Conflict Resolution and Social Consensus Formation in Islamic Social Choice and Welfare Menu

Abstract

Discusses social choice formation in the Islamic institutional framework. This involves the technical formalization of the institutions of consultative decision making and knowledge formation in these institutions: processes which are respectively called the Shura and Ijtehad. Knowledge generated in the form of decision rules is transmitted to the socio‐economic order in accordance with the tenets of Shariah. Herein, knowledge‐function is shown to undergo an interactive and discursive form of revision, changes or affirmation. Shows that knowledge‐function interactions formulate the Shuratic process, an essential characteristic of which is treatment of ethics and morals relating to specific issues at hand in the midst of the polity‐market interactions. Examines mathematically several stability and equilibrium conditions of the social welfare function established on the basis of the Shuraticprocess. The problem of social consensus formation against social conflict resolution is taken up in the same interactive social choice model.

Citation

Alam Choudhury, M. (1993), "Conflict Resolution and Social Consensus Formation in Islamic Social Choice and Welfare Menu", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 64-77. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068299310023950