Suchergebnisse

This article examines the politics behind Islamic practices. After briefly reviewing the performance of Islamic banks elsewhere in the Middle East relative to conventional ones the paper focuses on Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey, countries that combine competitive banking among Islamic and conventional banks with competitive politics. Iran and Pakistan are excluded because they no longer permit conventional banking. (DÜI-Hns)

Lebanon's banking system is viewed as an "international regime" that held the country together in the face of all pervasive warfare. The system illustrates the underlying logic of such regimes, in that the banks' credit policies operationalized the rational choice model of an iterated prisoner's dilemma game. And just as international regimes are supposed to reflect the interests of state actors, analysis of the banks' balance sheets and income statements reveals changes in capital structure that reflect changes in Lebanon's political balance. While sustaining elite cohesion, the banks serviced political clienteles and might, if a political settlement were reached, support the restructuring of a consociational system more in line with Lebanon's demographic balance. If, on the other hand, no settlement is reached, the poor country's suicide may highlight certain aspects of international reality that seem recalcitrant to the theory of international regimes.