The Decline of Nation-States After the Arab Spring: The Rise of Communitocracy by Imad Salamey

Author:Imad Salamey [Salamey, Imad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781317036241
Google: f8VCDQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 32626827
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

In addition to the practices of khums and zakat, other informal philanthropic practices have grown popular in the Arab world. For instance in Egypt the philanthropic sector has witnessed an unprecedented swell in the proliferation of charitable organizations among both Christian and Muslim communities. Non-governmental organizations have also multiplied to include corporate, religious, environmental, social, educational, health, developmental, municipal, and family-based organizations, among others. These organizations have come to fulfill important economic activities that support communitarian interests.

Charitable foundations associated with communitarian figures or larger institutions have established business activities. Christian and Muslim foundations became active in running hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, small shops, and various service and production enterprises in order to finance community work such as orphanage centers, home care for the elderly, communal schools, and religious services. Most of these charitable organizations have also developed international outlooks and established centers worldwide. In 2016, GuideStar’s directory of charities and non-profit organizations lists more than 1,200 Islamic entities operating in the United States (GuideStar, 2016). Islamic Relief Worldwide is an example of an international organization with branches in thirty countries and a multimillion-dollar annual operating budget to support Muslim communities worldwide (Islamic Relief, 2016).

In addition to these donation-driven, non-profit, and non-state community-based entities, the region has witnessed the booming of foundations that are either privately owned or associated with ruling elites controlling billions in assets and funds. In Saudi Arabia, foundations associated with former kings and princesses, such as the King Faisal Foundation, Princess Al-Anoud Foundation, and the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue, have become dominant conduits pursuing the interests of ruling family members while serving targeted communities.

Communities’ economic infrastructures have also tapped into a large sum of non-state-controlled and non-regulated funds. The list of activities contributing to illicit economic infrastructures serving communities includes cross-border operations such as the smuggling of weapons, oil, drugs, food, and merchandise as well as human trafficking and money laundering. Such practices should be added to a set of semi-formal economic activities that have fully or partially escaped state regulation, including the majority of intra-communitarian cash running activities within small towns and across a variety of economic sectors including agriculture, handicrafts, construction, and services (Kamrava, 2002). In certain countries the size of unregulated and illicit economies may have even matched if not exceeded that of the state (Schneider & Savasan, 2007; Herbert, 2014).

Globalization has removed geographic barriers and expedited the establishment of cross-state networks among communitarian kin groups. Twenty-first-century transnational communitarian economies appear to be flourishing as cultural and religious networks strengthened across borders. Religious economies led the way where Sunni, Shia, and Christian groups increased their transnational religious services, attracting pilgrims to their respective holy shrines. In addition to the more than $8 billion generated annually by the Mecca pilgrimage economy (Vijayanand, 2012), Iraq and Iran have accelerated their religious tourism industries, attracting millions of Shia to holy sites and cities such as Qom, Najaf, and Karbala (Lee, 2013).

At the same time, cross-state communitarian economies have come to facilitate a growing set of commercial and financial enterprises.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.