This chapter analyses the nature, functioning and regulation of Muslim clans. It begins wih a history of the regulation of endogamy in England, as clans are held together through consanguineous marriage and the prohibited degrees of relationship are the most relevant branch of law. Then it analyses the clan as a group unit with negative implications for public health and the nation’s social and political fabric. The point is to demonstrate that clannish behaviours, which present most prominently among British Muslim populations, are the product of a set of institutional norms rather than manifestations of any supposedly inherent ethnic, cultural or religious characteristics. The chapter’s theoretical discussion observes that liberal individualistic approaches tend to focus on rights and demographic statistics while ignoring the clan phenomenon itself, while multiculturalism tends to insist on the integrity of minority cultural forms, over-emphasising the positives and evading difficult questions about the place of clans in the UK. The pluralist response focuses squarely on clans as group entities and constructs the legal argument for their dissolution through marriage law reform.

This chapter addresses the growth of Islamic banks and finance in the UK. It begins with a brief historical overview of the informal institutions that were forerunners to Islamic banks and their development into a thriving global industry in which the UK is a leading player. It proceeds to survey the distinguishing features of Islamic banking and typical financial products before charting the innovative regulatory reforms that permitted the industry to expand. A section on the small volume of English case law highlights the standard but manageable issues arising from its continuing organic growth. The subsequent section models the two conventional theoretical approaches to the rise of Islamic banks and the regulatory means used to achieve it, as well as the problems with these interpretations. The final section sets out a pluralist response offering the best explanation and justification for these developments. It concludes with an appraisal of the problem of informal financial instruments and an optimistic assessment of the industry and the new formal institutions created, falling as they do within the general regulatory framework of the UK’s financial system.

The conclusion summarises the theoretical contribution of Otto von Gierke’s classical pluralism and restates the recommendations made throughout the practical chapters. It emphasises the importance of groups for legal thought, the value of a sophisticated vocabulary of group entities, and the need to guard against institutional entropy. It finishes with an optimistic outlook on the future relationship between British Islam and English law.

The chapter continues the investigation of land and land tenure to better understand the spatial and material dimensions of belonging – essential for the construction of peoplehood. It demonstrates that the introduction of a new land-tenure system in Bale had lasting consequences for what is called the land-clan connection, affecting people’s experiences in their landscapes and their notions of home. The chapter’s first part discusses the Arsi Oromo notions of land and their arrangement of land rights and use in pre-conquest Bale. Special attention is given to land as communal property, to how the land-clan connection secured access to land, and to its significance for emplaced belonging. The second part of the chapter details the impacts changes in the land-tenure system had on these “traditional” perceptions and arrangements – paying attention to processes of privatization and commodification of land. The main argument is that the ensuing changes led to increased privatization and commodification of land, individualism, and a more stratified society, inevitably affecting the land-clan connection. The chapter thus demonstrates the inadequacy of a mechanistic and one-dimensional class perspective and points to the relevance of ethnicity and religion as integral parts of a robust materalist interpretation of land.

The chapter discusses the material realities of Bale, describing its variety of topographical and ecological particularities. It underscores these landscapes as more than empty canvases for human activities, discussing how they affected and shaped human lives, and how the people imprinted themselves upon the land. The chapter moreover explores the history of the Arsi Oromo in Bale, paying attention to the process of gradual Islamization and how the Muslim Arsi Oromo came to put their own mark on the new religion, carving it into the landscape in the form of shrines and through well-traveled paths leading to these shrines. It emphasizes how the Islamic dimension became crucial in the formation of Islaama peoplehood, which on the one hand was locally emplaced and on the other hand transcended local boundaries. It similarly points to how Islam was embodied in genealogies of religious figures that were fused with narratives of Oromo ancestors, rooted in experiences of embodied kinship relations. Extending this to a discussion of the sociocultural features of the Arsi Oromo, the chapters underscores Islaama peoplehood as not merely an exclusively religious category but something encompassing both ethnicity and religion as foundational dimensions, thus denoting belonging in a strong affective manner.

This chapter deals with empires created by Turkic-speaking peoples in Western Eurasia between c.500 and 1200. It focuses on the empire of the Seljuk Turks and the Mongol Empire. Although vast in size, most Turkic polities were very short-lived. All empires were torn between the desire to centralize rule and the need to manage their multitude of different peoples. Generally, rulers that tried to impose a centralized, top-down order and break the power of local aristocratic orders soon saw their empires fail. Similarly to medieval Europe, successful rulers managed the multitude of sub-rulers and peoples by accepting a looser form of empire. Eventually, the steppe polities disintegrated because of their lack of embedding institutions. These findings support my argument that successful polity formation seems to hinge on developing political forms based on negotiation and shared rule – a pattern visible in Europe but not in the Middle East.

The Ottoman Empire is the most long-lived Islamic polity in world history. It is of particular interest to understanding if kinship is incompatible with or in fact central to stable political order. A long tradition in Western political and social thought argues that the Ottoman Empire terminated hereditary elite groups and established an impersonal despotic state in which all subjects, from the most exulted vizir to the most humble Anatolian peasant, were slaves of the sultan. This is also the image given by Ottoman political theory. Since the Renaissance Western social and political thought has tended to cast the Ottoman Empire as the radical ‘other’ of European realms. The efficiency and seemingly absolute rule of the sultans were originally the envy of European observers. To them, the Ottoman Empire differed from Europe where hereditary lords were essential and without whose support kings were powerless (Machiavelli, 1993:30–1; Çirakman, 2002:62ff; Bisaha, 2004). Later, the image of the Ottomans shifted. In the nineteenth century the weakened Empire was often portrayed as the ‘sick man of Europe’.

Many autocratic states cultivate networks of informants and operatives who have responsibility over small local cells. This chapter shows how the Chinese state has constructed a modern system of infiltration organized around sub-village cells. This decentralized system of informal control enables local officials to closely monitor local society. Case study and quantitative evidence show how village cell leaders help local officials implement policies including land confiscation and family planning quotas. Hiring more informants and putting them in charge of smaller cells, while costly, increases compliance with state policies. This strategy of infiltration is largely a substitute for cultivating and co-opting civil society.

In this concluding chapter, I briefly recap the main findings and then examine their broader implications. The case of Wukan Village shows how the strategy of informal control can be effective in the short run but backfire in the long run. The most effective check on autocratic state power is unlikely to come from the state itself, but from an adversarial relationship between local civil society and the state. Independent community leaders and activists who can mobilize their groups and threaten officials with broad-based political mobilization can even the balance of power between the state and society, and create meaningful incentives for responsiveness.

In this chapter, I turn my attention to the dynamics of co-optation of local notables. One might expect that the inclusion of communal elites in local political institutions might strengthen the voice of villagers and make local governments more responsive. By contrast, I argue that when communal elites are included in formal political institutions in rural China, they help the state control their group. Drawing on evidence from case studies, an original experiment, and a national dataset, I show how the inclusion of local elites in formal political bodies allows the state to requisition land and enforce family planning policy while forestalling collective action. Case studies from Scotland and the United States suggest that this mechanism of informal control may have applicability beyond China. When the leaders of communal groups remain outside the state, however, they can help to organize resistance against it.