Conceptualizing Islamic banking and finance: a comparison of its development and governance in Malaysia and Singapore

In response to the limited engagement with critical social science concerning the governance of Islamic banking and finance (IBF), this paper compares and conceptualizes the development and governance of IBF in Malaysia and Singapore. We argue that IBF governance in Malaysia and Singapore can be distinguished on the basis of ethnic politics, moral suasion, product demand, product innovation, and the character of state practices. Concerning the latter, we contend that the political economy of both countries can be characterized as broadly involving a ‘neoliberal-developmentalism’, but we nuance this by positing a transition in Malaysia from a ‘semi-developmentalism’ in the 1980s to what we call an ‘Islamic and internationalising ordoliberalism’ beginning in the 2000s. In turn, the governance of IBF in Singapore involves a combination of neoliberal developmentalism, which nonetheless also entails some form of Islamic ordoliberalism.     

Islamic Identity,Nationality and Republicanism in the Process of Islamic Awakening

This paper is going to identify and discuss necessary theoretical principles for reasoning current and future situation of subjects related to Arabic Islamic thoughts. This paper tries to consider typology of vocal groups at Islamic movements involved in the process of Islamic awakening. In this direction, firstly different research approaches will be considered and the main purpose is that how these researches observe the origin of formation of these groups and what is their emphasis in this regard. The key points of their reasoning will be explained and then the explanation, representation and re-definition of these groups are paid attention to. The main idea is that among all analyses and reasoning and view points, the key point is the importance of viewpoint of Islamism in these movements and any analysis will be unreliable reading without reading to this variable,     

How the CT Community Failed to Anticipate the Islamic State

This article is a critique of the dominant approach within the counter-terrorism (CT) community that failed to analyze IS’s trajectory as a distinct group since at least 2006. We argue that two factors account for this failure. The first concerns the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), the law that was enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, providing options to the U.S. President to authorize the use of Armed Forces “against those responsible” for the 9/11 attacks. We contend that this law served as an incentive to lump regional jihadi groups under the AQ umbrella instead of discerning their differences. The second factor concerns what we term as the “al-Qa‘ida fixation,” it has to do with a post-9/11 bias towards understanding the threat emanating from jihadi groups around the world through the lens of AQ. This translated into falsely constructing a so-called “al-Qaeda Central” in the business of ‘franchising’ its brand and cloning its violent operations by establishing regional jihadi groups that served as its “affiliates” and carried out its orders. In the post-9/11 era, these two factors fed off each other. Our critique is not meant to suggest that the CT community is expected to predict the unpredictable, and we also recognize that one gains greater clarity with the benefit of hindsight. However, we argue that had the CT community given due attention to the differences between jihadi groups, there was ample evidence in the open source realm that was pointing to IS being AQ’s bête noire, and was seeking to outbid it.     

Arabs in the urban social landscapes of Malaysia: historical connections and belonging

The urban landscapes of Malaysia have witnessed a marked increase in the number of non-citizens with the influx of foreign workers to satisfy the needs of a rapidly expanding economy. This paper examines how notions of belonging might have changed through the subsequent interaction between citizens and non-citizens in the Klang Valley, the political and economic centre of the country. It focuses specifically on Arab migrants who find themselves in a region – the Malay world – with which they have had historical connections. Arabs, primarily from the Hadramaut in Yemen, have long formed creole communities in the region. Recent Arab migrants have arrived at a time of two noteworthy developments. First, there is a rediscovery of Arabness underway among creoles. Second, Malaysia's ethnically diverse citizenry has seen renewed and heightened challenges, based on historical arguments, to its sense of belonging. By focusing on novel migrants with historical connections, this paper relates the question of belonging to history and asks a number of questions. How are Arabs shaping the social landscape? How do the historical connections between Arabs and the Malay world matter? What are the implications of the new Arab presence for Malaysian society as a whole?     

Stakeholder engagement for value-based banking: The case of Malaysian Islamic banks

This study explores the practices of stakeholder engagement (SE) in Malaysian Islamic banks. In 2017, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) introduced the Value-Based Intermediation (VBI) framework, with the aim of promoting a more sustainable and responsible banking system in the country. Among others, the VBI framework requires Islamic banks to adopt a stakeholder-driven approach to their business operations, which involves understanding and responding to the needs and expectations of their stakeholders. Within this context, we apply a content analysis of the annual and sustainability reports of all stand-alone Islamic banks in Malaysia to document the changes in the banks' quality of SE after the introduction of the VBI. The content analysis is guided by a new index that we construct, termed as the Stakeholder Engagement Quality Index (SEQI), which covers four dimensions of SE process: the purpose, stakeholder mapping, scope and approach to the engagement. Our results indicate that the SE quality significantly increases overall and for the third (i.e., scope of SE) and fourth (i.e., SE approach) dimensions subsequent to the VBI. Additionally, in terms of bank types, we find that the SEQI score is higher for commercial Islamic banks than development Islamic banks in the post-VBI period. Despite such improvements, our study alerts policymakers that there are areas that need further attention. Among others, these include integrating SE into the banks' internal managerial functions and encouraging active stakeholder participation in the design and implementation of the engagement itself.     

Civil Society,Moderate Islam,and Politics in Indonesia and Malaysia

What role do moderate Islamic organizations play in promoting democratization in Malaysia and Indonesia? What is the difference between large, grassroots organizations and newer more urban-based non-governmental organization (NGOs)? Is one type of organization more effective than the other? This paper looks at the changing dynamics of moderate or progressive Islamic organizations in Malaysia and Indonesia. It examines organizations such as the Liberal Islam Network in Indonesia and Sisters in Islam in Malaysia, as well as others, to try and understand the conflict between moderate or progressive Islamic groups and more conservative Islamic forces and to evaluate the role such moderate organizations play in advocating for greater protection of rights and liberties. The article finds that under moderately open conditions (like in Indonesia after 1998), Islamic NGOs do play an important and constructive role in promoting democracy.     

增强法律观念 实施依法管理

依法执政是新的历史条件下我党执政的基本方式,公安院校的学生工作必须针对公安院校培养的对象,紧密结合新的历史条件下学生工作新的特点、新的情况,进一步增强依法管理的观念,实施依法管理。不断创新和完善学生工作的法规制度体系,使学生工作干部掌握依法管理的基本方法,不断提高依法管理的能力,使公安院校的学生工作与党依法执政的大环境同步前进,不断开创学生工作的新局面,为公安机关培养可靠的合格人才作出新的贡献。     

我国执法权配置的法律实证分析

执法权是国家权力体系中最活跃、最重要的一项权力,其行使的得当与否与每个公民的切身利益息息相关。然而,从目前的情况看,我国执法权的行使还存在着令人忧虑的问题:一方面执法权交叉重叠;另一方面执法权又行使不力。造成这一结果的直接原因是我国的法律制度在执法权配置上存在漏洞,即现行立法过多迁就旧的行政管理体制,过于强调部门的利益,执法权被支解,执法主体过多过滥;同时现行法律制度过于注重对执法行为的约束,忽略执法权的科学配置。这些问题都有待于在我国的立法过程中逐步得到解决,即加强与完善我国各级政府的组织立法,规范各级执法权。     

Sexual Violence,Competitive State Building,and Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

ABSTRACT

This article examines the practices of rape, sexual enslavement, and forced marriage used by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Most research see wartime sexual violence as solutions to battlefields challenges. Studies of civil war and competitive state building during civil wars have largely overlooked the implications of such violence for rebel governance. This article explores how efforts to regulate sexuality figure within processes of violent state formation. ISIS’s practices of sexual violence mirror previous efforts by the Iraqi and Syrian state to substantiate ethno-sectarian domination through violence. But ISIS creates new gendered and ethno-sectarian hierarchies. Repertoires of sexual and gender-based violence can help to sustain and create structures of state control and are thus integral to competitive state building.     

私法在乡村治理法治化中的独特功能

针对如何构建乡村治理体系所涉法治,既有研究多围绕《中华人民共和国村民委员会组织法》等公法展开,故存在不足,亟待考察私法能否发挥某些独特功能。鉴于公法在培养村民的基本法治意识上存在一定的不足,同时,村民与私法的现实联系更为密切,尤其是考虑到私法严格奉行“私法自治”根本原则,由该原则所引申的“私法自治”“合法私利”以及“德法融合”等重要法治意识,不但有益于培养村民的基本法治意识,而且将极大促进在乡村治理进程中,对相通的、根本性的村民法治意识的良好培养。     

The Dismissal of Prime Ministers in the Asian Commonwealth: Comparing Democratic Deconsolidation in Malaysia and Sri Lanka

This article comparatively analyses processes of democratic deconsolidation in the Asian Commonwealth states of Malaysia and Sri Lanka by examining two recent constitutional crises in which the head of state dismissed, or attempted to dismiss, the serving prime minister during a parliamentary term. These episodes brought to a close fledgling reform movements that had obtained historic electoral mandates in both countries. The article discusses the Westminster-derived constitutional provisions concerning government formation as well as the distinctive features of political culture that animate those formal frameworks in the two countries. It is argued that while Malaysia and Sri Lanka possess the formal institutions of liberal democracy that notionally enable both pluralistic democracy and greater democratisation, their political cultures still have sufficient potency to be a counteracting force against the deeper consolidation of constitutional democracy. Democratisation therefore remains a work in progress in both countries.     

Intimate encounters: the ambiguities of belonging in the transnational migration of Indonesian domestic workers to Malaysia

In this article I explore ‘belonging’ both in terms of personal relatedness and national belonging in the context of Indonesian domestic worker migration to Malaysia. Riddled with metaphors of kinship both on the level of diplomatic ties between the two ‘kin states’ of Indonesia and Malaysia as well as on the level of intimate relations between employers and employees, the migration of Indonesian domestic workers to Malaysia allows for a critical analysis of the ways in which boundaries are drawn and redrawn on the political as well as on the intimate level of daily coexistence. The article argues that kinship provides a fruitful avenue from which to consider belonging in context of the specific relations between Indonesia and Malaysia and explores how belonging to the family and the nation is negotiated by Indonesian domestic workers, Malaysian employers and so-called ‘maid agents’.     

国际法中的时际法规则

国际法中的时际法遵循法律无溯及力原则,即处理国际法中的时际法应遵循法律事实应以与之同时的法律判断原则;但在具体适用该原则时,应该对权利产生时的法律和权利存续时的法律这两者之间做出区分,产生一个权利的行为受该权利产生时所适用的法律支配;按照同一原则,权利的存在,应当依循法律的演进所要求的一些条件。在争端解决时应以关键日期时的国际法和事实为依据。     

United States democracy assistance in Malaysia: the nature and impact of concurrent strategy

This exploratory article seeks to analyze the nature and impact of one of the main democracy promoters in Malaysia i.e. the United States (US). The US is a promoter that is often being alleged with interfering with Malaysian domestic affairs, especially since the sacking of former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim in 1998. This article argues that the US democracy promotion in Malaysia can be conceptualized under the framework of a concurrent democracy assistance strategy. This is due to the fact that while the US is supporting the non-regime compatible program, it is also concurrently channeling bigger aid for regime-compatible program to Malaysia from 1999–2015. The improvement of diplomatic ties between both countries since post-Mahathir era and the prioritization of security issues have led to a more engaging conduct of democracy promotion. Despite the US continuous funding of non-regime-compatible programs through non-state actors, this approach was nevertheless balanced by cordial relations at the state level. Nevertheless, the effect of US democracy assistance and promotion on Malaysia’s democratic development has been minimal, reinforcing the views on the difficulty to promote democracy in a semi-authoritarian regime.     

破解行政执法困境的法治解读

行政执法中的执法不作为与乱作为与执法"有法不遵守、程序不规范、裁量不公正、行为不文明"等密切相关。十八届四中全会提出"深化行政执法体制改革,坚持严格规范公正文明执法"。这是行政执法改革的方向。推进严格规范公正文明执法,必须通过法治化的路径,从以下四个方面予以推进:严格执法以法制完备为前提、规范执法以公开透明为保障、公正执法以裁量正当为重心、文明执法以人性关怀为内核。     

论法官与法律的关系--并及法律的未来

应该说,法官与法律的关系是以司法为视角进行法学研究时所应当关注的核心问题之一。本文在对已有相关理论进行评析的基础上得出了以下两个基本结论:其一,理想的法官与法律的关系应当是:法官乃法律的有限诠释者;其二,为了更好地保证法官与法律之间的这种理性互动关系,应当创制原则性法律。     

Introduction: theorizing different forms of belonging in a cosmopolitan Malaysia

This article introduces this special issue on new ethnoscapes of a cosmopolitan Malaysia. It investigates questions of belonging and analyses the conditions that make possible cosmopolitan solidarity between citizens and sub- and non-citizens in a globalized world. I posit several critical frameworks on cosmopolitanism, citizenship and the public sphere to theorize the relationship between citizens and non-citizens in Malaysia: ‘zones of sovereignty’, the refugee as homo sacer and ‘acts of citizenship’ that constitute rights and subjecthood for non-citizens. In an attempt to outline a more detailed ethnography of everyday ways of belonging, I touch briefly on Conradson's ‘spaces of care’. Lastly, I focus on the public sphere, which can be a barometer for gauging whether cosmopolitan solidarity and transnational crossings can occur.     

自然法思想对民法和国际法的贡献

自然法理论与罗马法学相结合,使罗马法优越于同时代其他国家的法律;自然法观念促使人们发出对法典化的呼唤,著名的《法国民法典》和《德国民法典》得以诞生;自然法是国际法的基础或渊源。