Constituting Religion
Constituting Religion
Most Muslim-majority countries have legal systems that seek to enshrine Islam and liberal rights. While not necessarily at odds, these dual commitments nonetheless provide legal and symbolic resources for activists to advance contending visions for their states and societies.
Using the case study of Malaysia, Constituting Religion examines how competing constitutional commitments enable litigation and feed the construction of a 'rights-versus-rites binary' in law, politics, and the popular imagination. Drawing on extensive primary source material and carefully tracing cases from the court of law to the court of public opinion, Moustafa theorizes the 'judicialization of religion' and he examines the radiating effects of courts on popular legal and religious consciousness. The study shows that legal institutions do not simply adjudicate religious conflict; they also catalyze and invigorate ideological struggles. Probing the links between legal pluralism, social movements, secularism, and political Islamism, Constituting Religion sheds new light on the confluence of law, religion, politics, and society.
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Recognition:
Short-listed, Hart/Socio-Legal Studies Association Book Prize
Honourable Mention, Asian Law and Society Association Book Award
Reviews:
"How do Muslim-majority countries manage dual commitments to constitutional protections for liberal rights and Islamic personal status law? Tamir Moustafa offers a rich and nuanced study of the Malaysian case to address this question in that context and develop broader insights. Focusing on the roles played by courts and lawyers in producing a popular understanding of an opposition between liberal rights and religious provisions or, as Moustafa helpfully frames it, a ‘rights-versus-rites binary,’ he provides a deeply textured account of how and why legal institutions play a role in bringing these commitments into conflict. In cases where courts play a preeminent role in determining how the state regulates religion, he argues that legal institutions serve to constitute the struggle over religion rather than merely offering a forum for dispute resolution."
— Asli Bâli, UCLA School of Law
"Constituting Religion offers a strikingly innovative approach to understanding the relationship between Islam and the liberal legal order. Rather than seeing them as inherently incompatible, the book shows through a case study of Malaysia that laws and legal cases generate contests that intensify ideological differences and construct a law/religion binary that polarizes popular legal consciousness. Tamir Moustafa creatively uses socio-legal theory to provide a refreshingly new perspective on a much-debated issue."
— Sally Engle Merry, Silver Professor of Anthropology, New York University
"Moustafa’s fascinating book demonstrates that courts in Malaysia, as in many Muslim-majority polities, enable and catalyze as much as resolve ideological conflicts between proponents of Islamic religious principles and liberal rights. The author’s sophisticated understanding of law’s constitutive power makes the volume an important contribution to scholarship on legal mobilization, rights contestation, and popular legal consciousness."
— Michael McCann, Gordon Hirabayashi Professor for the Advancement of Citizenship, University of Washington
"Constituting Religion is teeming with insights for anyone interested in law, religion, and politics in Malaysia and beyond. He provides readers with a clear-eyed view of how 'rights versus religion' polemics are constructed, and why they matter. Moustafa does justice to an important and complex issue."
— Zainah Anwar, co-Founder of Sisters in Islam and Musawah, The Global Movement for Justice and Equality in the Muslim Family
SSRC/Immanent Frame book forum with contributions from: Asli Bâli, Patricia Sloane-White, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Matthew Nelson, Kristen Stilt, Jaclyn Neo, Shanmuga Kanesalingam, Benjamin Schonthal, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, and Tamir Moustafa.
The Struggle For Constitutional Power
The Struggle For Constitutional Power
The Struggle for Constitutional Power examines the politics of the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court, the most important experiment in constitutionalism in the Arab world. The Egyptian regime established a surprisingly independent constitutional court to address a series of economic and administrative pathologies that lie at the heart of authoritarian political systems. Although the Court helped to institutionalize state functions and attract investment, it also opened new avenues through which rights advocates and opposition parties could challenge the regime. The book examines the dynamics of legal mobilization in this most unlikely political environment.
First published in 2007, The Struggle for Constitutional Power broke new ground on the study of politics of courts in authoritarian regimes.
Recognition:
Lasting Contribution Award, American Political Science Association, Law and Courts Section. (“given annually for work that stands the test of time…work that has made a lasting impression on the field of law and courts.”)
CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, Association of College and Research Libraries.
Edward S. Corwin Award for the best dissertation in the field of public law, American Political Science Association.
Best Doctoral Dissertation, Western Political Science Association.
Honorable Mention, Malcolm Kerr Dissertation Award, Middle East Studies Association.
Reviews:
“The Struggle for Constitutional Power…is a model of outstanding scholarly research. This book deals with an important topic, and Moustafa does it justice. Not only does this volume constitute a comprehensive analysis of political and economic change in Egypt during the past 40 years, but it suggests new directions for scholarly research for students of comparative law and legal systems. No specialist in the fields specified can afford to ignore this important study.”
— Law and Politics Book Review
“Carefully sourced, meticulously organized, and engagingly written, The Struggle for Constitutional Power is as gripping as political science gets.”
— Mona el-Ghobashy, International Journal of Middle East Studies
“Moustafa's first solo book…provides a ground-breaking approach to the role of judicial institutions within authoritarian polities, focusing on the creation, empowerment, and eventual demise of the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court, and its place within the broader context of the Egyptian state...The importance of Moustafa's work for our understanding of judicial institutions cannot be overstated.”
— Raul Sanchez Urribarri, Journal of Politics
“This is an important book, to be read by scholars and students of comparative constitutionalism and constitutional democracy. Moustafa addresses fundamental questions such as whether democracy is a necessary prerequisite for effective judicial power. He challenges the common assumption that courts in authoritarian states are pawns of the regime and obstacles to the realization of minority rights.... Highly recommended.”
— Joel Grossman, Johns Hopkins University
Rule By Law
Rule By Law
Scholars have generally assumed that courts in authoritarian states are pawns of their regimes, upholding the interests of governing elites and frustrating the efforts of their opponents. As a result, nearly all studies in comparative judicial politics have focused on democratic and democratizing countries. This volume brings together leading scholars in comparative judicial politics to consider the causes and consequences of judicial empowerment in authoritarian states. It demonstrates the wide range of governance tasks that courts perform, as well as the way in which courts can serve as critical sites of contention both among the ruling elite and between regimes and their citizens. Drawing on empirical and theoretical insights from every major region of the world, this volume advances our understanding of judicial politics in authoritarian regimes.
Reviews:
“The volume’s analytical structure and main lines of inquiry build on Tamir Moustafa’s earlier conceptual work on the ‘judicialization of authoritarian politics’ in Egypt.… Every chapter of this book makes an analytically sophisticated argument about authoritarianism and law.”
— Lisa Hajjar, UC Santa Barbara, Perspectives on Politics
“This project represents something of a high water mark in the study of law and courts in general and judicial review in particular.”— Martin Shapiro, UC Berkeley
Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Egypt
Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Egypt
Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Egypt, edited by Robert Springborg, Amr Adly, Anthony Gorman, Tamir Moustafa, Aisha Saad, Naomi Sakr, Sarah Smierciak
Investigating key features of contemporary Egypt, this volume includes Egypt’s modern history, politics, economics, the legal system, environment, and its media and modes of cultural expression. It examines Egypt’s capacities to meet developmental challenges, ranging from responding to globalization and regional competition to generating sufficient economic growth and political inclusion to accommodate the interests and demands of a rapidly growing population.
The macrohistory of Egypt is complemented by the microhistories of specific institutions and processes that constitute separate sections in this handbook. The chapters revolve around political economy: it is shaped by the people and their abilities, political and legal institutions, organization of the economy, natural and built environments and culture and communication. Politics have been overwhelmingly authoritarian and coercive since the military seized power in 1952, consequently the contributions address both the causes and consequences of unbalanced civil-military relations, military rule and persisting authoritarianism in the political society.
This multidisciplinary handbook serves a dual purpose introducing readers to Egypt’s history and contemporary political economy and it serves as a comprehensive key resource for postgraduate students and academics interested in modern Egypt.