Questions for Classes 19 and 20: April 8 and 13, 2010

 

 

1. From last week's reading, what do you make of the Alexandria

Declaration enunciated by Egyptian NGOs? How serious is the Egyptian

government which of course inspired these NGOs representing Egyptian

"civil society"? [will not be discussed in class, but a good final quiz question!]

 

2. How useful is it to compare Arab "monarchies," when we factor in

the size of their respective societies? (Moroccan pop = 30 million; Qatar

= 120-150,000)

 

3. Bullies, bunkers, and monarchies all need patronage to survive.

Can we argue (I have tried to make the case in class and in our readings) that the monarchies

have a more rational political economy of patronage than the praetorian

statist regimes?

[but look at the latest Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International - Jordan does pretty well but Morocco does not - at least in the perception of the various business and country experts who are doing the rankings]

What do you make of the "structural power" of capital to keep government corruption under control?

 

4. What are the constraints on structural adjustment in Morocco's

oligopolistic setting? To what extent can globalization challenge the

informal oligopolistic controls? Look at the case of textiles and

tariffs supported by the spinners and weavers and opposed by the clothes

makers within the General Confederation of Moroccan Entrepreneurs (CGEM).

 

5. What is Islamic finance and why might it serve regimes that are trying to adapt to global markets?

 

6. Why have Morocco and Saudi Arabia been less open to Islamic banking than Egypt or Turkey?

 

7. How, if at all, does Islamic finance relate to political Islam or "Islamism"?

 

8. Which political contexts are most/least favorable to the development of Islamic finance?

(We are jumping ahead a bit in our reading here - to week 13 on the syllabus - because some of you may need this background as you do more research for your paper).

Let us examine the evolution of these banks in the Muslim world - here are their market shares - with recent Turkish increases

Islamic banking deposits as a proportion of total deposits in the respective banking systems.

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Main page - April 6, 2010

Department of Government, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin.

Questions, Comments, and Suggestions to chenry@mail.utexas.edu