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2019 | Book

Global Governance and Muslim Organizations: Introduction Read chapter Read first chapter

Global Governance and Muslim Organizations

Editors: Leslie A. Pal, M. Evren Tok

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Book Series : International Political Economy Series

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, represented on the world stage by 57 states, as well as a host of international organizations and associations. This book critically examines the engagement of these states in systems of global governance and with a variety of policy regimes, including climate change, energy, migration, humanitarian aid, international financial institutions, research and education. Chapters explore the dynamics of this engagement, the contributions to global order, the interests pursued and some of the contradictions and tensions within the Islamic world, and between that world and the ‘West’. An in-depth perspective is provided about the traditional and new forms of multilateralism and the policy spaces formed which provide new opportunities for the Muslim and non-Muslim world alike.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Global Governance and Muslim Organizations: Introduction
Abstract
Pal and Tok’s introduction describes the modern system of global governance, three major misconceptions about Islam and its engagement with the world, and each of the book’s chapters. The modern global governance system comprises international and quasi-governmental organizations, the private sector and NGOs, as well as new decision-making processes that produce both hard and soft law. Muslim-majority states and global Islamic organizations engage in various and complex ways with this system, contrary to the misconceptions that there is a monolithic “Islamic world” that is opposed both to the West and to modernity.
Leslie A. Pal, M. Evren Tok
Chapter 2. Reforming Governance in Muslim-Majority States: Promoting Values or Protecting Stability?
Abstract
Pal offers the first comprehensive analysis of Western-led governance reform projects in Muslim-majority states. Focusing on three key organizations—the OECD, the European Union, and the World Bank—the chapter traces the history of the reform efforts, their regional concentrations and overlaps, and priorities. Every region, from the Middle East and North Africa to Central and Southeast Asia, has been the target of one or another of these organizations, promoting democracy and good governance. At the same time, there has been a tension between governance reform and regime stability, particularly in the Middle East.
Leslie A. Pal
Chapter 3. Philosophical and Historical Origins and Genesis of Islamic Global Governance
Abstract
Eugenie Samier shows how the Islamic world has had a long philosophical and legal tradition dealing with the most complex issues of government and leadership, as well as the core questions of global governance. The chapter explores the philosophical origins and genesis of the central original concepts of global governance in Islam, including its historical development through the preceding conceptions in the region, the Qur’an and the governance practices of the Prophet Muhammad, and the caliphs who immediately succeeded him, generally considered to have constructed the most authentic Islamic model of leadership and government. She shows that Islamic conceptions of global governance are distinct but not wholly different from many Western conceptions. More than that, they can provide some inspiration for contemporary debates.
Eugenie A. Samier
Chapter 4. Islamic Legitimacy Still Matters: The Rule of Law and Governance in Contemporary Arab Muslim-Majority States
Abstract
David Mednicoff scrutinizes how the rule of law functions and connects to governance in Arab Muslim-majority states. He characterizes law’s relation to governance in MMS as a fraught and fragile balancing act. The chapter shows that while the rule of law clearly applies centrally to governance and policy implementation throughout the Arab world, deep social divisions around political legitimacy, enhanced by colonial and post-colonial authoritarianism, limit key features important to legal accountability and transparency, such as judicial review and, frequently, the legislative process itself. Because of the ongoing significance, and unresolved status, of how specific Islamic historical sociolegal practice, and more general values, should play into the rule of law in contemporary Arab states, the relationship between governance and law faces continuing challenges. Islamic governance starts from a theistic, particularistic communal identity, and this raises possible tensions for its commensurability with today’s largely plural, non-theological dominant global sociolegal norms. Yet this does not mean an inevitable or inexorable lack of congruence between MMS and other legal systems, or liberal Western political and legal norms generally. Diverse Muslim perspectives remain key contributions to hopes for the rule of law in different Arab states.
David Mednicoff
Chapter 5. Global Governance and the Informal Nature of Islamic Development Assistance: The Peculiar Case of Gulf States
Abstract
This chapter scrutinizes the fragmentation of the OIC aid system. It is argued that this fragmentation is a result of the asymmetrical intergovernmental relationship between a small number of aid donors (notably the hydrocarbon-rich Gulf States) and a large and increasing pool of aid recipients. The chapter illustrates that this process is empowered by the asymmetrical setting of the OIC (there are very few donors with whom to compete), donors have “bilateralized” the multilateral by supporting their own “aid recipients”. This has progressively fragmented the OIC aid system. In parallel, because borrowers and aid recipients dominate the OIC arena numerically, their increasing demands have enhanced donor organization proliferation, to the detriment of a cohesive OIC aid system. The combination of these two trends explains why the OIC system is fragmented, structurally underfunded, and difficult to reform. These consequences constitute a challenge that the OIC must address going forward.
M. Evren Tok, Cristina D’Alessandro
Chapter 6. Islamic Charities and Global Governance
Abstract
This chapter discusses the rise of Islamic charity organizations in Muslim-majority states and the rest of the world. These organizations have varied aspects of the operation, including their cooperation with other civic organizations. Four broad frameworks of global governance of NGOs and civil society organizations have been explained to create basis and make relevance between Islamic charities and the topic of global governance. The Quran and other Islamic teachings greatly influence activities on a spiritual basis, and this affects a myriad of tasks. Also, there exist negative perceptions about Islamic charity organizations among Western countries due to allegations of a history of links and/or funding terrorist groups. These negativities, coupled with weak and repressive regimes and regulatory structures of NGOs and civil society organizations in many of the Muslim-majority states and a weak or minimal engagement or participation with the global humanitarian organizations such as the United Nations, constitute some of the challenges that these organizations have been facing. However, the existence of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation serves as a relief for some of the setbacks, as it addresses most issues faced by while addressing the needs of charity organizations. In conclusion, the author provides recommendations regarding the ways that the Islamic charity organizations could improve their operations and relations in the relevant global governance architecture of NGOs and civil society organizations.
Mohamed Abdulfatah
Chapter 7. The OIC and the Paris 2015 Climate Change Agreement: Islam and the Environment
Abstract
Kaminski’s chapter explores past and present Muslim-world contributions to environmental stewardship. First, a brief introduction to the Islamic discourse on the environment based on primary Islamic sources is offered. Then Kaminski surveys Muslim engagement with the environment during the Middle Ages and Ottoman period. The main part of the chapter carefully examines specific OIC-state contributions to the current global discourse on environmentalism. The official climate change plans submitted by the leading OIC-state CO2 emissions countries as a part of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) will be explored in greater detail. It will be shown that the Muslim world today is playing an important role in global governance especially in regard to combatting climate change.
Joseph J. Kaminski
Chapter 8. Global Environmental Governance and the GCC: Setting the Agenda for Climate Change and Energy Security
Abstract
The threat of climate change and the need for energy security pose serious challenges for policymakers. Part of the strategy to tackle these issues rests on multilateral initiatives increasing the momentum of global environmental governance efforts. Nevertheless, these problems create a further dilemma for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. On the one hand, the impact of climate change will heavily affect these countries and thus requires their active participation in mitigation efforts. On the other hand, the remedies against climate change mainly require a decrease in the consumption of fossil fuels, especially oil, which is the backbone of the GCC economies. Given this dilemma, as well as the interdependence of the GCC economies, the chapter questions to what extent the GCC has developed a coordinated and comprehensive approach to environmental issues among its members and to what extent they are involved in global governance efforts. The findings inform the direction of the policy efforts, as well as the practices of energy security and environmental performance that are in place to meet the climate targets, which in turn will affect the overall success of global efforts officially declared in the Paris Agreement.
S. Duygu Sever, M. Evren Tok, Cristina D’Alessandro
Chapter 9. Scaling Up Research Governance: From Exceptionalism to Fragmentation
Abstract
Currie-Alder examines how Muslim-majority states have governed public research investments and capacity during recent decades, identifying distinct perspectives that focus on the national, regional, and global levels. Public universities and research centers train skilled professionals, ministerial meetings and international organizations represent Islamic or Arab world science, while self-organizing scientists collaborate with peers abroad. National perspective privileges domestic science, regional perspective privileges cooperation among predominantly Muslim states, and global perspective privileges links to science-leading locations anywhere. Research governance shifted from emphasizing exceptionalism of science in the Muslim world to becoming more entangled with global science. Implications of this shift include narrowing of domestic research agendas onto shared “global” challenges, moving away from regional cooperation, and fragmenting research efforts across Muslim states.
Bruce Currie-Alder
Chapter 10. Governance and Education in Muslim-Majority States
Abstract
This chapter provides a critical discussion of the interplay of governance and education in Muslim-majority states (MMS) both historically and currently in light of the globalization movement of education. Baghdady outlines the relationship between governance and education in MMS and provides examples of this relationship from various MMS. The impact of globalization of education on governance and how globalization is reshaping education and redefining the role of governments are discussed. The chapter also provides a portrait of the various manifestations of education globalization in MMS addressing various phenomena such as the importation of Western educational models by private schools and universities and establishing branch campuses of Western universities in MMS. Baghdady clarifies the lack of intra-regional collaboration compared to collaboration of MMS with Western countries.
Ahmed Baghdady
Chapter 11. Can the Sharī’ah Be Compatible with Global Governance? Islamic Financial Institutions as a Laboratory for Conceptual Analysis
Abstract
This chapter introduces the notion of Sharı’ah as a multilevel and multifaceted concept. It reviews both classical and contemporary scholarship to show that Sharı’ah law in regard to financial institutions has its own special characteristics, but not ones that make it incompatible with the global regulation of financial institutions. It offers a discussion of global governance and good governance from this perspective and then closes with an analysis of the case of Islamic financial institutions and their supervisory boards as an example of the intersection of good global governing practices and Sharı’ah. The chapter does not claim that these institutions as they currently stand are paragons of good global governance in action; rather it seeks to argue that these institutions can be engaged with and can serve as examples of good global governance in action so long as they continue to be developed and evaluated by scholars across disciplines.
Mesut Idriz, Joseph J. Kaminski
Chapter 12. Global Governance: Is There a Role for Islamic Economics and Finance?
Abstract
In this chapter, Mohseni-Cheraghlou argues that the implementation and growth of genuine Islamic economic and financial (IEF) systems in countries with significant Muslim population, which host more than 1.5 billion people, can help international efforts in increasing financial stability, reducing poverty and inequality, and promoting shared prosperity and environmental sustainability. In doing so, Mohseni-Cheraghlou argues that an IEF system can contribute much toward international institutions’ (such as IMF and World Bank) global governance efforts in these fronts. Finally, the chapter provides the case study of a successful attempt by an organization named Akhuwat, for reducing poverty and promoting shared prosperity in Pakistan through Qard Hassan, an Islamic microfinance scheme.
Amin Mohseni-Cheraghlou
Chapter 13. The Muslim World in Cyberia: Prospects for E-Governance and Digital Capacity Building
Abstract
This chapter looks at the state of the Muslim world online and how digitalization, including the realm of online social networking, is contributing to new forms of social, cultural, economic, and political capital. It discusses how these types of capitals may contribute to new forms and dynamics of capacity building involving various stakeholders—governments, civil society organizations, think tanks, academia, and the citizen in a truly global context. The chapter explores the digital state of the Muslim world, sustainable strategies and policies for ICT development in Malaysia and Bahrain, a case study of the implications of ICT revolution and e-government on governance and development in Malaysia, and scenario planning and new visions of development for long-term policy formulation, intervention, and performance of the nation-state.
Danial Yusof
Chapter 14. Global Governance and Labour Migration in the GCC
Abstract
This chapter will focus upon labour migration to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, since the massive incomes to these countries, particularly from the oil price increase in the 1970s, resulted in one of the great migration stories of the twentieth century. Still significant, today labour migration to the GCC accounts for over 10 per cent of all migrants globally. The GCC states are also the site of a great deal of interactions with global organizations, international institutions, NGOs and individual activists around human rights and labour rights that have led to the beginnings of reforms and changes in practices. It will be argued that global governance of migration is an unachievable ambition, but one that does not deter various actors from pursuing.
Ray Jureidini
Chapter 15. Conclusions
Abstract
The daily headlines are dominated by international crises, belligerence, face-offs, and tensions, and it is easy to forget that the world actually “works” (most of the time) through endless arrangements, agreements, rules, negotiations, and cooperative problem-solving. This patchy system of regimes and rules, with its vast cast of characters including state and non-state organizations, constitutes what we described in the Introduction to this book as “global governance.” The focus of this book has been how the Islamic world engages with these systems of global governance, how it contributes to them, and in some cases how it challenges them with alternative models and agendas. On the face of it, the question seems an obvious one: the 57 member states of the OIC represent some 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, which in turn are supported by a variety of non-governmental organizations and institutions operating at the global level (e.g., the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies). The other obvious fact is the centrality of MMS in global energy issues, in trade, and in terms of their weight and promise in the developing world (think Indonesia, Malaysia, or Pakistan). Regrettably, political Islam, terrorism, and the most fragile MMS (e.g., Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq) have tended to frame the way the public thinks about the Islamic world and indeed a good deal of the scholarship. That was why this book was necessary: it is the first attempt to bring to a wider audience a discussion of the constructive engagement of the Islamic world with global governance, of what we termed the “cooperation of civilizations.” We took some pains in the Introduction to this book to argue against three misconceptions about Islam and the Muslim world that would foreclose the investigation before it started: that the Muslim world is undifferentiated and defined primarily by religion, that Islam is inevitably in civilizational opposition to the West, and that Islam is incompatible with modernity. Having set those prejudices aside, we presented 13 chapters on different aspects of global governance and Islam: Islamic perspectives on governance and law, international aid through the OIC, Islamic charities, climate change and energy sustainability, global research and education, economics and finance, e-governance, migration, and governance reform efforts.
M. Evren Tok, Leslie A. Pal
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Global Governance and Muslim Organizations
Editors
Leslie A. Pal
M. Evren Tok
Copyright Year
2019
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-92561-5
Print ISBN
978-3-319-92560-8
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92561-5