Salah Chafik
Salah Chafik is Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP).
Salah's research is inspired by the age-old question and notion of ‘living and doing good’ or السعادة القصوى (eudaimonia). He studies the pursuit & understanding of public value creation beyond a global Western paradigm, focusing on purpose-driven indigenous institutions rooted in Islam.
In particular, he is interested in the role of these institutions in delivering public services to, taking on challenges for, and shaping the business and wider socio-economic environment of their communities. His approach to research is interdisciplinary, combining non-Western public administration, organisational theory, commons, economic sociology & history, technology governance, and ethnographic fieldwork.
At IIPP, Salah is Co-Investigator and Project Manager for the Islamic Public Value project (2022-2025) funded by the John Templeton Foundation. He obtained his PhD from Tallinn University of Technology, and previously studied at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and various traditional Islamic seminaries in West Africa.
Selected publications
Chafik, S., & Drechsler, W. (2022). In the Semi-Shadow of the Global West: Moroccan zawāyā as Good Public Administration. Public Administration Review, 82 (4), 747–755.
Chafik, S. (2022). Plan Bee: The Case of an Islamic Honey Cooperative in Morocco. Halduskultuur: The Estonian Journal of Administrative Culture and Digital Governance (forthcoming).
Drechsler, W., & Chafik, S (2022). Islamic Public Administration in Sunlight and Shadow: Theory and Practice. NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy (forthcoming).
Reinert, E., Chafik, S., & Zhao, X. (2022). Geography, Uneven Development, and Population Density: Attempting a Non-Ethnocentric Approach to Development. In Reinert, E.S. & I. Kvangraven (Eds.), A Modern Guide to Uneven Economic Development. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar (forthcoming).
Jachimowicz, J.M., Chafik, S., Munrat, S., Prabhu, J.C., & Weber, E.U. (2017). Community trust reduces myopic decisions of low-income individuals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114 (21), 5401–5406.