Constructing the Architectonics and Formulating the Articulation of Islamic Governance: A Discursive Attempt in Islamic Epistemology

International institutions have promoted a ‘good governance’ agenda as an archetypal model to achieve development for underdeveloped and developing countries. However, closer scrutiny can trace the root of this agenda back to the hegemonic nature of modernity that proposes a specific meta-narrative upon others, as part of Eurocentrism. Many, however, have criticized this Eurocentric paradigm, since the non-Western communities with their own constructed version of ‘good’ in governance have also proven their ability to develop and prosper in the present or in the past. Thus, the cultural and value-laden nature of such vernacular concepts provides the rationale for the existence and practice of other paradigms. In line with this argument, Islam, with its long history of governance and richness of its values can be considered as another alternative, which should be thoroughly examined to disclose and depict its conceptualization and paradigm of ‘good governance’. The aim of this research, thus, is to explore and analyze the Islamic axioms, foundation principles and values underpinning the field of governance in an attempt to construct the architectonics of a new systemic and dynamic theory and formulate the articulation of ‘Islamic governance’. This discursive and abstract, rather than being an empirical exercise, assumes to produce a ‘good governance’ framework within its own formulation through a value-shaped dynamic model according to maqÉÎid al-SharÊÑah (higher objective of SharÊÑah) by going beyond the narrow remit of classical and contemporary discussions produced on the topic, which propose a certain institutional model of governance based on the classical juristic (fiqh) method. In this new dynamic paradigm, a discourse-oriented approach is taken to establish the philosophical foundation of the model by deriving it from Islamic ontology, which is then articulated using the Islamic epistemological sources to develop and formulate the discursive foundations of this new theoretical framework. A deductive method is applied to the ontological sources and epistemological principles to explain the architectonics of this new theory, which are represented by the constructed axioms, which later help to articulate the working mechanism of the proposed ‘Islamic good governance’ framework through a specifically formulated typology to function as an alternative conceptualization of ‘good governance’. This study, through an exclusive analytical discursive approach, finds that Islam as one of the major religions in the contemporary world with the claim of promising the underpinning principles and philosophical foundations of worldly affairs and institutions through a micro method of producing homoIslamicus could contribute towards development of societies by establishing a unique model of governance from its explicit ontological worldview through a directed descriptive epistemology. Thus, the research on governance in this study does not only focus on the positivistic materialist components such as institutions or mechanisms or growth per se, but it encompasses the value-laden holistic nature of human life in accordance with the Islamic worldview as an important contribution. In doing so, it formulates the ‘good governance’ in Islam in relation to the conceptualized ‘ihsani social capital’, which constitutes the main thrust of the constructed model. Nonetheless, this generative (non-cumulative) paradigm of looking into the governance issue should be viewed as an incomplete certainty as production of the continuous ijtihad (reasoning) progression will continue to reveal ways through which its working mechanism can be expanded along with potential developments in its philosophical formation

Lead’s Life and Times: (part one) Before Widowhood; (part two) The Woman in the Wilderness; (part three) The Philadelphian Society

Part one: focussing on the period of Lead’s life before she became a widow in 1670, this chapter suggests that Lead was far more radical than has been supposed. Making use of a great many archival discoveries, which form the cornerstone of the painstaking reconstruction presented here, it provides mainly circumstantial but nonetheless cumulatively overwhelming evidence that Lead’s relatively well-known autobiography (printed in German in 1696) conceals almost as much as it reveals. Constructed to reassure its intended audience of continental Spiritualists, Behmenists and Pietists of Lead’s upright character, respectable social status and divinely bestowed gifts this so-called ‘Life of the Author’ adopts a similar strategy to that observable in a number of Philadelphian publications which masked private heterodox beliefs and rituals with public professions of irenic conformity. Accordingly key names, activities and teachings are omitted from Lead’s German biography because in the political, military and religious contexts of the mid-1690s detailing past associations would have damaged Lead’s reputation among her heterogeneous readership. Part two: covering the period from 1670 to 1695 – that is from the beginning of Lead’s widowhood until she went blind – this chapter focusses as much on extensive and overlapping domestic and continental networks of assorted millenarians, prophets, theosophists and devotees of mystic and spiritualist authors generally as on Lead herself. It also traces an evolution of Lead’s thought as she came under successive influences and began to develop her own distinctive beliefs. This was a religious journey with staging posts: an initial Calvinist obsession with sin and predestination wedded to a conventional Protestant understanding of the coming apocalypse; then the introduction of Jacob Boehme’s teachings and accompanying visions of a female personification of divine wisdom; finally the adoption, albeit with inconsistencies, of the doctrine of the universal restoration of all humanity. It was the last together with Lead’s apparent dependence upon visions and revelations which repulsed certain former admirers of her writings, turning them into some of Lead’s most vehment critics. Part three: this chapter covers the period from 1696 to 1704, that is from Lead’s first published message to the Philadelphian Society until her death and burial. It outlines how Lead’s little band of supporters intended to warn and prepare prospective believers of the coming Philadelphian age through a flurry of publications. Yet this co-ordinated publicity campaign abruptly fractured the Philadelphians’ precursor society, which hitherto had negotiated a path between secrecy and openness. Consequently only the minority who favoured a public testimony owned the Philadelphian name. Wanting to expose her visions and teachings to public view Lead was given the opportunity to do so through a succession of mainly male patrons and amanuenses. Accordingly she became synonymous with the Philadelphian Society. At the same time Lead’s principle supporters set about fashioning an image of irenic conformity and social standing for the Philadelphians at large. Hostile observers, however, readily compared Philadelphians with Quakers. Some even incorporated them within a catalogue of innumerable sects or else grouped them with foreign Quietists and Pietists. More damaging still was the allegation that Lead envisaged herself as the woman clothed with the sun (Revelation 12:1), indeed as the grandmother of a new Christ

Dynamics of Religion

RGVV(History of Religion: Essays and Preliminary Studies) brings together the mutually constitutive aspects of the study of religion(s)—contextualized data, theory, and disciplinary positioning—and engages them from a critical historical perspective. The series publishes monographs and thematically focused edited volumes on specific topics and cases as well as comparative work across historical periods from the ancient world to the modern era

Shakespeare’s Italy and Italy’s Shakespeare. Place, "Race," Politics

This book investigates the cultural difference of Italy in and through Shakespeare. It looks at the encounter, collision, intermingling of the ‘country dispositions’ represented respectively by Shakespeare and Italy, both understood as vast constellations rather than fixed stars. The obvious premise is that several plays by Shakespeare are adaptated from Italian sources; the additional context is the constant presence of Shakespeare in Italian culture from the mid-nineteenth century on. The classical topic "Shakespeare and Italy" is here revisited from a new perspective, focussing on the playwright’s Italian afterlife through the lens of the three categories that structure this book: place, ‘race’, and politics. My twofold and chiastic objective is to ask how Italy explains Shakespeare and how Shakespeare explains Italy, seeking possible answers in various texts, events, sites: a Victorian racialist interpretation of Shakespeare that casts Iago as the archetypal Italian specimen; a Romantic adaptation of Othello written in Venice under Austrian rule; the Fascist appropriations of Shakespeare; the disparate uses of Machiavelli in recent Shakespearean criticism; the absence of Giordano Bruno in Shakespeare studies after Frances Yates; an essay on Hamlet by a prominent Italian philosopher and politician; monuments and sites associated with Shakespeare in Verona and Venice; the Taviani brothers’ filmic version of Julius Caesar

Implementation barriers for management accounting in the public sector

The adaptation and implementation of management accounting/Controlling in the public sector was only partially carried out (this has been noted, e.g., by Hirsch, Nitzl & Schauß (2015); Nuhu, Baird & Appuhami, (2017)), and those implementations that were completed exhibited only limited success. In particular, in Germany, the impact of the implementation efforts of controlling has been disappointing. The complexity of implementations of management accounting/Controlling (as noted, e.g., by Granlund, 2001; Gosselin, 1997; Baxter & Chua, 2003) is even more pronounced in public institutions due to the social and political context than in private sector organisations (Hoque, 2014). Implementation barriers, particularly on a personal level in the form of resistance, persistently make an introduction more difficult. The underlying reasons for resistance have been studied just as little (Parvis-Trevisany, 2006; Agasiisti, Catalano & Erbacci, 2018) as the behavioural science aspects impacting the behaviour of actors in the implementation (Parvis-Trevisany, 2006). Hence, there is a need to study particularly the specific motives and behavioural aspects of actors in the public sector (Hoque, 2014); this thesis meets this demand and aims to examine implementation barriers as well as aspects of and reasons for resistance in greater depth. The empirical study is based on the introduction of a complete controlling concept during the refugee crisis. The empirical foundation of the case study involved a combination of interviews and participant observations. They were supplemented by expert interviews in order to increase the significance of the results and to make a comparison of a problematic with a successful introduction. The thesis examines resistance and its triggers on the basis of behavioural reasoning theory and combines it with behavioural science approaches, including cognitive limitations of the individual actors. The resistances and triggers identified in the case study extend the behavioural reasoning theory with additional 'reasons against' for the introduction of management accounting/Controlling. In the case study, the following 'reasons against' were identified: (1.) fear of transparency, (2.) faulty understanding of Controlling (Controlling as monitoring (‘Kontrolle’)), (3.) overwhelming due to insufficient learning process and (4.) overwhelming due to overambitious targets. The resistance behaviour can be explained by cognitive limitations. For example, the phenomena of overly ambitious targets is influenced by the cognitive limitations of the implementing actor in the form of availability and representativeness heuristics as well as anchor effects. In addition, the role of cognitive dissonance and information overload in the implementation process is highlighted and used as an explanatory approach for the resistance that occurs. The study shows also that different resistance behaviours occur under identical conditions. Further it shows the impact of resistance during a controlling implementation, in that the scope of top management support is limited due to resistance