Islam Civil Society Market Economy

Many Islamic countries lack the traditions of a civil society, liberal democracy or a free market economy. What is the reason for these shortcomings? Why were most Islamic countries not part of the "third wave of democracy"? Is Islam incompatible with these values, ideas and institutions? All these and other questions are addressed in the book Islam, Civil Society and Market Economy, a collection of five articles by distinguished scholars of political science, law and philosophy.

Does religiosity diminish democratic economic and civil tendencies? Do Islamic traditions provoke more hostility to democratic values in comparison to other religious traditions? In Religion, Religiosity, and Democratic Values, Abbas Mehregan undertakes an empirical examination of the effects of individual religiosity, historical religion, institutional democracy, and socioeconomic development on attitudes towards free market economics and confidence in traditional, modern, and post-modern civil society organizations. Using multilevel analysis, Mehregan compares 60 Islamic, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and folk-religion societies in these regards. Furthermore, in addition to an empirical comparison of Sunni and Shia Islamic countries, a theoretical investigation of the relationship between Islam and democratic economic and civil values provides a comprehensive insight into the topic.

The thesis analyses the role of Muslim voluntary welfare associations in Jordan from the perspective of their religious discourse and the related social activities, to assess whether they contribute to empowerment or reinforce dependency

A deep investigation of neoliberalism's proselytizers in Eastern Europe and the Global South Where does free market ideology come from? Recent work on the neoliberal intellectual movement around the Mont Pelerin Society has allowed for closer study of the relationship between ideas, interests, and institutions. Yet even as this literature brought neoliberalism down to earth, it tended to reproduce a European and American perspective on the world. With the notable exception of Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, long seen as a laboratory of neoliberalism, the new literature followed a story of diffusion as ideas migrated outward from the Global North. Even in the most innovative work, the cast of characters remains surprisingly limited, clustering around famous intellectuals like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. Market Civilizations redresses this absence by introducing a range of characters and voices active in the transnational neoliberal movement from the Global South and Eastern Europe. This includes B. R. Shenoy, an early member of the Mont Pelerin Society from India, who has been canonized in some circles since the Singh reforms; Manuel Ayau, another MPS president and founder of the Marroquín University, an underappreciated Latin American node in the neoliberal network; Chinese intellectuals who read Hayek and Mises through local circumstances; and many others. Seeing neoliberalism from beyond the industrial core helps us understand what made radical capitalism attractive to diverse populations and how often disruptive policy ideas “went local.”

The book looks in detail at the economic conditions of Muslim countries specifically, offering a thorough political analysis at the same time. It focuses on a broad range of economic factors and takes into consideration reports such as the World Development Index. It explores striking differences and similarities among carefully chosen Muslim countries. Mainly because of its broad use of different disciplines, it will be of interest to students of political science, economics and history.

Government and individual policymakers throughout the developed and developing world face the common problem of bringing expert knowledge to bear in government decision making. Policymakers need understandable, reliable, accessible, and useful information about the societies they govern. They also need to know how current policies are working, as well as possible alternatives and their likely costs and consequences. This expanding need has fostered the growth of independent public policy research organizations, commonly known as think tanks. Think Tanks and Civil Societies analyzes their growth, scope, and constraints, while providing institutional profiles of such organizations in every region of the world.Beginning with North America, contributors analyze think tank development past and future, consider their relationship to the general political culture, and provide detailed looks at such examples as the Heritage Foundation and the Institute for Research on Public Policy. A historical and subregional overview of think tanks throughout Europe notes the emphasis on European Union issues and points to a dramatic rise in the number and influence of free market institutes across the continent. Think tanks in Germany, Spain, and France are profiled with respect to national politics and cultures. Advanced industrial nations of northern Asia are compared and contrasted, revealing a greater need for independent policy voices. Moving to countries undergoing economic transition, contributors deal with challenges posed in Russia and the former Soviet bloc and their think tanks' search for influence, independence, and sustainability. Other chapters deal with the developing countries of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, finding that the number, quality, and independence of think tanks is largely determined by the degree of democracy in individual nations.

Trust and Civil Society offers an original and accessible analysis of the meaning of 'trust' in a range of critical contexts: voluntary organizations, faith associations, the economy, the state and welfare, environmental issues and charity. Balancing theory with grounded analysis, and drawing on interdisciplinary and international perspectives, the book makes an important contribution to contemporary debates. It will be of interest to academics, students, researchers and practitioners in a range of fields.