Globalization, Sacred Beliefs, and Defiance: Is Human Rights Discourse Relevant in the Muslim World?

Abstract

• MAHMOOD MONSHIPOURI (B.A., Teacher's Training University, Tehran, Iran; M.A., Allamah Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran; Ph.D., University of Georgia) is professor and chair of political science at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He is author of Islamism, Secularism, and Human Rights in the Middle East and Democratization, Liberali zation, and Human Rights in the Third World. His articles have appeared in Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Ethics and International Affairs, Journal of Church and State, The Muslim World, Journal of Third World Studies, Middle East Policy, and the Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Special interests include Middle East politics, ethics in foreign policy, human rights and democracy in the Third World. His articfes have appeared in the Pennsylvania Journal of Business and Economics, The Journal of Resource Management and Technology, and the International Journal of Commerce and Management, among others. Special interests include global marketing, strategic planning, and interdisci plinary business interface. REZA MOTAMENI (B.S., College of Mass Communication, Tehran, Iran; M.S., West Coast University; M.A., Ph.D., Claremont Graduate School; Ph.D., The University of Georgia) is professor of marketing at California State University, Fresno, California. This essay was defivered at the 31st Annual Meeting of the Northeast Political Science Association and International Studies Association-Northeast, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 11-13 November 1999. Comments by Craig N. Murphy and Mehdi Mozaffari on the earlier draft are gratefully acknowledged. Some of the themes and discussions here are further elaborated in Mahmood Monshipouri's essay, and Human Rights in the Age of in Islam Encountering Globalization, ed. Ali Mohammadi (London; Bookextra, 2000) (forthcoming).