Honoring Murat Kunt

[No abstract available

Whither Islamic Finance? Risk Sharing in An Age of Crises

The aim of this paper is to explore potential path of progress in developing full-spectrum Islamic finance. It will be argued that all Islamic transaction contracts (‘uqud) are risk sharing contracts. Next,the paper will explore ways and means of creating sufficiently strong impetus for widening and deepening the present menu of instruments toward longer time, higher risk-return, investment-oriented instruments. It will argue that governments can create the energy and the incentives within the private sector in this direction by first developing a vibrant and efficient equity market. Such a market will serve to stake out the higher end of the spectrum of Islamic finance instrument menu. Incentives will then allow the private sector to develop risk-sharing instrument in between the low and high end of time, risk-return profile of the menu. The paper will also address principles and methods underlying the legal, regulatory, supervisory infrastructure as well as economic policies needed to organize such an equity market

Ideal kingship in the late medieval world: The Ottoman case

The aim of this study is to examine the characteristics of the ideal ruler as seen through the eyes of the members of late medieval societies. Throughout the study, main features attributed to the ideal ruler in various cultures have been pursued. Comparing the concepts and attributes apparent in these cultures, it has become possible to talk about a single ideal of kingship as far as the "Christian" and "Muslim" realms of the late medieval era is concerned. The early Ottoman enterprise has been taken as a case reflecting this ideal in practice. Attributes of the ideal king as reflected in the works of the medieval theorists in both "Islamic" and "Medieval European" lands have been examined. The characteristics apparent in these works have been traced in early Ottoman chronicles. Their expression and evaluation of the events reflect certain approaches to these characteristics and individual rulers. Combining theoratical work with practice and focusing on the similarities between the ideals of "Islamic" and "Christian" ideals rather than the differences, a sketch of the ideal ruler in the late medieval era has been drawn as a result of this study

Landscapes of Achaemenid Paphlagonia

This dissertation presents a critical study of the landscapes of Achaemenid-period Paphlagonia (c. 550-330 BCE), a mountainous region in northern central Turkey that extends from the verdant Black Sea coast to the sparser Anatolian plateau. In the classical literary sources and the imperial narratives of the Achaemenid Empire, the region of Paphlagonia has been characterized as a mountainous frontier, inhabited by migrants and ruled by gluttonous dynasts. Classically-informed historians writing about the Achaemenid period also speak of Paphlagonia as a bounded region, divided into several rival chiefdoms. Recent archaeological surveys and excavations in the region, however, present a different perspective: a complex and contested landscape politically and culturally related to the Black Sea and Anatolia, as well as the wider Aegean and Achaemenid worlds. A series of ubiquitous, columnar rockcut tombs spread across the Paphlagonian landscape function as significant monuments where such hybrid identities and political alignments are negotiated. The dissertation develops a post-colonial critique of the ancient and modern discourses that reimagine Paphlagonia and Paphlagonians as marginal, uncivilized, and tribal. It traces the genealogy of how the region of Paphlagonia within classical geography came about in the work of 19th and 20th century colonial antiquarians, geographers, and archaeologists; and demonstrates the modernist and nationalist underpinnings of their writings. Furthermore, the dissertation brings together data from recent archaeological surveys and excavations in the region to provide a fuller picture of the various landscapes of Paphlagonia, with special emphasis on the relationship of rockcut funerary monuments and settlement to copper mining, karst landscapes, and forest ecologies. Finally, the dissertation demonstrates a critical methodology of an archaeology of landscapes by deconstructing ancient and modern discourses about them and creating a new analytical framework, using a combination of archaeological survey, archival research, and critical perspectives

Heroes, Traitors, and Survivors in the Borderlands of Empire

Zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhundert bildete der aus zahlreichen Grenzgebieten bestehende und zwischen der Habsburgermonarchie, Serbien und Montenegro befindliche Sandžak die nördlichsten Teile der osmanischen Provinz Kosovo. Dessen multikonfessionelle und mehrsprachige Einwohner waren bis zu frühen 1920er Jahren den Regierungspraktiken von fünf Staaten unterworfen: dem Osmanischen Reich, Montenegro, Serbien, der Habsburgermonarchie und dem Königreich der Serben, Kroaten und Slowenen. Es gelang jedem dieser Staaten, die Einheimische für ihre eigenen militärischen Zwecke zu mobilisieren. Bislang hat sich die Geschichtsschreibung entweder auf eine imaginäre Gemeinschaft oder auf Regierungsstrukturen konzentriert. Die vorliegende Dissertation bietet einen umfassenderen und differenzierteren Ansatz, indem sie eine lokale Perspektive einnimmt und bei den Mobilmachungsbemühungen des Staates nach dem „Großen im Kleinen“ sucht. Die Studie zeigt, dass die militärischen Mobilisierungen ein Feld konstruierten, das er ermöglicht, verschiedene Staatsziele zu analysieren, einschließlich der Figurationen zwischen der herrschenden Eliten und den Einheimischen. Die Erzählung konzentriert sich auf staatliche Pläne, die die Mobilmachungen zu verschleiern versuchten, und auf die Lebenswelten der Einheimischen. Hierzu werden verschiedene Ebenen des Regimewechsels, die Vorstellungen von Loyalität, Sicherheit und Ungewissheit im Wandel untersucht. Die Dissertation befasst sich mit Praktiken der Abgrenzung und Verdinglichung auferlegter Kategorien, mit Strategien der herrschenden Eliten, mit Widerstandstaktiken der Einheimischen, mit der Position von Frauen und Kindern in diesem Kontext. Die militärischen Mobilmachungen des Staates zielen darauf ab, den Übergang von Grenzgebieten als Ort, an dem gesellschaftliche Gefüge verschwommen sind, zu angrenzendem Land, wo feste ethnonationale Hierarchien und die Verwaltung von Ressourcen – in staatlicher Hand etablieret sind, zu erleichtern. Die Studie zeigt, dass dies kein eindimensionaler Prozess war.At the beginning of the 20th century, the Sandžak, a mental map that consisted of numerous borderlands, made up the northmost parts of the Ottoman province of Kosovo. By the early 1920s, its multi-confessional and multi-lingual inhabitants were subject to the governmental practices of the five polities: The Ottoman Empire, Montenegro, Serbia, the Habsburg Monarchy, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Each of these states managed to mobilize the locals for their own military purposes (the Balkans Wars (1912/13) and World War I). The historiography has dealt namely with the broader setting, either by focusing on one imagined community or on governmental structures. The present study offers a more nuanced approach by attending to a local perspective and searching for the “big in the small” in the state’s mobilization efforts. The study contents that the military mobilizations constructed a field through which analyzing various states' goals, including figurations between the ruling elites and the locals of various forms of capital and gender, is feasible. The narrative is centered on the state’s hidden plans, which the mobilizations aptly veiled, and on the lifeworld of the locals by investigating various levels of regime change and the notions of loyalty, security, and uncertainty from Ottoman to SCS rule. The study deals with the practices of demarcation and/or reification of imposed categories; its strategies for achieving mobilization of the borderlands’ inhabitants; how the tactics of the latter, regardless of confession, were used to defy the governance policies; the position of women and children in this game; and all their local social networks. The state’s military mobilizations were aimed at facilitating the transition of borderlands, as a place where societal boundaries were blurred, to bordered land, where fixed ethno-national hierarchizations and the management of resource – in the hands of the state – were achieved. The dissertation shows that this transition was not a one-dimensional process

Branding Books Across the Ages

As marketing specialists know all too well, our experience of products is prefigured by brands: trademarks that identify a product and differentiate it from its competitors. This process of branding has hitherto gained little academic discussion in the field of literary studies. Literary authors and the texts they produce, though, are constantly 'branded': from the early modern period onwards, they have been both the object and the initiator of a complex marketing process. This book analyzes this branding process throughout the centuries, focusing on the case of the Netherlands. To what extent is our experience of Dutch literature prefigured by brands, and what role does branding play when introducing European authors in the Dutch literary field (or vice versa)? By answering these questions, the volume seeks to show how literary scholars can account for the phenomenon of branding

Inclusive business models? How SMEs are developing inclusive value chains and combating social exclusion in bottom-of-the-pyramid markets

Research suggests that private firms can contribute to addressing poverty by prioritising the inclusion of bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) communities in global financing, commerce and consumption value chains. However existing evidence have focused on large multinationals. An understanding of how small firms incorporate the inclusion of BoP communities in their value chain is critical remains under-researched. Drawing on the literature integrating entrepreneurship, inclusion and business model this article develops a qualitative study of how three agribusiness in Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Kenya. The findings highlight opportunities and challenges facing entrepreneurs in pursuing inclusive business opportunities African economies