As the 2008 financial crisis rippled through world economies, debates were reinvigorated about the immorality of global capitalism and the free market economy. While greedy financiers and inept economists were crucified in the media, the ideal of entrepreneurship arose as the moral panacea to rising extremism and poverty. Newsweek declared in “Economics versus Extremism” that overregulated economies that “stifled entrepreneurship” were to blame for Islamist extremism. In turn, charitable entrepreneurs were hailed as the panacea to the ills of poverty and underdevelopment with the decline of the welfare state; the April 2010 Obama summit with Middle Eastern entrepreneurs is a good example of this trend. Since the 1980s Turkey also has witnessed the rise of conservative, Anatolia-based entrepreneurship that is intimately connected to the global markets and economies. These connections meant incredible riches for some, ongoing privatization of assets and land, and a rising disparity of wealth between the rich and the poor. Charitable entrepreneurship was seen as the panacea to societal ills and poverty, and a way to be a good Muslim and a productive citizen. Yet, despite the historical importance of charitable giving, more empirical literature is needed when it comes to the social and cultural context of giving and how these contexts shape varied meanings given to state, governance and citizenship. This paper is a study of the privatization of charitable giving in contemporary Turkey and its effects on conceptualizations of state’s role in Turkish society. In my analysis, I specifically focus on associations and vakıfs with projects to curb poverty, to invest in development, and to help in times of crises such as earthquakes, floods, and other disasters. The paper will discuss the current contours of charitable donations within the context of state-civil society relations. It will highlight charitable associations and vakıfs as not only places where formal and informal mechanisms of social protection manifest themselves, but also as places where new understandings of the role of the state are fashioned. Visibility of the poor, tinged with nostalgia, becomes a way to remember the “just” and “fatherly” Ottoman Empire and an Islamic charitable heritage based on transnational religious feeling of brotherhood/sisterhood.

This paper explores the politics of charity by examining how Shi’a Ismaili Muslims in post-Soviet Tajikistan make sense of charitable donations they receive via a transnational development organization, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). The AKDN is an organization founded by the 49th Ismaili Imam, the religious and spiritual leader of the transnational Ismaili community, and has been active in Tajikistan since the fall of the Soviet Union. This paper discusses how Tajik Ismailis use their existing socio-economic and religious frameworks to make sense of the substantial donations made by Ismailis in other parts of the world, including Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Drawing on one year of ethnographic fieldwork in the Ishkashim district of Tajikistan, the paper brings theories of development and moral economies into conversation with an analysis of the legacies of Soviet socialism to examine specifically Shia Ismaili Muslim ways of engaging across these fields. I illustrate that Tajik recipients of charity use religious and socialist principles to emphasize their equality with the givers of charity, thereby mitigating the uncomfortable power dynamics that are an unintended consequence of the development paradigm. Tajik Ishkashimis understand both the former Soviet state and the AKDN as ostensibly socialist, redistributing wealth from one place to another, via a centralized institution. There is a key difference, however, between these two processes of redistribution: even though Tajik Ishkashimis experienced the Soviet state as an allocative center from which they greatly benefitted, the Soviet state obscured the distinction between givers and receivers. It is my contention that, since the head of the AKDN is a beloved religious leader of both the donors and the recipients, the Imam also obfuscates such power dynamics. Unlike other religiously affiliated development institutions, like World Vision, where donors have direct relationships with the recipients of aid (see Bornstein 2005), Tajik Ishkashimis highlight both the donors' and their own vertical relations to the Imam, downplaying the horizontal inequalities that are, nevertheless, present. ‘Charity’, a term steeped in connotations of inequality, becomes a faith-based gesture of love to a shared father-like figure that creates a transnational brotherhood of believers. More importantly, seeing the Imam as a redistributive centre enables Tajik Ishkashimis to maintain the moral legacy of their Soviet past, which is rather remarkable given that the AKDN has brought certain capitalist, free market, principles into the region.

The literature addressing the evolution of philanthropy, social responsibility and the culture of giving in the United Arab Emirates through civic engagement at societal, institutional, and individual levels is scant. There is a lack of both theoretical and empirical work in this important area of the culture of the UAE. This paper contributes to both the scholarship of benevolent philanthropy and the inquiry of the development and current status of the social responsibility and the culture of giving across the Emirates at macro and micro levels. Drawing on theories of traditional and modern worldviews and practices, the study critically examines the theory of economic-material factors of philanthropy. The paper endeavors to develop theoretical orientations incorporating “corporate social responsibility” that goes beyond the market-oriented philanthropy to encompass cultural and moral values. It attempts to demonstrate how the culture of giving developed in the UAE from traditional small scale practices prevalent in the pre-oil era into institutional, national and global activities incorporating various forms of government, non-government, societal and individual philanthropy. It seeks to show that social organization, traditional worldview and new cosmology are viewed as essential forces that, along with global forces, shape the unique landscape of the culture of giving in the Emirates society. Philanthropy plays a large role in the UAE government's public diplomacy outreach abroad. The paper tackles the social responsibility of wealth and the role parlayed by religious and political leaders as well as government and non-government organizations (NGOs) in the development of philanthropy and the culture of giving among Emirati people. Philanthropic and voluntary activities are diverse and complex phenomena and require an interdisciplinary approach. Therefore, the study, applying the heuristic tools of survey, ethnography and cross-cultural inquiry, examines individual, societal, institutional, religious and political dimensions of the culture of giving as defined, theorized and practiced in the United Arab Emirates. It discusses the impact of philanthropy on the transformation of social relations as well as the impact of social relations on the way philanthropy is used by the Emirati people.

Questions about the role that charity should play in shaping and contributing to the way societies conceptualize and maintain the social contract are of key importance to political economy analysis. Is it the responsibility of the state to address poverty and provide social services, or should such services be the responsibility of non-state actors? To what degree are non-state institutions perceived as complimentary to or in opposition to state efforts? Are some non-state actors (particularly religious versus non-religious) perceived differently than others by the state and other development actors (outside donors, international agencies etc.)? Drawing on both theoretical political economy discussions of the social contract, as well as donor and international agency documents (eg UN) that discuss ‘appropriate’ policy responses to social needs, this paper will examine how the relationship between the state and private provision of social services has been conceptualized by various analysts and policy makers and the implications various conceptualizations have in terms addressing the challenges of poverty and inequality. A case study approach will then be used to examine how social service provision has played out empirically in a variety of historical and country contexts. Focusing particularly on the case studies of Iran, Palestine and Turkey, the paper will examine the diverse ways that both domestic and global discourse has (re)shaped the perceived and actual role non-state actors play in providing social services with a focus on various historical turning points. The case of Turkey will be used to provide an example of a fairly classic neoliberal policy transition. This case will be contrasted with a discussion of Iran, with a particular focus on various domestic policy shifts that have occurred since the post-1979 revolution. The analysis of Palestine will focus on the shifting role non-state actors have played, particularly since the 1993 Oslo accords. Taking a historical, case study approach provides not only evidence of the diverse and shifting perceived and actual role played by non-state actors, but also how the discourse around and the reality of social service provision are often in contradiction with each other.