Islamic Political Thought: Reviving a Rationalist Tradition

This work develops the foundations of an Islamic argument for secular, liberal democracy from within the Islamic discursive tradition. First, it challenges the presentation of contemporary Islamic political thought as a unified, continuous development of the classical canon by showing the influence of the now marginalized medieval rationalists in the development of Islamic political thought. The classical rationalist concern with divine justice forced the founders of Sunni orthodoxy to state their epistemologies and their positions on ethical ontology. The orthodox positions, and their related methods of legal-juristic reasoning, are shown to be incapable of accommodating the modern Islamic positions on political representation, slavery, and just war. This leads to the second argument of the work, that the modern Islamic discourse is better understood as a reflection of the central concern with justice and its rationalist epistemology and ethical ontology we find in the writings of classical rationalists. This argument is made by examining the works of three classical rationalists, a theologian, a philosopher, and a historian. Their political positions, shaped by their rationalism and concern with justice, challenged their orthodox contemporaries, and provide substantive critiques of the classical political accommodations, methods of politico-legal reasoning, and hence, of modern Islamist political projects. The final chapter reveals how far the mainstream of Islamic political thought has deviated from the classical discourses, since the 19th century, by adopting the language and ideals of the European Enlightenment. This shift is presented as a triumph of classical rationalism over literalism, whose epistemological foundations and ontological implications have yet to be acknowledged and appreciated.

The Hybrid Spirit Animating Chinese Pentecostals in Malaysia

This dissertation interrogates the assertion in postcolonial scholarship, especially from the work of Homi Bhabha that the construction and performance of hybrid identities act as a form of resistance for marginalized communities against structures of oppression. While this study supports this assertion, it also critiques how hybridity fails to address issues of unequal power relations. This has led to an uncritical use of hybridity that reproduces the very idea of static identity which its proponents claim to transcend. Through qualitative study of Chinese members of a Pentecostal church in Malaysia, this study argues that church members engage in "unequal belonging" where they privilege certain elements of their identities over others. In concert with Pierre Bourdieu's conceptions of habitus, field, and capital, unequal belonging highlights how hybridity fails to capture the intersecting and competing loyalties, strategies, and complexities of identity formation on a contextual level. Unequal belonging challenges postcolonial scholars to locate the subtle workings of power and privilege that manifest even among marginalized communities. The study first situates the Chinese through an analysis of the historical legacy of British colonialism that has structured the country's current socio-political configuration along bounded categories of identification. The habitus constrains church members to accept certain Chinese ethnic markers as "givens." Although they face continuous marginalization, interviewee data demonstrates that church members negotiate their Chineseness and construct a "Modern Chinese" ethnic identity as a strategic move away from Chinese stereotypes. Moreover, conversion to Christianity affords church members access to cultural capital. Yet, it is limited and unequal capital. In particular, the "Chinese Chinese," who church members have demarcated as backward and traditional, are unable to gain access to this capital because they lack fluency in English and knowledge in modern, westernized worldviews. Unequal belonging nuances monolithic conceptions of hybridity. It demonstrates how church members' privilege of Christianity over Chineseness exposes the complex processes of power and privilege that makes westernized-English-speaking Chinese Christians culturally "higher" than non-English-speaking, non-Christian, Chinese. This study provides significant contribution to the complex aspect of hybridity where it is both a site of resistance and oppression.

Comment Letter: The NYSE and the End of the Structural Separation between Regulatory and Commercial Interests of the Exchange

The NYSE transformed into a for profit entity in 2006. As part of the approval process, the NYSE agreed to structurally separate the regulatory function from the business function. In doing so, the NYSE created NYSE Regulation, a non-profit with an independent board, to handle most regulatory matters. During the comment period, a spirited debate arose over the ability of a for profit company to carry out a regulatory mission. Some suggested that the regulatory function was incompatible with a "for profit" motive and that NYSE Regulation should be spun off. Others accepted the proposed structure but called for additional changes designed to reduce the possible influence of the public holding company over the regulatory function. In the end, the SEC approved the structure but with a number of prophylactic safeguards including the requirement that NYSE Regulation have a board consisting of all independent directors (save the CEO) and that directors from the for profit holding company could not make up a majority of the board. More recently, however, the NYSE has proposed to end the structural separation of the two functions and instead put in place a functional separation. The proposal would result in the termination of the delegation agreement between the Exchange and NYSE Regulation and the creation of both a Regulatory Oversight Committee of the Board of Directors of the Exchange and the creation of a Chief Regulatory Officer. This letter examines the history of the separation of the two functions and critiques the NYSE's proposal.