How religio-economic projects succeed and fail

The field dynamics of Islamic finance in the Arab Gulf states and Pakistan, 1975-2018

Bibliographic Data

ID4237174
AuthorsRyan Calder (0000-0002-4557-5540, Johns Hopkins University, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume17
Issue1
Pages167-193
Publication date2019-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocio-Economic Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ser/mwz015
OpenAlexW2950609417
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited59

Why did Islamic finance become durably institutionalized between the 1970s and early 2000s in the Arab Gulf states, where no mass movement demanded it, but not in Pakistan, where activists had demanded it for decades? I argue that institutionalization required a stable coalition among religious authorities, market actors and the state that shared understandings of religio-economic virtue. Those understandings also had to be compatible with the neoliberal financial order. In the Gulf, an elite social movement presented usury as an individual sin and agreed on the roles of religious authorities and the state in Islamic finance. Their vision was compatible with the social order of national and international credit markets. In Pakistan, a stable coalition and shared understandings were absent. A popular Islamist movement, presenting the defeat of usury as a large-scale political–economic transformation, pursued a revolutionary overhaul of the economy that threatened domestic and international financial interests.

Economics · Economy · Elite · Islam · Order (exchange) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Securitization · State (computer science) · Usury · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Finance · Islamic Finance and Banking Studies · Law · Socioeconomic Development in MENA

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