Sharia Law and the Transition Towards More Democracy and a Market Economy – Restrictions and Opportunities

The main source of Islamic Law, the Sharia, provides not only spiritual leadership for human beings, or guidelines how to practice the religion of Islam properly, but also includes normative implications for the design of the political and economic sphere of a state. Beyond the sheer scientific interest, these implications of Islam became relevant (again) in the context of the recent transition processes in the Middle East and North Africa. Despite not being finished yet, the transformations will raise new challenges for their perspective economies and the political systems as many religion-based parties (e.g. Al Nahda in Tunisia) become important (if not the leading) forces in their respective countries. While many empirical studies, based on sheer quantitative approaches, conclude that, in Muslim countries, democracy—and in a way market-oriented economic principles—is less developed, most of these approaches suffer from a relevant shortcoming. Indeed, these studies include countries with Muslim majorities and take them as a proxy for the influence of Islam on democracy or the development of a market economy. But this equation may be too easy. At least in modern national states with Muslim majorities, the principles of Sharia have almost never been applied (duly) when designing the political and economic system. Consequently, these analyses—in the best case—measure the biased effects of a “mixed influence” of Sharia Law and other societal or traditional factors on democracy and the shape and structure of the economy, but not the isolated effects of the Sharia Law. Our paper closes this gap, as we scrutinize the implications of Sharia Law in favor or against a democratic system (or transition towards it) and market-oriented economic system, focussing on the principles as laid down in the text per se. While Sharia Law is interpreted quite differently among Islamic scholars and groups, there are “core elements” which are more or less universally accepted among scholars and consequently are focused on in our work. First, we isolate the main lines of Sharia Law which may be relevant for the design of a political order or constitution as well as an economic system. Then, based on a triangulation approach, we examine how far the normative specifications in Sharia Law are coherent with the basics of democracy, namely separation of powers and judicial independence, rule of law, citizens’ rights, participation and accountability, and main principles of market economies, as competition and transparency. For that purpose, in addition to our theoretical analysis, we test empirically if the fact that a country has a Muslim majority makes it more prone towards a transition towards more democracy. A short summary and some policy recommendations close our paper

Institutional quality and private sector participation: theory and empirical findings

Through several conduits, sound institutional quality is pivotal for economic development, as there is evidence that stable democratic institutions, rule of law and sound governance structures in the administration are highly conducive to promote growth. Therefore, a high institutional quality is not only the end point, but also the starting point of a more sustainable development. In this paper we provide some theoretical considerations as well as empirical evidence, based on several regression analyses, that the quality of institutions in a wider sense, and governance, which includes not only the level of “politics†itself, but also the administrative level, is relevant not only for the macro-level of development (i.e. the increase of the national welfare and foreign investment), but also on a micro-level: A stronger participation of private enterprises in public service provision and the introduction of public-private part¬nerships depends to a high degree on the institutional quality. This is even more relevant as the improvement of public services and of core infrastructures can be seen as crucial multipliers for future growth

Has the Covid-19 pandemic led to more informal and decentralised EU decision-making?

Covid-19 has presented unprecedented challenges for the EU’s member states. Drawing on a new study, Rahel M. Schomaker, Marko Hack and Ann-Katrin Mandry take stock of the EU’s reaction to the first wave of the pandemic. They write the response was characterised by shifts between forms of centralisation and decentralisation, as well as formal and informal decision-making

War-Fighting or Enhanced Policing?: The Effectiveness of Kill-Capture Tools and Tactics in the Post-9/11 Era

For more than ten years the so-called Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has been shaping not only national security strategies, but also influenced the definition of the enemy being fought as well as the nature of and boundaries between tactics used in this war. While the discussion about anti-terror strategies and tactics on the political level is ongoing, (empirical) research on the efficiency and effectiveness of these measures is still limited. In our article, we examine the relative impact two counter-terrorism approaches – killing and capturing – have on several measures of effectiveness. Scrutinizing data from 2001-2011 in numerous specifications, we empirically test to what extent these tactics may have different effects on different aspects of terrorism. The primary finding of our analysis is that both killing and capturing have components that have significant positive effects, but that these effects vary based on the specifics of who states target as well as the terrorists’ own targeting strategies. The most interesting specific findings are that drone strikes seem counter-productive for counterterrorism and that renditions seem effective, but that traditional policing through enhanced defenses has the largest effects, which are both positive and negative depending on where one lives

Public-private partnerships caught in a trust-trap and the potential role of information: the burden of divergent rationales

Trust is known to be beneficial for cooperation, though remains underdeveloped in public-private partnerships (PPPs), which are caught in a trust trap due to the cooperative regime’s internal heterogeneity. Accordingly, PPP’s inherent trust relationship is disentangled, and the burden of divergent actor rationales is introduced. We hypothesize that potential PPPs find themselves ex ante in a situation that requires certain repair mechanisms before the ‘usual’ venues of trust development can become effective. As such, exogenous information is theorized as quasi-substitute for relational experience that may support the development of a ‘leap of faith’. Theoretical considerations are tested by a vignette experiment with representatives of both the public and the private sector. Within and between-group analyses find strong support for the burden of divergent rationales and stable levels of (role-based) trust. However, the effect of the information treatment on trust levels is limited

„Kriseninternes Lernen“ und „krisenübergreifendes Lernen“ in der deutschen Kommunalverwaltung

Published online: 15 June 2022Krisen testen die Leistungsfähigkeit von Verwaltungen unter Realbedingungen. Vor diesem Hintergrund analysiert der vorliegende Beitrag Reaktion der deutschen Kommunalverwaltung auf die Fluchtmigration zwischen 2015 und 2017 und auf die erste Welle der COVID-19-Pandemie in 2020. Mit Blick auf die Debatte zum organisationalen Lernen in Ausnahmesituationen liegt der Schwerpunkt der Analyse auf der Rolle administrativer Netzwerke sowie der Lernfähigkeit von öffentlichen Behörden während sowie zwischen Krisensituationen. Die Auswertung zweier Umfragen unter Mitarbeitern der deutschen Kommunalverwaltung zeigt erstens, dass die Qualität der verwaltungsinternen und der zivilgesellschaftlichen Vernetzung von zentraler Bedeutung für administrative Krisenperformanz sind. Zweitens korrespondiert Leistungsfähigkeit in Krisen mit der Bereitschaft sowie mit der Fähigkeit, Lehren aus früheren Krisen zu ziehen.Crises constitute a test of the efficiency of the administrations under real conditions. This is where this article departs, comparatively analyzing the recent “migration crisis” and first wave of the COVID pandemic. Against the backdrop of the debate on organizational learning of public administration in exceptional situations, the analysis focuses on the role of administrative networks and the ability to learn during and between crises. The evaluation of two surveys among employees of German local government shows firstly that the quality of networking within the administration and civil society is of central importance for administrative crisis performance. Second, successful crisis performance corresponds to the willingness and organizational ability to draw lessons from previous crises.This article was published Open Access with the support from the EUI Library through the CRUI - Springer Transformative Agreement (2020-2024

Was Sie schon immer über Public Private Partnerships wissen wollten… Vorstellung des Projektverbunds "Public Private Partnership" des Deutschen Forschungsinstituts für öffentliche Verwaltung

Der vorliegende Beitrag skizziert, nach einem Überblick über die mit der Einführung von Public Private Partnerships verbundenen Herausforderungen, den interdisziplinären Projektverbund "Public Private Partnership" des Deutschen Forschungsinstituts für öffentliche Verwaltung. Ziel des Verbunds ist es, Forschungslücken zu schließen, belastbare Daten zu PPPs in Deutschland zu generieren und ein besseres Verständnis für die institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen und Akteure zu gewinnen, die über das Zustandekommen oder Nicht-Zustandekommen von PPPs in Deutschland entscheiden.The following article, after addressing current challenges related to the successful introduction of public- private partnerships, summarizes the research agenda of the interdisciplinary project group on "public-private partnership" at the German Research. Institute for Public Administration. The overall research goal of the project group is to close research gaps in the context of public-private partnerships, to gather reliable data on public-private partnerships in Germany and to gain a better understanding of the institutional framework and of how actors decide about the establishment or rejection of public-private partnerships in Germany

Youth Bulges, Poor Institutional Quality and Missing Migration Opportunities - Triggers of and Potential Counter-Measures for Terrorism in MENA

During the last few decades, a convolute of economic literature has emerged which focuses on the effects of demography, in particular the existence of so-called “youth bulges”, on economic growth and performance (for an overview see e.g. Bloom et al. 2001). The approach in our paper extends previous research to include potentially negative growth effects of a large share of young people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) not only via the “channel” of unemployment, but also through their potential as a “trigger” for political unrest and domestic terrorism, which have been identified in economic literature as important obstacles to economic growth. These phenomena are most pressing in the laborrich countries of the region, which are often perceived as being exceptionally “terrorismprone” and which have experienced a significant share of the region’s (and the world’s) terrorist attacks over the last decade. In our paper, we will identify, theoretically and empirically, to what extent demographic factors, amongst others, matter when it comes to domestic terrorism. We will also provide some insights as to how these problems are caused, or at least substantially compounded by, the region’s specific traits, such as the poor institutional framework and the lack of migration opportunities. After a theoretical outline of the negative relationship between “youth bulges” and economic development, and an outline of the role of migration as an “exit-option” in this context, we provide empirical evidence for our hypothesis that institutional quality, the absence of “youth bulges” and the existence of migration opportunities is of pivotal importance in avoiding terrorist attacks. As some of these factors – namely institutional quality and migration policies – are amendable to change through policy measures, we close our paper with policy recommendations for measures to be taken within the ongoing transformation process in the region