Abstract
Is political Islam inherently autocratic or free? In today’s polarized political climate, Islamism is often portrayed as having authoritarian ten-dencies. Many presume that an “Islamic state” requires a strong central government in a unitary state, wherein Islamic law is imposed, curtailing the scope for choice that people and communities enjoy. But a strong case can be made for an alternative view: the Islamic polity has a central government with limited functions, which coexists in a polycentric order with many additional, sometimes less formal institutions of governance not associated with the central state apparatus. This alternative may be labeled “minarchist political Islam.”
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Notes
Discussed in Anas Malik, “Challenging Dominance: Symbols, Institutions, and Vulnerabilities in Minarchist Political Islam,” The Muslim World 98 /4 (October 2008): 502–519.
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Jurisdictions may be long-lived, partly autonomous geographic subunits or more changeable, overlapping, and competitive; see Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, “Unraveling the Central State, But How? Types of Multi-level Governance,” American Political Science Review 97 /2 (2003): 233–243.
Andrew Sabl, “Community Organizing as Tocquevillian Politics: The Art, Practices, and Ethos of Association,” American Journal of Political Science 46 /1 (January 2002): 1–19.
See Douglass North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance (Cambridge, UK, 1990)
Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge, UK, 1990).
Douglass North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York, 1981).
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See Bruce D. Porter, War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundation of Modern Politics (New York, 1994)
Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990–1992 (Oxford, UK, 1993).
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© 2011 Asma Afsaruddin
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Malik, A. (2011). Minarchist Political Islam. In: Afsaruddin, A. (eds) Islam, the State, and Political Authority. Middle East Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137002020_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137002020_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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