Browsing by Author "Malik, Anas"

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Beyond State and Market: Institutional Diversity and Polycentricity in Islamic Contexts
(Ergon Verlag, 2018) Malik, Anas
In discussing capitalism in Islamic contexts, and in societies generally, many will focus on the role of the market in relation to the state. My main thesis is that the emphasis on ideal types of market and state are inadequate and misleading, particularly when considering development issues. Instead, understandings of property, authority, and governance generally require more sensitivity to institutional diversity. Changing the starting point to an appreciation of institutional diversity greatly improves analyses and under-standings of potentials. A society’s cultural endowment, including religious tradition, can be understood as a set of institutions responding to collective action problems in society. While much of the literature on political economy in Islamic contexts has emphasized diversity in ideas, interests, and attitudes, institutions have largely been treated as derivative or epiphenomenal. In contrast with mono-lithic depictions of ‘Sharia’ or ‘Islamic Law’, the Islamic tradition presents a rich heritage of institutional diversity, and the means to accommodate insti-tutional diversity. Combined with a political economic approach that em-phasizes institutional diversity and polycentric order, this heritage suggests underappreciated development potentials in contemporary Islamic con-texts. Considering these potentials requires going beyond the market-state dichotomy.
Building Civic Artisanship through Golden Rule Mindfulness
(2024) Malik, Anas
Drawing on Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of American democracy, Vincent Ostrom argued that polycentric orders require civic artisanship for their adaptability and long-term wellbeing. Civic artisanship occurs when individuals take into account others’ interests and perspectives in devising and revising rules for managing social problems. Underlying civic artisanship is the Golden Rule: to do for others what you would have others do for you. Various religious and cultural liturgies urge Golden Rule mindfulness, ie., growing one’s empathy and imagination of the “other”. A major challenge to sustaining a democratic order is the intergenerational transmission of the habits of heart and mind that underlie self-governance. This paper proposes a technique for invigorating civic artisanship for responding to environmental challenges in intercommunity contexts: start meetings with golden rule mindfulness boosts, ideally with awe-inducing artifacts. The ultimate goal is a change in individuals’ civic attitudes, habits, and engagements. The paper concludes with some tentative notes on a pilot study.
Polycentricity and Citizenship in Environmental Governance
(Cambridge University Press, 2019) Marshall, Graham R.; Malik, Anas; Thiel, Andreas; Blomquist, William A.; Garrick, D.E.
"This chapter is concerned with relationships between governance arrangements and environmental citizenship, and with the challenges of establishing and sustaining governance conducive to this citizenship. The significance of this concern is illustrated by Australian experiences with governance arrangements seeking to promote citizenship among rural landholders in natural resources conservation. In considering this concern we take our lead from a line of thinking about polycentric governance that was developed by Vincent Ostrom, who drew in turn from de Tocqueville’s early 19th century analysis of the American democratic ‘experiment’. Ostrom identified ‘the way people think and relate to one another’ (pertaining to the meta-constitutional level of analysis in the Institutional Analysis and Development framework) as fundamentally significant for meeting the challenges of achieving polycentric governance capable of promoting citizenship, and also the citizenship required to sustain polycentric governance. Key insights drawn by Ostrom regarding the meta-constitutional conditions required for forms of polycentric governance conducive to citizenship are reviewed in this chapter to suggest areas for continuing research into the viability of self-governing polycentric orders. Progress in empirical investigation of relationships between polycentric governance and environmental citizenship is reviewed. One relationship of this kind is illustrated with reference to attempts at policy reform towards environmental watering in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin."