Arda Gitmez is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Bilkent University. He is also a research affiliate of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)’s Organizational Economics and Political Economy programs. He received his Ph.D. in economics from MIT. His research interests are political economy, organizational economics, and market design. His work has appeared in journals such as American Economic Review: Insights and Theoretical Economics.
Institutional constraints to prevent abuses of power have been considered essential in the West. An intellectual tradition emerged to justify them. We identify a puzzle: such an intellectual tradition did not exist in the Islamic world, despite the recognition of potential for abuse. We develop a model to explain this difference in normative traditions. Islamic law was more encompassing than divine law in the West, making it easier for citizens to identify and address abuses of power through collective action. Islamic tradition’s core assumptions made the collective action approach to accountability preferable to the institutional approach favored in the West.