THE ISLAMIC FACTOR AND THE POLITICAL PROCESSES IN TAJIKISTAN

Abstract

The confessional factor, as part of the political process, can act as a powerful catalyst to either stabilize a political region or destroy it. This subject has acquired special importance since social and state security depends, among other things, on the correct identification of the mechanisms and technologies of politicization of religion. In the present geopolitical context, the problem and role of the Islamic factor in international relations has acquired global importance. It affects not only the relationships between individual states and political processes unfolding in the world but also domestic policies of many states. The Islamic factor plays a fairly contradictory role in interstate relationships for the simple reason that in the Islamic world, the economically developed countries exist in close proximity to their poor and dependent neighbors. In fact, the ways the Islamic factor is revealed in the political space of the latter depend, to a great extent, on the policies pursued by the former. Indeed, assistance, extended to poorer countries, may consolidate the Islamic factor and its role in the relationships between these states; it may also negatively affect domestic modernization and the extent to which these countries are involved in globalization. A greater religious impact on the legal norms and social institutions affects the state’s international contacts. By the impact of the Islamic factor on international relations, we mean the varied impact on bilateral and multilateral international relations. Political Islam that plays an important role in the political processes unfolding in Islamic countries adds vigor to the Islamic factor: the transnational Islamic projects are based on and realized through the ideology of political Islam. In this context, the studies of the historical aspects of the Islamic factor have become signally relevant.