Talal Asad's seminal Formations of the Secular (Stanford, CA, 2003) asks, “What might an anthropology of the secular look like?” In similar fashion, Joseph J. Kaminski inquires as to the physiognomy of a Muslim polity. In The Contemporary Islamic Governed State, Kaminski places his focus primarily upon the intersection of politics and Islam through the lens of discourse analysis. Invoking such essential western scholars as Ernesto Laclau and Michel Foucault, Kaminski acknowledges and affirms the importance of discourse and its concomitant relationship to multiple nodal points of power in developing a conceptual framework for a viable political model.
The first half of Kaminski's book explores the historical and theoretical architecture of Islam's political geography. He examines four influential scholars within the admittedly western typology of political philosophy: Al Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Taimiyyah, and Abd Al Wahhab. Kaminski demonstrates his considerable comfort placing these individuals in conversation not only with one another but also with European philosophers. Kaminski expounds upon the contribution of each respective scholar to the broader Islamic political narrative by furnishing much-needed context to the space and time in which each intellectual operated to assess the universality and eternality of his message. In this exercise, Kaminski assiduously works in the liminal spaces, whereby the scholars are spared either the lionization or vilification that contemporary Muslim consumers of their philosophies subject them. As is commonplace in so much political discourse of late, be it in the so-called West or within Muslim spaces, those seeking answers to validate a pre-existing outcome distort and malign the fidelity of scholarship from a bygone era and place. Kaminski does well to recalibrate the rudder of such important discourse.
Kaminski devotes the second half of his treatment to four carefully selected case studies of applied governance: Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, and Malaysia, respectively. The proximity of publication of the book to the aftermath of the Arab Spring makes the choice of the first two countries understandable and commendable, given the fluid, even volatile nature of the political landscape therein. Kaminski deftly distinguishes between the revolutionary ethos still embedded in Egypt, post-Mubarak and post-Morsi, but recognizes that revolution has an inception date much earlier than 2011, dating back at least to the middle of the 20th century. By contrast, Kaminski assesses the pragmatism of the Tunisian model, the birthplace of the Arab Spring and possessing a more sanguine trajectory than its North African neighbor.
While some may contend that other Muslim countries (e.g. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc.) have more resonance for inclusion in the quartet of case studies, Kaminski's choice of Turkey and Malaysia is both timely and even prescient. The evolution of Ankara's model of governance, from the last vestiges of Kemalist power to the full-throated Islamic rhetoric of Erdogan is in many ways a microcosm of broader post-secular trends within the so-called Muslim world and without. Kaminski's attention to Malaysia is similarly noteworthy as it involves an insightful analysis of Mahatir Mohammed, the former and now current prime minister. In both countries, economic growth has been a key factor in shaping both the direction of the nation as well as a key leverage point for the increased political discourse that places Islam at the fore.
Kaminski's book predates the consolidation of power of Erdogan in Turkey and the re-emergence of Mahatir on the Malaysian political scene by 2 years. Yet, his attention to both commands respect and sheds crucial light on the trajectory of politics both within the Muslim context as well as on a global plane. Turkey and Malaysia illustrate the attainability of democracy and economic growth within an Islamic milieu. At the same time, it is important to address the indisputable lurch toward more authoritarian modalities that appear to be accepted and even craved by the body politic in each respective nation.
The recent phenomenon of religio-nationalist strong regimes, with, at the very least, discursively fascist elements, and strongman leaders in Russia, India, Israel, the Philippines, Hungary and the United States, affirms that this trend is hardly confined to Muslim majority polities. Whether as a reaction to globalization, pathological fears fueled by moral panics or via naked political opportunism, the new incarnation of the intersectionality of both religion and politics serves as an indictment and exposure of liberal democracy's fissures and flaws. While the Muslim discourse is hardly immune to global forces abound, it is also neither unique nor anomalous in struggling with achieving equilibrium by which religio-politics can exist to serve and benefit the very societies that operate within its aegis.
The unenviable challenge facing a courageous scholarly argument such as Kaminski's oeuvre is the inherent and unpredictable fluidity of the political landscape. As liberal democracy has proven to be far less salvific than Francis Fukuyama's generation-old ecstatic declaration, the world has to contend with life beyond Westphalia. Add to this the more specific dilemmas confronting Muslim polities via decolonization, post-Cold War reconfigurations, continuing and persistent external encroachments, and the ability to provide any analysis resembling coherence would be a daunting, if not utterly elusive task. Kaminski, however, offers a compelling and much needed buoy in turbulent waters.
Would the West recalibrate its lens upon the so-called Muslim world from its current, obnoxious, and rather obsolete Orientalist focus, it could both learn and share methods and practices that can enable hundreds of millions of people achieve more functional, sustainable political models. The Contemporary Islamic Governed State is, intended or not, a trenchant guidebook for political systems well beyond the so-called “Abode of Islam”.
