Message from the Representative Researcher (Research Group A01)

MATSUNAGA YasuyukiUsing comparative-historical analysis, a methodology for verifying specific cases and issues based on analytical, comparative perspectives within individually specific historical contexts, this group's research on nations and systems will, in a broad sense, partially overlap with area studies, but it will not take the stance of an area studies, stressing the individuality of certain areas, such as Middle Eastern, Southern Asian, or Southeast Asian area studies. To the utmost, it will adhere to its fundamental goal of achieving a cross-regional comparative analysis through joint research (see Mahoney and Thelen (2015) and others for comparative-historical analyses).

For achieving this goal, it is thought that in addition to comparative-historical analysis, new systems theory would be a useful approach (especially the political science's new institutionalism of Peter Hall, Paul Pierson and others and the sociological new institutionalism of Ronald Jepperson and others), as would analyzing the nature of authority created by modern states in various ways in the context of non-western developing countries, as anthropologists such as Eric Wolf, Talal Asad, Saba Mahmood, and Hussein Ali Agrama have done in prior research. Therefore, the subject of research in each country will be not only how the territorial sovereignty of nations as actors or as aggregates of institutions was organized historically and in terms of social relationships, but also include how the political field (place where the political process unfolds) and power relationships are organized through restrictions, both tangible and intangible, and furthermore, how they are related with states and institutions (or unrelated, as the case may be).

The countries to be studied under this research project (Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia) can be classified broadly as Islamic countries (countries in which Muslims as a social category comprise a majority), and in many cases, analyzing the relationship between sociocultural structures, including nationalism and democracy, and Islam in each country will be important. We are considering a new institutionalism approach, that would be effective in attempting political analyses of these kinds of cultural (or contemplative) aspects.

Yasuyuki Matsunaga, Representative, Research Group A01