COVER Conversion Report NEW4_Layout 1 18/05/2015 09:46 Page 1 centre of islamic studies, M cambridge u s l The Centre of Islamic studies seeks to develop a constructive and critical understanding of i Islam in the modern world. Its priority is to develop high-quality research and outreach m programmes about Islam in the United Kingdom and Europe. Through its roster of scholarship, s symposia, reports and interactive educational events, the Centre is committed to engaging with i academics, policy-makers and wider society. n t This edited collection presents a range of topical essays on h Islam and Muslims in Europe. The product of the University e of Cambridge Centre of Islamic Studies' frst graduate U symposium, it tackles issues ranging from burial rituals to the K halal economy, minority fqh to hip-hop, psychological a therapy to hate crime. The collection afords a perspective on n d Islam that is transnational in scope – exploring historical and contemporary connections that cross Europe and Asia – while E u recognising that the "Islamic" is always embedded in local r environments and social worlds. Taken together, these essays o p attest to the diverse ways that ideas and forms of life e associated with Islam have become increasingly important • across many areas to those of Muslim background, and to I others too. The introduction and concluding essays by senior academics and thinkers ofer insightful refections on the relationship between "Islam", refexivity, and the possibility for creative rethinking of social issues in the UK and Europe. Muslims in the UK and Europe • I D R P A U L A N D E R S O N , A S S I S T A N T D I R E C T O R C E N T R E O F I S L A M I C S T U D I E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A M B R I D G E CENTRE OF ISLAMIC STUDIES edited by UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE SIDGWICK AVENUE, CAMBRIDGE, CB3 9DA P R O F E S S O R Y A S I R S U L E I M A N , C B E , F R S E , F R C P E TEL: +44 (0)1223 335103 FAX: +44 (0)1223 335110 EMAIL: [email protected] • • F O U N D I N G D I R E C T O R , C E N T R E O F I S L A M I C S T U D I E S U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A M B R I D G E www.cis.cam.ac.uk 978-0-9573166-1-4 8 Patterns of British Government Engagements with Muslim Faith-based Organizations: The Second Image Reversed? GERALD FITZGERALD Abstract Over the course of the last 25 years, there has been considerable variation in how successive British governments have engaged with Muslim faith-based NGOs at the national level. The primary research question examined in this chapter is how to best account for the longitudinal pulsing between more corporatist and more pluralist patterns of engagement between successive governments and Muslim faith-based NGOs in Britain. This paper argues that overall changes in patterns of engagement along a corporatist-pluralist continuum under successive governments since the late-1980s can be most consistently explained by the effects of international political events and short-term security imperatives, rather than concerns for maintaining community and social cohesion. Introduction Over the course of the last 25 years, there has been considerable variation in how successive British governments have engaged with Muslim faith-based NGOs at the national level.1 In plotting changing patterns of engagement or interest intermediation over time, Schmitter (1974) provides two ideal conceptual types, namely pluralist and corporatist patterns of engagement, at either ends of a continuum that can be used to measure changes in how states engage with civil society actors over time. Schmitter’s conceptualization of a corporatist-pluralist dimension provides specific and measurable tangible properties that systematize the concepts of corporatism and pluralism (See Table 1).2 The primary research question examined in this paper is how to best account for the longitudinal pulsing between more corporatist and more pluralist patterns of engagement between the state and Muslim faith-based NGOs in Britain over the past 25 years. 76 Table 1: The corporatist-pluralist dimension Source: Adapted from Philippe Schmitter, “Still the Century of Corporatism?” The Review of Politics 36, no. 1 (January 1974): 85–131. Variation over Time in Engagement between the State and Faith-based NGOs Developments in recent years have marked a departure from Britain’s long- standing tradition of the quasi-corporatist structuring of engagement with minority faith-based NGOs. In other words, generally speaking, the British state has tended to favour engagement with a single voluntarily formed interlocutor and has traditionally demonstrated a willingness to amend its institutions—albeit in a somewhat cautious and gradualist manner—in response to specific demands for the accommodation of the needs of minority faith communities as expressed by its privileged interlocutor.3 Historically, privileged faith-based NGOs can point to having exerted considerable influence on domestic legislation as well as British foreign policy.4 For example, archival research confirms the more pluralist origins and structuring of interest intermediation between the British state and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. British governments have demonstrated a relatively consistent willingness to accommodate the religious needs of Britain’s Jewish communities, such as the incorporation in various Acts of Parliament of Sunday trading exceptions,5 certification of Jewish marriage registrars6 and legislative provisions made for Shechita (ritual slaughter),7 in the face of concerted lobbying efforts by the Board of Deputies. Moreover, day-to-day interactions between the Board of Deputies and the governments of the day over issues such as the plight of co-religionists in foreign lands indicates long- standing stability in patterns of engagement between Jewish faith-based NGOs and the state. 77 However, the patterns of engagement of successive British governments with Muslim faith-based NGOs have exhibited ‘pulsing’ between more corporatist and more pluralist forms of intermediation over the last 25 years (See Table 2). This pulsing undermines the argument that policy responses can be reliably predicted by national institutional models.8 Moreover, this pulsing appears to have occurred relatively independently of transfers of power between political parties, although changes in government and ministerial level personnel, particularly those at the Department of Communities and Local Government, the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, have undoubtedly resulted in the redefining of policy and budgetary priorities and changes in terms of with whom—and at what level (i.e. primarily national or local)—successive governments engage with Muslim civil society organizations.9 Pulsing in British Governments’ Relations with Muslim Faith-based NGOs The late 1980s are chosen here as a starting point for this analysis because of a consensus among interviewees across the spectrum, as well as in the secondary literature, on the importance of the Satanic Verses Affair as a critical juncture in the history of the British state’s engagement with Muslim faith- based NGOs. Moreover, both primary and secondary sources indicate broad agreement on a reactive sequence that led from the aftermath of the internationalization of the Satanic Verses Affair in the late 1980s to the formation of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) in 1997.10 78 Table 2: Changing patterns of engagement between government and Muslim faith-based NGOs In 1994, faced with a multiplicity of interlocutors, with more than one organization claiming to be the legitimate representative of Britain’s Muslim Communities, Conservative Home Secretary John Howard suggested–or demanded–that Muslim faith-based NGOs collaborate to provide better representation and, ultimately, present a unified interlocutor to government. Brighton (2007) and Mandaville (2001) also point to a struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran at this juncture for influence over nascent lobby groups as one explanation for divisiveness among civil society actors at this time (although it is important to note that foreign support for these organizations should be taken as evidence of initial mutual sympathy and common interests rather than demonstrative of a principal-agent relationship).11 While Howard’s role in this meeting has been variously described as a “demand”12 or a “helpful suggestion”13 for the provision of a single inter- locutor, it ultimately implied that the extension of state recognition would follow the formation of a body that could act as a surrogate representative of Britain’s Muslim communities. This quasi-corporatist structuring of interest intermediation was congruent with historical arrangements whereby the Board of Deputies was privileged as a surrogate representative of Anglo- Jewry.14 This seminal meeting prompted a consultation process led by a 79 number of like-minded Muslim faith-based NGOs—primarily Islamist legacy groups—under the aegis of the National Interim Committee on Muslim Affairs, to investigate the possibilities for promoting unity amongst various organizations with proximate mutual interests. These consultations ultimately led to the founding of the Muslim Council of Britain in November 1997. For several years after its formation, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) enjoyed a honeymoon period in its relationship with the New Labour government. New Labour’s presentation of the MCB as “authentic representatives of British Muslims”, the use of funding mechanisms to “force independent Muslim bodies to deal with [the MCB],” and the government’s instrumental use of the MCB as a proxy for British Muslim opinion further indicates the neo-corporatism inherent in New Labour’s engagement strategy at that time.15 Though technically independent of state control, the MCB came to be pejoratively characterized by some as New Labour’s “pet project,” “favorite Muslim umbrella organization” and even as “lassi Islamists” because of its perceived proximity to government.16 It is important not to over-emphasize the role of the MCB as the sole interlocutor for British Muslim communities with New Labour between 1997 and 2001.