Writing Islamic Constitutions: Lessons from Pakistan

Muslim-majority countries often face the question of how to reconcile the place and role of religion within the framework of the nation state and a modern westernised system of constitutional ordering. And few states have wrangled with the politics of constitutionalising religion as profoundly and persistently as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. This paper argues that insights drawn from Pakistan are pertinent as much for contemporary debates on Islam within many Muslim-majority countries as they are for wider debates on religion and politics in the modern period. It argues that when contemplating the constitutionalisation of Islam and Islamic provisions: the design and jurisdiction of the courts matter; it may be better to achieve a workable political compromise between competing parties on religious matters than to stall or strive for the realisation of some ideal; the constitution should be free of any sectarian bias; and constitution-makers must take more structural matters such as the separation of powers seriously when considering discussions on religion and politics.     

The Financialisation of Sovereign Debt: An Institutional Analysis of the Reforms in German Public Debt Management

This study explores the financialisation of sovereign debt through an in-depth study of institutional change in German debt management. Between 1998 and 2006, the Ministry of Finance fundamentally altered the management of federal public debt by not only disempowering the Bundesbank and Federal Debt Administration as debt managers and outsourcing this task to a new agency, the Federal Finance Agency; moreover, the conservative debt strategy was replaced by strict market orientation. Conceptualising this change as institutional innovation, the paper argues that the Ministry of Finance played a leading role in the reform process. It shows that the arrival of the Euro brought with it a power struggle between the Ministry and the Bundesbank. The evidence fits better the concept of institutional innovation as a result of entrepreneurship than approaches which conceptualise institutional innovations as consequences of profit maximisation or layering and displacement.     

The Organization of the Islamic Conference: Sharing an Illusion

Among Dr. Akbarzadeh's latest publications are Uzbekistan and the United States: Authoritarianism, Islamism and Washington's Security Agenda ( London: Zed Books, 2005) and Islam and the West: Reflections from Australia (Sydney: UNSWPress, 2005). Ms. Connor researches Islamic militancy in the West.¹     

Continuity in Islamic political philosophy: the role of myth

There is an essential continuity between Islamic political philosophy in the Middle Ages and today. Political philosophers in the Middle Ages explained and justified the use of mythical stories by rulers to motivate the whole of the community to behave in appropriate ways. They argued, basing themselves to a degree on their understanding of Plato, that not everyone is capable of really comprehending the reasons for certain aspects of political necessity, and so they should be led to obedience of civil law by being told stories which represent in more vivid and imaginative form the rewards and penalties which exist with respect to the law. It has often been argued that these philosophers, ranging from al‐Farabi to Ibn Rushd, were dissimulating their genuine heterodox views on the relationship between Islam and the state by arguing for the use of stories and allegories to persuade the masses that they ought to act in particular ways, while the intellectual élite can be provided with rational explanations for political action. It will be argued that contemporary and recent political writers in the Islamic world of the Middle East speak and write in a manner very similar to that of their medieval predecessors, especially when it is a matter of distinguishing between an élite and the common people, and some resemblances between political and social conditions today and in the medieval world of Islam will be drawn to try to account for this similarity and continuity.     

Explaining Political Islam: The Transformation of Palestinian Islamic Movements

This article aims to present a comprehensive explanation of the development of Islamic political movements among the Palestinians. It focuses specifically on the analysis of three Islamic movements: two that are active among the Palestinians of Israel (e.g. the 1948 territories)—the Southern Islamic movement and the Northern Islamic movement—and the Hamas movement that is active among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Through the analysis of these movements, the authors have identified three different major strategies used by the movements under consideration: The ‘politics of acceptance’ by the Southern Islamic Movement, the ‘politics of difference’ by the Northern Islamic Movement, and the ‘politics of resistance’ by Hamas. Four factors together constitute the basis for a multi-layered explanation of the different approaches adopted by political Islam: the context, the public orientation, the leaders' movements' preferences and the interpretation of the religious text.     

Islamic Capital/Anatolian Tigers: Past and Present

This article critically reviews the current literature on ‘Islamic capital’ in Turkey. Instead of a culturalist account that primarily focuses on conservative lifestyles and religious orientations of entrepreneurs as the main indicator of class formation, it tries to identify a criterion on which ‘Islamic capital’ as such can be identified as a separate capital fraction that can pursue a distinct and collective agenda. It discusses the symbiotic relationship between interest-free banks, firms, religious networks and communal linkages in order to understand this peculiar way of capital accumulation in relation to Islamic motifs. It also provides guidelines to understand what the future may hold for this specific capital fraction and assess the explanatory capacity of the term ‘Islamic capital’ under present conditions.     

中国银行业的制度接轨与转型发展

本文探讨了入世过渡期内,中国银行业的制度接轨和转型发展问题.在归纳分析中国银行业最新动向基础上,作者针对上述两个问题,提出了若干对策建议.