Religion and Regulatory Variance: Halal Regimes as Islamic Public Administration

Abstract

One quarter of humanity are Muslims, for whom halal food is an everyday consideration. The global food system has made assessing food products nearly impossible for consumers, requiring elaborate regulatory regimes. This article analyzes halal regulation as a notable example of Islamic public administration (IPA), as an application of religious principles to service delivery and product standards. These regulations govern multi-trillion-dollar markets annually. The article contests reification and demonstrates a variety of regulatory regimes, as well as cooperation and coordination, by examining halal in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. It contributes both to our understanding of IPA in an understudied region and to the literature on faith-based regulatory regimes. Analytically, it demonstrates a “varieties of Islam” approach to understanding IPA traditions. We find that the diversity of Islamic traditions and institutional histories have fostered these varieties, and through a study of halal regulation identify new avenues for the study of IPA.