This Special Issue is meant to inaugurate or help launch a field of inquiry which is either nonexistent or at most fledgling and embryonic in contemporary academia: the field of “comparative political theory” or “comparative political philosophy.” What is meant by these titles is an inquiry which, in a sustained fashion, reflects upon the status and meaning of political life no longer in a restricted geographical setting but in the global arena. The motivation behind this initiative is a transformation which profoundly shapes our waning century: the emergence of the “global village” involving the steadily intensifying interaction among previously (more or less) segregated civilizations or cultural zones. Although human lives everywhere are deeply affected today by the global forces of the market, technology, and the media, the implications of these changes have not yet fully penetrated into Western intellectual discourse. As practiced in most Western universities, the study of political theory or political philosophy revolves basically around the canon of Western political thought from Plato to Marx or Nietzsche—with occasional recent concessions to strands of feminism and multiculturalism as found in Western societies.

The steadily increasing appeal of Islamic fundamentalist ideas has often been characterized as a premodern, antimodern or, more recently, as a postmodern phenomenon. To explore the relationship of Islamist political thought to modernity, and the usefulness of the terminology of “modernity” to situate and understand it, this article explores two comparisons. The first is a comparison across time, and involves the juxtaposition of a prominent nineteenth century Islamic “modernist” and the critique of modernity by an influential twentieth century Islamic fundamentalist thinker. The second is a comparison across cultures, and involves the juxtaposition of this Islamic fundamentalist critique and many Western theorists similarly critical of “the modern condition.” These comparisons suggest that Islamic fundamentalist political thought is part of a transcultural and multivocal reassessment of the value and definition of “modernity.” Such reassessments should be understood in terms of a dialectical relationship to “modernity,” one that entails not the negation of modernity but an attempt to simultaneously abolish, transcend, preserve and transform it.

The practice of Islamic veiling is examined in terms of the notion of freedom. Historically, veiling has been seen by Westerners as the ultimate symbol, if not tool, of gender oppression in Islamic cultures; yet many Islamic women not only participate voluntarily in the practice but claim it as a mark of resistance, agency, and cultural membership. This would seem to pose a paradox for Western feminists, but this paradox stems from a misunderstanding of veiling perpetrated by feminists and nonfeminists alike, as well as from inappropriate conceptions of freedom that dominate Western political theory, and to which Western feminism finds itself indebted. Examining veiling as a multifaceted practice located within varying and complex contexts may develop an understanding of freedom that recognizes the ways in which patriarchal contexts set the parameters within which women express their agency.

Martyrdom has been a recurring theme in the Iranian political culture. This article presents an analysis of its sociological and historical significance and delineates the causes of its politicization and popularization since the 1960s. In order to understand this tradition in its broader cultural context, the relationship between the preeminence of tragedy in Iranian pre and post-Islamic popular culture and martyrdom is explored. By examining the writings of the major literary and political figures, the metamorphosis and political utilization of this tradition in recent political history of Iran are propounded. The article demonstrates how martyrdom as a symbol has functioned to forge a sense of solidarity, enhance mass mobilization, and preserve the sacred values of the community. In this context, the leading intellectuals and lay thinkers alike perceive of martyrdom as a symbol of communal cleansing and regeneration. The symbolic and utilitarian use of this tradition are also analyzed in the pre-and postrevolutionary period.

Several critics of Indian secularism maintain that given the pervasive role of religion in the lives of the Indian people, secularism, defined as the separation of politics or the state from religion, is an intolerable, alien, modernist imposition on the Indian society. This, I argue, is a misreading of the Indian constitutional vision, which enjoins the state to be equally tolerant of all religions and which therefore requires the state to steer clear of both theocracy or fundamentalism and the “wall of separation” model of secularism. Regarding the dichotomy, which the critics draw between Nehruvian secularism and Gandhian religiosity, I suggest that what is distinctive to Indian secularism is the complementation or articulation between the democratic state and the politics of satya and ahimsa, whereby the relative autonomy of religion and politics from each other can be used for the moral-political reconstruction of both the religious traditions and the modern state.

During the 1930s and 1940s, many Japanese intellectuals resisted Western cultural imperialism. This theoretical movement was unfortunately complicit with wartime nationalism. Kitaro Nishida, the founder of modern Japanese philosophy and the leading figure of the Kyoto School, has been the focus of a controversy as to whether his philosophy was inherently nationalist or not. Nishida's defenders claim that his philosophical “universalism” was incompatible with the particularistic nationalism of Japan's imperialist state. From the standpoint of postcolonial critique, it is argued that this defense is insufficient. Philosophical universalism is not in itself anti-imperialist, but can in fact contribute to imperialist ideology.

As East Asian societies struggle with the implications of modenity, the degree to which their Confucian heritage can support institutions of liberal democracy has been much debated. Recently, several authors have argued that the nations of Confucian Asia are indeed modernizing, but in the direction of “illiberal democracy”, which they see as an approach to democratic practice that takes communitarian concerns like social solidarity and political virtue into greater account than other, more liberal democratic societies do. In line with that argument, this article makes an introductory comparison of classical Confucian and contemporary communitarian thought, criticizes the view of Confucianism as necessarily authoritarian and suggests that Confucian theory and practice provides a strong and in many ways unique communitarian response to liberalism, without fundamentally invalidating those humanistic principles basic to democratic reform.