International Sociology

This article argues that the theoretical perspective on the rise and decline of states developed by `Abd al-Ra_hmān Ibn Khaldūn (723—808 AH/1332—1406 AD) should not be confined to historical interest but is of relevance for the study of various aspects of the history of Muslim societies. The reasons for the relative neglect or marginalization of Ibn Khaldūn as a source of theory to be applied to definite historical empirical situations is partly due to the predominance of Eurocentrism in the social sciences. The manner in which Eurocentrism has defined Khaldunian studies is discussed, but the main focus of this article is the possibilities of a Khaldunian historical sociology of Muslim societies that is founded on a non-Eurocentric approach to his work. The article specifies what is meant by non-Eurocentric readings and applications of Ibn Khaldūn's theory. Several illustrations of these applications are provided. The serious consideration of Ibn Khaldūn's status as a founder or precursor of sociology would require such theoretical applications. Ibn Khaldūn's work should no longer be regarded as a mere source of historical data or an outdated perspective.

The groundswell of interest in Middle Eastern public opinion that arose from debates over the `third wave' of democracy and the `clash of civilizations' as well as from September 11 spawned numerous surveys from 2000 on. However, surveys from the Middle East, particularly longitudinal ones, are largely absent from earlier decades and limit ability to contextualize current findings. Drawing on three surveys from the 1990s, this article examines changes in Kuwaiti citizens' attitudes toward democracy and related issues in the years following the Gulf War of 1991. This serves as a baseline for current research not only in Kuwait but also in other nations, taking account of differences. Findings show that from 1994 to 1998, Kuwaitis increased their preference for democracy, but not for women's rights or western media. They developed more affinity for the Arab world, particularly the Gulf Coast countries. Regarding religious beliefs and practices, there was an increasing desire to separate religion from the public sphere while remaining religious privately. These trends were directional rather than cyclical or fluctuating, and they held across population subgroups.

The marked presence of eastern spiritual ideas in the religious imaginings of western peoples is a significant feature of the faith landscapes of contemporary societies. Yet sociological knowledge of eastern spirituality among western constituents remains comparatively undeveloped. The study proposes it is sociologically useful to think about involvement with eastern spirituality as a particular expression of disenchantment with the West. The research examines the plausibility of this approach by reporting and reflecting on the results of an investigative quantitative study of individuals involved with eastern spirituality. The findings show that individuals engaged with eastern spirituality were more deeply disenchanted with a western self-identity than people in general. Furthermore, the results suggest that among the involved, the most disenchanted favoured a particular style of eastern practice. For these adherents, dedicated practice without belonging was the preferred mode of engagement with eastern spirituality. This result might be seen to point to the presence of a manifest ambivalence among the heavily disenchanted towards Orientalist practices of classifying and categorizing `the East'. More generally, the study suggests how modern individuals respond to identity imbalance between being western yet not feeling western as an important sociological question in the current era.

This article takes an empirical point of departure in a longitudinal study in Tanzania that focuses on the trust formation process in its `bare' form, i.e. in a context where formal institutions are of little help in curbing opportunistic behaviour. The study's framework suggests a knowledge-based view of trust where the interplay between an individual's subjective knowledge or `good reasons' for trusting others and inclination to take a `leap of faith' explains his or her engagement in cooperative activity. The empirical findings show that people do not tend to be gamblers and take a big leap of faith when institutional prerequisites imply bad odds. On the contrary, people instead try hard and imaginatively to create reasons for trusting that are really good. In particular, they favour reasons that are related to control, such as those where sanctions or hostage-like measures come into play. As a result, the findings do not support the argument that the use of control(s) signals distrust and casts doubt over a partner 's good will.

Trust is important in organizations, e.g. in teams or small working groups in which the performance of team members depends on the performance of other members in the group and in which team members have only an incentive to perform well if they trust that others perform as well. Existing theories regarding effects of communication on trust problems stress the influence of information about behaviour of potential partners. Effects of imitation are less extensively elaborated in the literature. In this article, the authors develop a theory about imitation in combination with other network effects on trust. They propose a distinction between imitation and other types of learning, contrasting trustors who only know that other trustors have been trustful in transactions with a trustee with trustors who also know that this trustee was in fact trustworthy. The theory predicts that both imitation and learning have an effect in trust situations and that these effects depend on uncertainties for the trustor. The authors designed a vignette experiment that enables the distinction between imitation and learning for different levels of uncertainty. The experiment provides strong support for learning effects on trust and some support for imitation effects. There is only limited evidence that the imitation effects depend on uncertainty.