The Politics of Regime Mainstreaming: Knowledge Production and the Institutionalization of Islamic Finance

Abstract

AbstractIslamic finance has been surprisingly undertheorized in the international relations literature. In this paper, I fill this gap by investigating the dynamics of mainstreaming within the Islamic finance regime in global markets. Using the norm diffusion literature, I argue that the development and diffusion of Islamic economics, and the corresponding expertise, have followed three distinct steps. First, Islamic economics initially was a critique of capitalism and world markets; second, it was “nationalized” by the political leaders of major Muslim-majority countries; and third, it became an integral part of world markets. By tracing the development of Islamic finance as part of global politics, I situate it within a theoretical framework and show the wider implications of this economic framework for global politics.