In this Article we examine Israel’s ongoing process of bank privatization to explore the link between privatization programs and the ownership structure of public companies. Our thesis is that concentrated ownership provides regulators with a platform for exerting informal influence over corporate decision-making. This platform serves regulators as a safety valve when all else fails, especially when they would like firms to terminate senior executives or board members. Communicating with controlling shareholders increases the likelihood that both the regulatory intervention and (...) the reasons underlying it will remain confidential. Moreover, controlling shareholders can make swift decisions and implement them quickly, with no need for formal group deliberation. When informal influence is important — as in the case of banks — the government may prefer firms with controlling shareholders to widely held firms. It may therefore prefer to sell a control block in the firm undergoing privatization rather than distribute its shares through the stock market. (shrink)

This paper is a literature review of Al-Farābi's thoughts on the urgency of the value of moderation in the discourse of sustainable development in Indonesia which is studied through his magnumopus entitled "Madīnah Al-Fāḍilah". By using a descriptive-analytical approach, it is concluded that the value of moderation is the main basis for understanding the role and existence of individuals to actualize a variety of sustainable development through the implementation of the 4 pillars of moderation in Al-Farābi's view, namely unity, deliberation, (...) mutual cooperation, and character. The four pillars of moderation in Al-Farābi's view seek to build the closeness of each individual in social life, in order to discuss solving various problems that hinder the factors of sustainable development. The implementation of the 4 pillars of moderation in Al-Farābi's view can be realized through the existence of a leader as an existence that influences the paradigm and behavior of people in a region. That is, leaders are here to unite people of various groups to realize their role and position in order to optimize the value of moderation as the basis for sustainable development in reality. The final result of this paper is to understand the application of Al-Farābi's value of moderation in welcoming sustainable development in Indonesia. (shrink)

While there is a tradition of Islamic world maps and geographic depictions of direction to the Kaʿba in Mecca, relatively few detailed maps of individual Islamic realms have been studied. In an early 14th-century tax ledger compiled for the Rasūlid sultan al-Malik al-Muʾayyad Dāwūd (d. 721/1321), there is a map of the fortresses (ḥuṣūn), major towns, and ports of the areas controlled and taxed, as well as individual maps of Aden, Taʿizz, al-Janad, Dhamār, al-Shiḥr, and several wadis. Given the context (...) of the text, Irtifāʿ al-dawla al-Muʾayyadiyya, as a tax register, some of the maps probably serve a functional purpose. But how should such maps be read against the lists of important locations in other Rasūlid sources and earlier compilations, such as Yāqūt’s Muʿjam al-buldān compiled a century earlier or al-Hamdānī’s 10th-century Ṣifat jazīrat al-ʿArab? In this article I analyze the range of locations, how they are iconically represented, the accuracy of their relative locations, and their links to other Rasūlid lists. In what ways do these maps better illustrate how the Rasūlids viewed their own realm, which in the early 14th century was a rival of the Egyptian Mamluks and a major player in the Red Sea/indian Ocean trade network? Finally, how does this unique set of maps fit other Islamic maps in the tradition that stems back several centuries before? (shrink)