イスラーム政党をめぐる研究視座と方法論的課題--比較政治学と地域研究の交差する地点で

Abstract

For Area Studies to be interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary, it must go beyond the mere combination of achievements of different disciplines in relation to a particular case in a particular region. Research has to be conducted in such a manner that a new horizon emerges as a result of intellectual endeavour of a researcher who encompasses more than one discipline while he/she tries to penetrate into indigenous society and read its inherent logic. A case study, simply applying disciplinary methods to a particular region, is not a work of Area Studies, even it is a good work in the discipline. Equally, a work in Area Studies, lacking any disciplinary foundation or methodological perspective, could be quite unscientific. It goes without saying, therefore, that an Area specialist should strive to open a dimension where disciplinary-founded methodologies and area-specific/field-based knowledge can compliment each other. There are no easy roads to achieve it, and constant trial to merge the two is essential. The cooperation of the two is important both at personal and collective levels for academic works. The cooperation has been, however, largely absent between Comparative Politics (or, even Political Science in general) and Middle East Area Studies. As a part of efforts to overcome this unfortunate situation, this article proposes to set "Islamic political parties" as a field of study, which challenges the conventional wisdoms of comparative politics, such as presumed secularism of modern politics, while fills a gap in Middle Eastern politics. Survey on Islamic countries shows that there are a significant number of political parties that claim to be Islamic ones or are considered as such in their respective societies. At the analytical level, they can be categorized as a particular kind of political parties based on ideologies of Islamic politics, such as non-dualism of religion and politics. Prospects of "Islamic democracy" where these Islamic political parties compete with each other and with other (non Islamic) parties seem quite important as a political phenomenon in Asia and Africa.