Timur Kuran

Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one's wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities.A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.Private Truths, Public Lies uses its theoretical argument to illuminate an array of puzzling social phenomena. They include the unexpected fall of communism, the paucity, until recently, of open opposition to affirmative action in the United States, and the durability of the beliefs that have sustained India's caste system.

How religious barriers stalled capitalism in the Middle EastIn the year 1000, the economy of the Middle East was at least as advanced as that of Europe. But by 1800, the region had fallen dramatically behind―in living standards, technology, and economic institutions. In short, the Middle East had failed to modernize economically as the West surged ahead. What caused this long divergence? And why does the Middle East remain drastically underdeveloped compared to the West? In The Long Divergence , one of the world's leading experts on Islamic economic institutions and the economy of the Middle East provides a new answer to these long-debated questions.Timur Kuran argues that what slowed the economic development of the Middle East was not colonialism or geography, still less Muslim attitudes or some incompatibility between Islam and capitalism. Rather, starting around the tenth century, Islamic legal institutions, which had benefitted the Middle Eastern economy in the early centuries of Islam, began to act as a drag on development by slowing or blocking the emergence of central features of modern economic life―including private capital accumulation, corporations, large-scale production, and impersonal exchange. By the nineteenth century, modern economic institutions began to be transplanted to the Middle East, but its economy has not caught up. And there is no quick fix today. Low trust, rampant corruption, and weak civil societies―all characteristic of the region's economies today and all legacies of its economic history―will take generations to overcome.The Long Divergence opens up a frank and honest debate on a crucial issue that even some of the most ardent secularists in the Muslim world have hesitated to discuss.

The doctrine of "Islamic economics" entered debates over the social role of Islam in the mid-twentieth century. Since then it has pursued the goal of restructuring economies according to perceived Islamic teachings. Beyond its most visible practical achievement--the establishment of Islamic banks meant to avoid interest--it has promoted Islamic norms of economic behavior and founded redistribution systems modeled after early Islamic fiscal practices.In this bold and timely critique, Timur Kuran argues that the doctrine of Islamic economics is simplistic, incoherent, and largely irrelevant to present economic challenges. Observing that few Muslims take it seriously, he also finds that its practical applications have had no discernible effects on efficiency, growth, or poverty reduction. Why, then, has Islamic economics enjoyed any appeal at all? Kuran's answer is that the real purpose of Islamic economics has not been economic improvement but cultivation of a distinct Islamic identity to resist cultural globalization.The Islamic subeconomies that have sprung up across the Islamic world are commonly viewed as manifestations of Islamic economics. In reality, Kuran demonstrates, they emerged to meet the economic aspirations of socially marginalized groups. The Islamic enterprises that form these subeconomies provide advancement opportunities to the disadvantaged. By enhancing interpersonal trust, they also facilitate intragroup transactions.These findings raise the question of whether there exist links between Islam and economic performance. Exploring these links in relation to the long-unsettled question of why the Islamic world became underdeveloped, Kuran identifies several pertinent social mechanisms, some beneficial to economic development, others harmful.

Bu kitapta, İslam ve ekonomik performans arasındaki nedensel bağlantılarla ilgili analitik literatürün eleştirel değerlendirmesini bulacaksınız. Kitap, sözü edilen literatürün son olarak kapsamlı bir biçimde araştırıldığı 1997’den bu yana yazılmış eserlere odaklanmaktadır.Değerlendirilen eserlerin bir bölümü Kur’an’a dayalı ekonomik kurumların, diğer bir bölümü de yenileşme içeren İslami kurumların kısa ve uzun vadeli etkilerini incelemektedir. İslami hayır kurumları, İslami eğitim ve İslami finans hakkındaki eserler ele alınmakta, Müslüman çoğunluklu ülkelerde ekonomik geri kalmışlığın ticari, finansal, bilimsel ve yasal boyutları araştırılmaktadır. Hukukun üstünlüğü ilkesinin çiğnenmesi ekonomik kalkınmayı sınırlayabildiğinden, İslam Dünyası’ndaki otoriter rejimlerin, vakıflar ve vergi yöntemleri gibi tarihsel kaynaklarına da inilmektedir.Timur Kuran, Duke Üniversitesi’nde ekonomi ve siyasal bilimler profesörüdür. Gorter Ailesi İslam Etütleri Kürsüsü’nü de yönetmektedir.

According to diverse indices of political performance, the Middle East is the world's least free region. Some believe that it is Islam that hinders liberalization. Others retort that Islam cannot be a factor because the region is no longer governed under Islamic law. This book by Timur Kuran, author of the influential Long Divergence, explores the lasting political effects of the Middle East's lengthy exposure to Islamic law. It identifies several channels through which Islamic institutions, both defunct and still active, have limited the expansion of basic freedoms under political regimes of all secular dictatorships, electoral democracies, monarchies legitimated through Islam, and theocracies. Kuran suggests that Islam's rich history carries within it the seeds of liberalization on many fronts; and that the Middle East has already established certain prerequisites for a liberal order. But there is no quick fix for the region's prevailing record of human freedoms.

“Islam and the Muslim World” will help people understand the fastest growing religion in the United States and the dominant religion in a wide area of the rest of the world. This informative and interesting new encyclopedia explores an increasingly important force in the modern world, looking at Islam's role in the modern world, in the context of the religion's history and development over the last 13 centuries, and contains thematic articles, biographies of key figures, definitions, and more, filling a need in this key area of religious studies and serving as a resource for those eager to become better informed.

Modern kuresel ekonomik sistemin gelismeye basladigi 17. yuzyilda Dogu Akdeniz'de sosyo-ekonomik yasamin kurumsal temelleri nelerdi? Bolge ekonomisinin geleneksel kurumlari degismekte miydi? 2003'te baslayan ve bu sorularin yonlendirdigi bir veri derleme projesi, saglikli yanitlar gelistirmeye yardimci olacak ozgun kaynaklar iceren bu calismayla sonuclandi. On ciltlik bu yapit, Osmanli Imparatorlugu'nun baskenti ve Dogu Akdeniz'in ticari merkezi olan Istanbul'un o doneme ait 15 ser'i mahkeme defterindeki binlerce hukmun gunumuz yazisina aktarilmasi, Turkce ile Ingilizce ozetlerinin hazirlanmasi ve yedi ana baslikta tasnif edilmesiyle ortaya cikti.Sayfa 932Baski 2010 Is Bankasi Kultur Yayinlari

Modern kuresel ekonomik sistemin gelismeye basladigi 17. yuzyilda Dogu Akdeniz'de sosyo-ekonomik yasamin kurumsal temelleri nelerdi? Bolge ekonomisinin geleneksel kurumlari degismekte miydi? 2003'te baslayan ve bu sorularin yonlendirdigi bir veri derleme projesi, saglikli yanitlar gelistirmeye yardimci olacak ozgun kaynaklar iceren bu calismayla sonuclandi. On ciltlik bu yapit, Osmanli Imparatorlugu'nun baskenti ve Dogu Akdeniz'in ticari merkezi olan Istanbul'un o doneme ait 15 ser'i mahkeme defterindeki binlerce hukmun gunumuz yazisina aktarilmasi, Turkce ile Ingilizce ozetlerinin hazirlanmasi ve yedi ana baslikta tasnif edilmesiyle ortaya cikti.Sayfa 498Baski 2013 Is Bankasi Kultur Yayinlari

Modern küresel ekonomik sistemin gelişmeye başladığı 17. Yüzyılda Doğu Akdeniz’de sosyo ekonomik yaşamın kurumsal temelleri nelerdi? Bölge ekonomisinin geleneksel kurumları değişmekte miydi? 2003’te başlayan ve bu soruların yönlendirdiği bir veri derleme projesi, sağlıklı yanıtlar geliştirmeye yardımcı olacak özgün kaynaklar içeren bu çalışmayla sonuçlandı. On ciltlik bu yapıt, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun başkenti ve Doğu Akdeniz’in ticari merkezi olan İstanbul’un o döneme ait 15 şer’i mahkeme defterindeki binlerce hükmün günümüz yazısına aktarılması, Türkçe ile İngilizce özetlerinin hazırlanması ve yedi ana başlıkta tasnif edilmesiyle ortaya çıktı. Konu Cilt Loncalar ve Esnaf 1 Hıristiyan ve Yahudi Cemaat İşleri 1 Yabancılar / Foreigners 1 Ticari Ortaklıklar 2 DevletToplum İlişkileri, Vergi Dahil 34 Vakıflar 5678 Kredi Piyasaları ve Faiz Uygulamaları 910 In the seventeenth century, when the the modern global economy began to take shape, what institutions governed socioeconomic life in the Eastern Mediterranean? Were the region's traditional economic institutions in flux? This tenvolume set, the culmination of a datagathering project started in 2003, presents original historical sources that can help to generate sound answers. The set contains transliterations, along with turkish and english summaries,of thousands of cases found in 15 seventeenthcentury Islamic court regiters from Istanbul,then the capital of the Ottoman Empire and the commercial center of the Eastern Mediterranean.The cases are grouped under seven topical headings Topic Volume Guilds and Guildsmen 1 Communal Affairs of Christians and Jews 1 foreigners 1 Commercial Partnerships 2 StateIndividual Relations,including Taxation 34 Wagfs 5678 Credit Markets and Used of Interest 910