Regulating Islamic banks in authoritarian settings: Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates in comparative perspective

Until recently, most empirical support for theories on regulatory governance has been derived from democratizing and democratic settings. The assumption behind the selection of these cases relies on an understanding that non-democratic systems will not nurture independent and autonomous regulatory practices. This paper closely examines this claim by problematizing variations in the regulation of the Islamic banking and finance industry based on recent findings from Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. Combining historical data with field interviews, the findings reveal that historical legacies and regime institutions that frame political competition play a more nuanced role in the contemporary governance of market exchanges in non-democratic settings. In particular, the type of political competition in authoritarian regimes influences the resulting configuration of regulatory institutions that govern Islamic banking and finance, which accommodate varying degrees of autonomy.