DEBATT. Som forskare och medborgare är vi arga och förtvivlade över den senaste tidens utveckling. Vi ser hur en majoritet av våra politiska partier överger klimatpolitiken och i stället föreslår eller genomför politik som går stick i stäv med Parisavtalet och Sveriges klimat- och miljömål.

Våra politiker måste ta krisen på allvar och leda omställningen till ett framtida samhälle inom planetens gränser. Forskningen visar att en sådan framtid är möjlig. Det skriver 1 944 forskare och anställda från 45 svenska lärosäten och forskningsinstitut.

In this article, the two main items covered in this anthology, namely “polarization” and “cohabitation” will be treated through a case-study of the multi-confessional national-state of Lebanon. My approach would be to give a contribution on the understanding of social interaction and cohesion in turmoil when survival is at stake, with high degrees of internal and external pressures which combined set the environment for co-existence or what could be perceived nonexistence by the people and communities concerned. My focus and interests are two-fold. Lebanon will be analysed in the intersection between religion and civil society with a sociology of religion perspective.

The organisational life of faith communities and religious congregations is changing in post-secular environments with new interactions, opportunities for collaboration and social contracts between the public and private sectors and civil society organisations (secular and religious). Religious communities with shrinking congregations and faithbased organisations (FBOs) in a post-secular environment are developing strategies for networking and collaboration with the public and private sectors. They are utilising a new discourse of solidarity and inclusion, which also attracts a larger public that goes beyond the shrinking constituencies of their own members. Collaboration has been accompanied by the growth of hybridity and hybrid organisations. Billis (2010) suggests that this occurs when an organisation from one sector, for example the civil society/third sector, adopts the different approaches and principles of the public and/or the private sector. As this chapter will show, hybrid organisational forms can bring with them the prospect of answers to difficult problems of communities and welfare. But they can also present their own inherent problems when the different principles become uncomfortable partners. I shall shortly illustrate this in a personal example.

The paper addresses the main contextual drivers of routinisation of Shiʿa religious, social, and political authority in the Middle East and beyond. It has three objectives: to enhance understanding of the socioeconomic conditions of Shiʿites in countries with a considerable Shiʿite population in the Middle East and beyond; to analyse possible patterns of marginalisation; and to show how authority is viewed. A conceptual framework for the routinisation of religious authority, focusing on Shiʿa Islam, is used to analyse twenty-one national surveys in ten countries with a sample size of 33,922, including approximately 14,000 Shiʿite respondents. In addition to confessional differences, patterns are also explored in attitudes to democratic versus authoritarian rule. The paper concludes that in times of turmoil the routinisation of authority will be marked either by polarisation accompanied by traditionalisation, or by a call for the rationalisation of charismatic authority by a large proportion of the Shiʿite constituencies, showing a multifaceted pattern of perceptions of religious authority in the political realm.

Cet article s’intéresse aux principaux moteurs de quotidianisation de l’autorité chiite dans les sphères d’activité religieuse, sociale et politique au Moyen Orient et au-delà. Trois buts sont poursuivis : améliorer la compréhension des conditions socio-économiques qui prévalent dans les pays à majorité chiite; analyser d’éventuels schémas de marginalisation ; montrer comment l’autorité est perçue. Par le biais de la grille d’analyse (conceptuelle) de la quotidianisation de l’autorité religieuse, appliquée à l’islam chiite, vingt-et-un sondages menés dans dix pays sont étudiés, permettant ainsi de tenir compte des réponses de plus de 33 922 répondants, dont environ 14 000 chiites. Des schémas en lien avec les attitudes de ces populations à l’égard des autorités démocratiques ou autoritaires sont étudiés, tout comme les différences confessionnelles. L’article conclut que lors des périodes de turbulences sociales et économiques, la quotidianisation de l’autorité sera caractérisée soit par une polarisation, accompagnée d’une traditionalisation soit par un appel, de la part d’une grande partie des chiites, à une rationalisation de l’autorité charismatique, démontrant ainsi les multiples facettes des modèles de perception de l’autorité religieuse, dans la sphère politique.

En del av det svenska biståndets insatser planerade för Mellanöstern kan bli omöjliga att ­genomföra. Sidas analytiker har inte tagit tillräcklig hänsyn till en ökande religiös ­våldsbejakande extremism och dess genomslag i hela området.

This article will enhance the understanding of Zakat’s contribution to social welfare provision in the changing social welfare landscape of Europe. It will contribute to the understanding of emerging Zakat within the framework of the welfare regimes in Europe in relation to the more established forms of Caritas and Diaconia. Data was gathered from the Welfare and Value (WaVe) research program in 13 cities and 12 countries 2005–2009. The research was conducted through observation and in-depth research with a descriptive approach to the complexity of majority–minority relations in each town, followed by an analytical phase which addressed various factors in relation to social cohesion, values, minorities, and gender. In this article, the data from the WaVe study was coded and analyzed, mainly to explore the way Zakat is implemented in the European context and within the framework of different contextual welfare regimes using Esping-Andersen typology and Van der Ven institutional model on religious & social identity. The results confirm the dominant role of Caritas and Diaconia but with emerging & innovative Zakat in some countries and a marginal role in mainly Eastern Europe. Zakat is also becoming and alternative & complimentary welfare provision model in Germany, France, and Croatia.