, later, Western threat: one variant would reform Islam by incorporating many of the characteristic features of Western rationalism, while the other would look deep into the roots of Islam in order to purify, expunge, and renew it by focusing on the principles of the earliest generation of Islam. The latter has led to a proliferation of new style voluntary benevolent associations (
jama'iyya
) whose registered numbers in Egypt alone in the early 1990s were over 12,800, all concerned with social services. Through this means and in varying degrees, an Islamic alternative is affirmed and asserted.
A further intensification of Islamic concern and activity, whether among the traditionalists and the religious scholars (
Ulama
) or the laic activists can be discerned from the end of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in that the Arab forces suffered a crushing and humiliating defeat, which weakened confidence in Arab nationalism as a viable strategy and ideology. Added to this was the successful Iranian revolution toward the end of the 1970s, the disorienting effects upon the region of the long-running Iraq-Iran War (1980–8), and the Gulf War (1990–1) which led to Western militaries being invited into Saudi Arabia, the proclaimed protector of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Events had transpired to bring almost all Arab governments to join in alliance with the West, some sending forces alongside those from the West in Saudi Arabia to attack an Arab state. This is an indication of the depths of irrelevance to which Arab nationalism had fallen.
Thus Islam expanded into the gaping vacuum and, by focusing on domestic issues, has continued to particularize national identities, sometimes encouraged by governments. For example, President Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt on attaining leadership in 1970 clothed his rhetoric in Islamic symbolism, invited Islamic activists in exile to return as a counterforce to an organized left in Egypt and reintroduced aspects of
Shari'a
law into the legal system. In this way, Islamic spokesmen, both
Ulama
and laic, have emerged in many Arab and Muslim non-Arab countries with political agendas designed to relate Islam to state power.
BAR
n and the Shari'a (Islamic law). On the Continent and amongst many scholars of Islam and the Middle East, there is a preference for terms such as ‘Islamism’, ‘Islamicism’, ‘Islamists’, or ‘Islamicists’ in referring to the current activist political trend. In particular, there is a reluctance to associate the Islamic trend of reform which began in the nineteenth century and continues to the present with the religious (Christian) fundamentalism that bears the label in the United States.Essentially, what is being referred to in the Islamic world is the increasing number of groups, associations, and movements critical of the earlier Islamic reform movements from the nineteenth century onward. The earlier movement was regarded as having been co-opted to the Western agenda. These groups also criticize the secular rulers and governments in the region for failing to safeguard the well-being of the
Umma
(Community of Believers), for not fulfilling Islamic obligations to the Islamic Community, or for corruption. This trend of Islamic reform was launched in the nineteenth century with Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1837–97) and Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905). Thereafter, the defence and revitalization of Islam and Islamic society came to dominate this trend as the fate of the Islamic world was increasingly seen as being in the hands of European power to do with as it would.
There was a dual response to what was perceived to be a European and, later, Western threat: one variant would reform Islam by incorporating many of the characteristic features of Western rationalism, while the other would look deep into the roots of Islam in order to purify, expunge, and renew it by focusing on the principles of the earliest generation of Islam. The latter has led to a proliferation of new style voluntary benevolent associations (
jama'iyya
) whose registered numbers in Egypt alone in the early 1990s were over 12,800, all concerned with social services. Through this means and in varying degrees, an Islamic alternative is affirmed and asserted.
A further intensification of Islamic concern and activity, whether among the traditionalists and the religious scholars (
Ulama
) or the laic activists can be discerned from the end of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in that the Arab forces suffered a crushing and humiliating defeat, which weakened confidence in Arab nationalism as a viable strategy and ideology. Added to this was the successful Iranian revolution toward the end of the 1970s, the disorienting effects upon the region of the long-running Iraq-Iran War (1980–8), and the Gulf War (1990–1) which led to Western militaries being invited into Saudi Arabia, the proclaimed protector of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Events had transpired to bring almost all Arab governments to join in alliance with the West, some sending forces alongside those from the West in Saudi Arabia to attack an Arab state. This is an indication of the depths of irrelevance to which Arab nationalism had fallen.
Thus Islam expanded into the gaping vacuum and, by focusing on domestic issues, has continued to particularize national identities, sometimes encouraged by governments. For example, President Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt on attaining leadership in 1970 clothed his rhetoric in Islamic symbolism, invited Islamic activists in exile to return as a counterforce to an organized left in Egypt and reintroduced aspects of
Shari'a
law into the legal system. In this way, Islamic spokesmen, both
Ulama
and laic, have emerged in many Arab and Muslim non-Arab countries with political agendas designed to relate Islam to state power.
BAR
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