Islamic Banking in Practice: the Case of Pakistan

In Islamic banking rules apply which differ from those in traditional banking. This article first discusses the consequences of Islamic banking for financial operations in general, then goes on to examine the Islamic procedures introduced in Pakistan's banking sector since 1985. Considering the drastic change in procedures, the effect of Islamization on this sector has been moderate. One reason for this is that banks in Pakistan have consistently opted for financial instruments closely resembling interest-based finance. Another reason is that their behaviour has been determined to a large extent by the fact that they are state-owned.     

Finance and Industrial Policy in Unsuccessful Developmental States: The Case of Pakistan

While a large body of research indicates that state‐directed finance worked for successful East Asian developers, the dominant assumption remains that countries with a weak state capacity, where corruption is rife, should not ‘try this at home’. In this article, that narrative is questioned through a case study of the role of the financial sector in Pakistan, which is widely considered to be a successful case of financial liberalization, contrasting the role of the publicly controlled financial system in the 1970s and 1980s with that of the liberalized financial system in the 2000s. Utilizing archival firm‐level and aggregate data, historic government documents, and interviews with policy makers, financial sector employees and industrialists, it is argued that in the Pakistani case, the withdrawal of state control over the financial sector led to a deterioration of outcomes. This resulted in the allocation of credit away from the productive sectors, namely industry and agriculture, towards unproductive sectors, for speculative purposes; and in the health of the financial sector not improving as expected, with non‐performing loans and corruption remaining a problem, and banks actually becoming a greater burden on government finances. This indicates that even states with weak capacity and flawed industrial policy may be better off with some degree of public control over finance.     

Cultural Engineering Under Authoritarian Regimes: Islamization of Universities in Postrevolutionary Iran

The purpose of this article is to analyze the efforts that have been made to Islamize Iranian universities, specifically since the emergence of hardliners in 2005. After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Islamic regime relentlessly intensified its efforts to Islamize universities to train a new generation of ideologically driven students. In the three decades following the Revolution, three major periods of university Islamization have been implemented. The Cultural Revolution, which started in 1980, was the first step in the Islamization of Iran's universities: to cleanse the higher education systems from students and professors who criticized the new established Islamic regime. By increasing the number of students and the development of universities throughout Iran in the Rafasanjai era, the second wave of the Islamization of the university was triggered by Ayatollah Khamenei in 1994. During the reform era, the Islamization of universities slowed because of the many confrontations between the Supreme Leader and the reformist administrations. With the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election, the Islamization of universities intensified. While there are a few publications about the Islamization of universities, they mainly focused on the first and second decades following the 1979 Revolution. Focusing on the third period, this article will investigate the different strategies and tactics for the Islamization of universities, as well as reasons for its failures.     

Understanding Saudi Arabia's Influence on Pakistan: The Case of the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism

The launch of the Saudi‐led so‐called Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT) in 2015 tested the strong strategic alliance between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. In light of concerns about the positioning of the coalition of 41 states against Iranian interests in the Middle East, Pakistan's initial response to the Saudi demand to join the war in Yemen was a polite refusal by means of a unanimous decision of the parliament. However, under tremendous pressure from Riyadh and other Gulf States, Islamabad later capitulated and backtracked from its initial decision. This paper analyses the unique nature of the relationship between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia through a dissection of the various dimensions of the Kingdom's cultural and political influence on Pakistan. It also illuminates Saudi hegemonic strategies and the manner in which Islamabad adjusts and is influenced as well as coerced to revise its foreign policy choices. This paper argues that Saudi's diplomatic strategies, political pressure and pledges of generous financial assistance ensured Pakistan's participation in IMAFT.     

Muslim village intellectuals: The life of the mind in northern Pakistan

The findings reported in this article would not have been possible without the help and support of many people in Chitral. Fieldwork in Chitral was conducted with the generous support of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, an ESRC research studentship, and a grant from the British Academy Society for South Asian Studies. It has also benefited from sustained and insightful criticism from Dr Susan Bayly, and from four anonymous AT reviewers. Pseudonyms are used for places and people throughout the text.

• 1. 

  I first lived Chitral as a school-leaver in 1995 and made three subsequent visits before conducting a 20-month period of 'formal' anthropological fieldwork in the region between April 2000 and October 2001. This period of fieldwork was followed up by three further shorter stays.

       
  
  

Policy Diffusion and Strategies for Promoting Policy Change: Evidence From California Local Gun Control Ordinances

Recent research efforts on policy innovation and diffusion largely have focused upon policymaking at the state government level. In this article we seek to develop an understanding of the ways momentum for policy change can be generated among receptive local governments. We use gun control policymaking within California to illustrate how local government characteristics, the presence of regional associations, and the establishment of interest groups may lead to policy development and diffusion. We also identify linkages between interest groups, focusing events, and the successful use of a new image of gun violence as a public health problem, yielding insights into strategies that may be used successfully to promote policy change.     

The hydropolitical Cold War: The Indus Waters Treaty and state formation in Pakistan

This paper develops the framework of the “developmentalist passive revolution” to analyze the politics of water development during the Cold War. This framework is developed by drawing on Marxist geopolitics and critical water geography, and is offered as a way to facilitate comparative analysis of engineering and nationalism in the context of Cold War hydropolitics. The concrete historical engagements of the paper relate to the signing of The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 between Pakistan and India and the associated Indus Basin Plan to transform the Pakistani waterscape. What historical and geopolitical-economic conditions enabled the signing of the IWT? What legacies did the IWT have for state formation in Pakistan? Drawing on the negotiation records of the IWT, archival materials relating to Pakistani river development during the 1960s, and fieldwork conducted in Pakistan in 2012, this paper argues that Cold War hydropolitics are best analyzed through the cultural and economic interactions of asymmetrically empowered developmentalist state elites at multiple scales.     

Women and Pakistan International Airlines in Ayub Khan's Pakistan

ABSTRACT

This article weaves together several unique circumstances that inadvertently created spaces for women to emerge away from the traditional roles of womanhood ascribed to them in Pakistan. It begins by tracing the emergence of the Pakistan International Airlines as a national carrier that provided an essential glue to the two wings of Pakistan. Operating in the backdrop of nascent nationhood, the airline opens an opportunity for the new working women in Pakistan. Based on first-hand accounts provided by former female employees,¹1. Seven interviews were conducted with former female employees of PIA. This was part of a larger project funded by GHF. and supplementing it with official documents, newspaper reports and the advertising used for marketing at the time, it seeks to provide an illuminating insight into the early history of women in Pakistan. While the use of women as markers of modernity and propaganda is not new,²2. David Willmer, ‘Women as participants in the Pakistan movement: Modernization and the promise of a moral state’, Modern Asian Studies, xxx (1996), 573–90. here within the context of Cold War and American cultural diplomacy, the ‘modernist’ vision of the Ayub-era in Pakistan (1958–1969), and its accompanying jet-age provide a unique lens through which to explore the changing role of women. The article showcases a different approach to understanding the so-called ‘golden age’ of Pakistani history: a neglected area of the international history on Pakistan, which is far too often one-dimensional.³3. An exception being Khawar Mumtaz and Farida Shaheed, Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? (London, 1987).     

《世界境域志》所记唐地“布格舒尔”地望考

波斯地志《世界境域志》以流域为限,详略有别地介绍了唐时期分布于中国长江流域和黄河流域的两个“布格舒尔”。作为波斯语的专名,前者盐资源属性是盐井,位于剑南道泸州附近,是沿长江州郡中产量和规模最大的盐井;后者盐资源属性为盐池,同时用以代指邻近长安辖有盐池的大城市,该城地望为辖河中两池的河中府。河中盐院内“绿莎厅”的称呼者及在场者,皆为波斯商人。他们参与了“就场专卖”盐法规定的驻河中府领盐行盐之事,而居中关联者为时任河中府散兵马使且已任廿年之久的波斯裔李景侁。     

Defiant Innovation: The Adoption of Medical Marijuana Laws in the American States

Diffusion research often characterizes the role of the federal government in innovation adoption as a supportive one, either increasing the likelihood of adoption or its speed. We examine the adoption of medical marijuana laws (MMLs) from 1996 to 2014 to shed light on what motivates states to adopt innovations that are in explicit defiance of federal law. Furthermore, we examine whether federal signals have any influence on the likelihood of adoption. In doing so, we utilize implementation theory to expand our understanding of how the federal government's position impacts state policy innovation adoption. We find mixed evidence for the influence of federal signals on the adoption of MMLs. The results suggest that medical marijuana policies are much more likely to be adopted in states when proponents have the political or institutional capital, rather than a medical or fiscal need. Moreover, this political capital is sufficient independent of the federal government's real or perceived position.