Decentering Western norms: Reconstructing administrative responsibility from Islamic jurisprudence

This study examines how Islamic jurisprudence can contribute to reconstructing administrative responsibility beyond dominant Western paradigms in public administration. While modern administrative theory has largely emphasized institutional accountability, procedural rationality, and legal compliance, internal debates within Western administrative thought—particularly the Friedrich/Finer debate, the Simon/Waldo discussion, and contemporary scholarship on administrative evil—have revealed enduring tensions concerning moral responsibility, value neutrality, and bureaucratic obedience. In response, the study argues that Islamic jurisprudence offers a legal–ethical framework that reconnects administrative authority to moral responsibility through the interrelated concepts of amāna (fiduciary trust), maṣlaḥa (public welfare), and ḥisāb (moral accountability). Rather than presenting Islamic jurisprudence as a civilizational alternative to Western public administration, the article reconstructs administrative responsibility as a concept integrating institutional accountability, ethical commitment, and personal responsibility within administrative practice. Through conceptual and interpretive analysis supported by the case study of the Flint water crisis, the study contributes to contemporary debates in administrative theory by introducing non-Western normative frameworks into discussions of public administration, organizational rationality, and moral responsibility. It concludes that reintegrating moral responsibility into institutional structures is necessary to prevent bureaucratic compliance from becoming detached from justice and public welfare.