Fourteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

A lot has been written over the years about the place of the natural environment within the Islamic faith as the Muslim World keeps growing in size and global influence every day. While there is always a temptation to view the Muslim World as a homogenous part of the world with a great deal of common religious principles that inform common social and environmental values, approaching the region as such would do public policy researchers a disservice due to the significant diversity that could be found between countries and even within individual Muslim nations. This research seeks to understand the lingering social values within the religious institution that have informed the environmental policy regime in Kuwait over the past twenty-seven years. Using the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), this research analyzes how religious groups represented by their leadership form narratives about concepts of modern environmentalism. Preliminary results show a significant degree of variation between different religious groups in how they address environmental challenges and why a deeply religious society like Kuwait continues to struggle to mobilize in an environmental direction despite the prominent environmental ethics that are found within the Quran.