Political Science » Research » Ishtiaq Ahmed

Ishtiaq Ahmed

Professor emeritus

E-mail: isasia@nus.edu.sg or ishtiaq.ahmed@statsvet.su.se

Introduction

I was born in Lahore, Pakistan, on 24 February 1947. I received my doctorate from the University of Stockholm in 1986 where currently I hold the position of a professor in the Department of Political Science.

I teach a range of courses from the basic to the doctoral levels. Besides teaching mainstream subjects such as political theory and anIshtiaq alysis of politics I also lecture and write on the politics of South Asia (mainly Pakistan and India, but also Bangladesh and Sri Lanka), political Islam in various contexts and in world politics, human rights, multiculturalism and on ethnicity, identity and nationalism.

During the academic year 2008-2009 Ishtiaq Ahmed is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore, on leave from Stockholm University.

Editorial engagements in peer reviewed journals:

1. Chief Editor, Peace and Democracy i South Asia.

2. Member editorial advisory boards, Asian Ethnicity.

3. Member editorial advisory board, Journal of Punjab Studies.

Ongoing publications

Weekly articles published every Saturday in The News International, Islamabad-Karachi-Lahore, Pakistan from December 2, 2006. Previously during May 26, 2002 to November 7, 2006 the weekly columns were published in The Daily Times, Lahore, Pakistan, and Dawn, Karachi. The weekly columns deal with values fundamental to political science - democracy versus dictatorship; religion and politics; nationalism versus internationalism; tradition versus modernisation; the individual versus the collective; human rights, terrorism and globalism.

Latest publications

"Pakistan’s national identity" in International Review of Modern Sociology, Volume 1 No. 34. Spring 2008.

"Group Representation in a Democracy?", in Utsikt mot utveckling 29, Equal Representation. A Challenge to Democracy and Democracy Promotion, pp. 73-90. Collegium for Development Studies, Uppsala University 2007.

"The Cultural and Political heritage of Sri Lanka". in Utsikt mot utveckling 29, Equal Representation. A Challenge to Democracy and Democracy Promotion, pp. 119-130. Collegium for Development Studies, Uppsala University 2007.

"The Lahore Effect", in Seminar, No 567, November 2006, Dehli, India, pp. 29-37

"Globalisering och fredsrörelsen i diasporan: Provsprängningarna av kärnvapen i Sydasien 1998" in Maria Borgström and Katrin Goldstein-Kyaga (eds.), Gränsöverskridande identiteter i globaliseringens tid: Ungdomar, migration och kampen för fred, Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2006, pp. 169-196.

"Punjabi identities: Before and after the 1947 Partition of the Punjab", in Troubled Times. Sustainable Development and Governance in the Age of Extremes. SDPI/Sama Editorial and Publishing Services, 2006. pp. 374-390 (pdf)

Defining moments in history are frequently symbolized by events that indicate a turn of the tide. The defining moment for our times appears to be what has become known as 9/11. While 9/11 has not taken place in isolation sans history and sans politics, it appears to have heralded in an era of viewing the world differently.
In these cirital times, the disquieting aspect for us in the Third World is that our troubles appear to have undergone a change. This raises, for us in the gobal South, important questions of agency and choice. Do we have choices? And if we do, how can we best exercise them in the age of extremes ushered in by globalization and globalized wars, and symbolized by the events of 9/11.
A collection of 41 research papers, this anthology is divided into 7 sub-sections - economics, politics, sociology, health, history, culture, and literature - highlighting the many linkages between diverse themes and the increasingly complex demands upon the policy arena to respond to issues of sustainable development quickly and effectively. It critically reassesses strategies for good governance and sustainable development and arrives at ways of making them more meaningful.

"Globalization and Free Trade", in Harris Ben Munawar (ed.) The RAVI 2005, Vol. XCII, pp. 47-48 (pdf)

The Politics of Group Rights. The State and Multiculturalism (ed), University Press of America, 2005

"Pakistan, Democracy, Islam and Secularism: A Phantasmagoria of Conflicting Muslim Aspirations", in Oriente Moderno, No. 1/2004, vol. XXIII, (LXXXIV). The article is available as a Word document.

'Forced Migration and Ethnic Cleansing in Lahore in 1947: Some First Person Acoounts', in Ian Talbot & Shinder Thandi (eds), People on The Move, Punjabi Colonial, and Post-Colonial Migration, Oxford University Press 2004.
The chapter is available in either Word format or Pdf format.

'Contours of Regional Cooperation: Peoples-to-Peoples Contacts and Parliamentary Initiatives', in Searching for Common Ground in South Asia. A Report of a CPAS-SIPSIR.

Workshop 'New Initiatives for Risk Reduction on Unsettled Asian Borders', Center for Pacific Asia Studies, Stockholm University, 2004.

'Muslim Nationalism, Pakistan and the Rise of Fundamentalism', Research Report 4, February 2003, Department of Oriental Languages, Department of Political Science, Stockholm University, 24 sidor, 2003.

'Comments' (on two papers, presented at a seminar on East Timor, Stockholm, 21 May 2002. East Timor nationbuilding in the 21st Century. Stockholm 2002.

The Kashmir Dispute, December 2002, in Politologen.

'The Fundamentalist Dimension in the Pakistan Movement' in Friday Times, Lahore, November 22, 2002

'Looking Backwards into the Future: A Critique of Islamism Modernism’ in Journal of Futures Studies,Vol. 7, No. 2, 2002. 

'Globalisation and Human Rights in Pakistan' (published in International Journal of Punjab Studies, Vol. 9, Number 1, January-June 2002.

Working paper: The 1947 Partition of India (published in Asian Ethnicity, Volume 3, Number 1, March 2002).

‘Pågår krig mellan islam och kristendom?’ in Folk och Försvar, No. 2, 2002.

 

Complete list of publications »