Conclusion: A Different Kind of Paradox

2018 ◽  
pp. 216-236
Author(s):  
Insa Lee Koch
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
State Power ◽  
State Authority

The conclusion returns to the punitive paradox introduced at the beginning of the book: the paradox of how we can explain liberal democracy’s illiberal turn. It contrasts this with a different kind of paradox that emerges when we shift from the question of ‘why’ to the ‘how’ and the ‘what’: the paradox of how the expansion of state power to forcibly control its citizens is also the inverse to its powers to control the means of its own application. This paradox expands the debate on punishment by, first, moving beyond a focus on criminal law; second, revealing the crisis of state authority at the heart of governance today; and, third, bringing into focus an alternative political theory that reconnects the exercise of statecraft with a political economy of care.

From Crusades to Colonization: Violence in Secular and Religious Political Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Xavier Scott
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
State Power ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Beliefs And Values

This paper examines the transition in political philosophy between the medieval and early-modern periods by focusing on the emergence of sovereignty doctrine. Scholars such as Charles Taylor and John Rawls have focused on the ability of modern-states to overcome conflicts between different religious confessionals. In contrast, this paper seeks to examine some of the peace-promoting features of Latin-Christendom and some of the conflict-promoting features of modern-secular states. The Christian universalism of the medieval period is contrasted with the colonial ventures promoted by the Peace of Westphalia. This paper’s goal is not to argue that secularism is in fact more violent than religion. Rather, it seeks to demonstrate the major role that religion played in early modern philosophy and the development of sovereignty doctrine. It argues against the view that the modern, secular state is capable of neutrality vis-à-vis religion, and also combats the view that the secular nature of modern international law means that it is neutral to the different beliefs and values of the world’s peoples. These observations emphasize the ways in which state power and legitimacy are at the heart of the secular turn in political philosophy. 

scholarly journals Criminal Law and Republican Liberty: Philip Pettit’s Account

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Horder
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Significant Challenge ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Republican Liberty ◽  
Republican Theory

AbstractPhilip Pettit has made central to modern republican theory a distinctive account of freedom—republican freedom. On this account, I am not free solely because I can make choices without interference. I am truly free, only if that non-interference does not itself depend on another’s forbearance (what Pettit calls ‘formal’ freedom). Pettit believes that the principal justification for the traditional focus of the criminal law is that it constitutes a bulwark against domination. I will, in part, be considering the merits of this claim. Is the importance of the orthodox realm of the criminal law solely or mainly explained by the wish to protect people from domination? In short, the answer is that it is not. Across the board, the criminal law rightly protects us equally from threats to what Pettit calls ‘effective,’ as opposed to formal, republican freedom. I will develop my critique of Pettit’s account of criminal law, in part to raise questions about the role of ‘domination’ in political theory, and about whether it poses a significant challenge to liberal accounts of criminal law.

scholarly journals The Relationship Model of Sharia and Financial Authorities

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Maksum
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The State ◽  
State Authority ◽  
Relationship Model ◽  
Islamic Financial Institutions ◽  
The Relationship

Political economy and religious policies affect the relationship between sharia and financial authorities. Countries that make Islam as the official religion put Sharia authorities within the scope of the state. Malaysia is one of the countries that put Sharia authorities in the structure of state authority, although it is subject to independency. In the meantime, Indonesia combines the two models of relationship: 1) granting broader independence to sharia authority (the Indonesian Ulema Council) and 2) forming sharia board to deal with sharia finance, among others. The comparison of Indonesian, Malaysian, and the Middle Eastern countries’ system shows that the independence and the effectiveness of sharia economic fatwa application are found to attract each other. This, in turn, influences the supervision of Islamic financial institutions.  AbstrakPolitik ekonomi dan kebijakan agama memengaruhi hubungan antara otoritas syariah dan otoritas keuangan. Negara yang menjadikan Islam sebagai agama resmi menempatkan otoritas syariah dalam ruang lingkup negara. Malaysia adalah salah satu negara yang menempatkan otoritas Syariah dalam struktur otoritas negara, meskipun tetap independen. Sementara itu, Indonesia menggabungkan dua model hubungan: 1) memberikan independensi yang lebih luas kepada otoritas syariah (Majelis Ulama Indonesia) dan 2) membentuk dewan syariah untuk menangani hal yang berkaitan dengan keuangan syariah. Perbandingan sistem Indonesia, Malaysia, dan negara-negara Timur Tengah menunjukkan bahwa independensi dan efektivitas penerapan fatwa ekonomi syariah terbukti saling berhubungan satu sama lain. Ini, pada gilirannya, memengaruhi pengawasan lembaga keuangan Islam.

ḤUDŪDPUNISHMENTS IN THE FOREFRONT: APPLICATION OF ISLAMIC CRIMINAL LAW BY HARAKAT AL-SHABAAB AL-MUJAHIDEEN

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Skjelderup
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Current Practice ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
State Power ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Terrorist Group ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Muslim Scholars

AbstractHarakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, usually referred to as al-Shabaab (the youth), is known primarily as a Somali terrorist group. But since the end of 2008, it has functioned as a state power in large parts of Southern and Central Somalia. In this article, I analyze the main legal body of the group: theqāḍīcourt. In order to establish law and order in their territories, al-Shabaab has applied their own version ofsharī'a. The article reveals that al-Shabaab's application of criminal law follows the inherent logic of classical Islamic legal doctrines on several points. However, the al-Shabaab courts tend to overlook many of the strict requirements regarding evidence and procedure that were outlined by the medieval Muslim scholars in order to humanize Islamic law. Therefore, the legal reality of al-Shabaab's regime is far more brutal than that of most other Islamic-inspired regimes in the contemporary Muslim world. Al-Shabaab's practice of Islamic criminal law may be seen not only as a means to exercise control through fear but also as an effective way of filling the vacuum of insecurity and instability that has followed twenty years of violence and the absence of state institutions in its territories. I argue that, in order to understand al-Shabaab's current practice of criminal law, one has to take into consideration the group's jihadi-Salafi affiliation. According to Salafi notions,sharī'ais not only a means to an end, but an end in itself. As such,sharī'a(i.e., God's divine law) is the visual symbol of an Islamic state. Consequently, the application of Islamic criminal law, and especially of theḥudūdpunishments, provides al-Shabaab with political-religious legitimacy.

Encountering the Leopard Skin Land Reform

2021 ◽  
pp. 58-79
Author(s):  
Alice Beban
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
State Power ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
Rural People ◽  
Contemporary State ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Ecologies

This chapter focuses on the rural people during and after the land reform in Cambodia in order to understand why the state's strategies are losing legitimacy among its citizens. It connects the rural people's sense that the state has abandoned them to expectations of state power molded by precolonial and socialist-era discourses of the paternalistic state. It also looks at the rapid increase in rural inequality in Cambodia's contemporary market economy. The chapter provides a view of Cambodia's post-conflict capitalist development from the ground to show how contemporary state-making projects articulate with sedimented histories and political ecologies. It cites stories that reveal an ambivalent desire for the potentiality of state-led development and gratitude to the government for delivering the country from war, while also lamenting what is being lost in the contemporary political economy.

Political Theory and Political Economy

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Elkin
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Core ◽  
Democratic Societies

This article describes the connection between political theory and political economy. It argues that political theorists need to take account of political economy in theorizing about the contemporary world because capitalism is the most powerful force at work in shaping the modern sociopolitical world. It also explains that economic questions concerning economic growth, the distribution of wealth and income, and role of markets are at the core of the political life in democratic societies.

Civil society and Islam: a sociological perspective

2001 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
MASOUD KAMALI
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
State Power ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Islamic Countries ◽  
Complex Development ◽  
Islam And Modernity

Recent political developments in Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Algeria, among others, suggest the possible emergence of an indigenous Islamic path of democratic formation. However, the conventional western interpretations, of religion, and in particular of Islam, leave little room for the recognition of the actual, complex development of such Islamic countries. Defining Islam and modernity as two more or less incompatible phenomena fails to recognize the potentialities of developing modern democratic Islamic societies with their cultural elements and particularities. Many Muslim countries themselves fail to see or are unwilling to recognize their own civil societies and their dynamic potentialities and to accept, in Locke's term, ‘the sovereignty of civil society’. Although the notion of a traditional civil society in the Islamic countries is controversial, I contend that neither individualism nor democratic institutions have been or are necessary for a civil society to exist. The basis of a civil society is the existence of influential civil groups and their institutions that can, through established mechanisms counterbalance state power. Analyzing civil society in Muslim countries requires that we recognize Islam not only as a religion, but also as a political theory and the major source of a legitimization of political power.

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