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This paper aims to analyze and compare attitudes and perceptions of Muslim leadership toward society and politics based on their personal experiences in England and the Netherlands.

This study provides valuable insights into how Muslim leadership experiences socio-political realities from own perspectives. The comparative analysis of Muslim leadership in England and the Netherlands highlights the unique qualities of each community, while also demonstrating shared communal awareness regarding political participation and concerns regarding the rise of Islamophobia and populism.

The study reveals significant differences between Dutch and British Muslim leadership regarding attitudes toward politics. While the Dutch political system enables minorities to have political parties, British leaders prefer peaceful resistance, internal cooperation and voting power for influence. Muslim communities in both countries face similar challenges, such as access to politics, rising Islamophobia and populism. However, there are variations in leadership maturity and attitudes toward communal unification and political participation.

Especially Dutch Muslims were much more open toward cooperation once approached. The biggest challenge was to get into the Muslim communities in England. Even though British Muslims showed a much greater aptitude toward their civic duties, British Muslims were much more careful and wished that interviews were written down instead of being recorded. But once the author was part of the community, community leaders were more accepting and tolerant towards the author's presence. From that point on, to be recommended (snowballing) became easier.

This research shows clearly how different ethnic Muslim communities differ across two different countries. Even though both countries have their own advantages and disadvantages, understanding how civic responsibilities and the progressive development of minority attitudes can be best approached is important to policymakers.

One major social implication is the way minorities perceive social and political equality and how these minority expectations can be met. Research shows that there is much fear and anxiety to growing sentiments of populism and right-wing appraisals. For a better integration and inclusion, a sound assessment of social and religious expectations is crucial.

As far as the author knows, there are no qualitative research studies that compare Muslim minority conditions in the Netherlands and England. This research makes this even more interesting for how to create policy that contributes to a European understanding of Muslim existence in Europe and a common European identity. This is crucial for a more stable and stronger European future.

The purpose of this paper is to outline how the EU figures out the importance of strengthening its relations with Egypt as one of the most strategic countries in the region to keep the union secured and stable. The paper also assesses to what extent the EU succeeds to promote democracy in Egypt.

The EU pursues its policy through a series of both bilateral and multilateral agreements with Egypt aiming at positioning their relations in a strategic context. The research adopted different approaches as descriptive and analytical ones.

Following the Arab uprisings, the EU was caught by surprise and announced a paradigm shift in its relations and introduced a set of policies to foster democracy promotion that witnessed some successes but with extremely modest results in some areas compared to the costs of the process. The EU succeeded in important reforms in trade liberalization while it did not bring clear changes in the political arena in Egypt.

The findings of this paper convey that the Arab uprisings were a wake-up call for the EU. It was the right time for the EU to conduct such a strategic and sincere reflection based on the role it wants to play in the changing region. In addition, findings prove that the EU’s response to revolutionary events has been weak and hesitant, and the EU has not an effective role in promoting democracy in Egypt.

This paper provides a new empirical evidence of the impact of Global security on economic growth in Tunisia. Like Buzan (1991), the framework used four types of security: army security, economic security, social security, and political security.

The authors examine the multidimensionality of global security using ARDL-based cointegration bound tests. The model allows also for examining the long-run/short-run impacts of global security indicators on economic growth.

The proposed methodology revealed interesting results that may raise some potentially prominent policy implications. First, the findings show that the four security indicators have a significant impact on economic growth. In particular, from a social/political security point of view, the fundamental objective is to satisfy the needs of the poorest population, to limit the effect of social demands and protests on economic and political stability, to review the subsidy principle and aid policy to the poorest families, for greater efficiency and social equity.

The study highlights that global security is no longer a question of just army and defense, but it is also a question of equity, economic, social, and political development. These results call for the policymaker to adopt a strategy that reduces regional disparities and social inequalities and this through fairly distributing financial wealth for the benefit of marginalized populations.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-02-2023-0082

After the electoral victory in 2018, the newly formed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government presented its National Education Policy Framework, chalking out its priorities of bringing more than 22 million out-of-school children to schools, improving educational quality, and introducing a uniform education system in the country. However, the government’s grand ambitions, transpired quickly, only to produce a draft of a new unified curriculum in 2020. This chapter investigates the newly formulated Single National Curriculum (SNC) in Pakistan by using the lens of Critical Cultural Political Economy of Education (CCPEE). To understand the endogenous and exogenous factors shaping the SNC, the chapter argues that securitization and neoliberalization are the significant factors informing the development and the production of the new curriculum.

What kinds of support do interstate rivals provide to domestic actors in ongoing civil wars? And how do domestic actors utilize the support they receive? This chapter answers these questions by comparing Iranian and Saudi military and non-military (mediation, foreign aid and religious soft-power promotion) support to the Houthis and to the Government of Yemen (GoY) during the Saada wars (2004–2010) and the internationalized civil war (2015–2018). It also focuses on the processes through which the GoY and the Houthis have utilized this support for their own strategic purposes. This chapter applies a structured, focused comparison methodology and relies on data from a review of both primary and secondary sources complemented by 14 interviews. This chapter finds that there were less external interventions in the conflict in Saada than in the internationalized civil war. During the latter, a broader set of intervention strategies enabled further instrumentalization by domestic actors, which in turn contributed to the protracted nature of the conflict. This chapter contributes to the literature on interstate rivalry and third-party intervention. The framework of analysis is applicable to civil wars that experience intervention by rivals, such as Syria or Libya.

This study aims to investigate the decline of American hegemony as one of the most prominent crises of the modern world order, from a broader perspective that transcends narrow traditional interpretations. The paper assumes that the September 11 events in 2001 have launched the actual decline in American hegemony. Tracing the evolution of US global strategy over the past two decades, the study seeks to analyze the main causes and repercussions of the decline of US hegemony, which would provide a bird’s eye view of what the current global system is going through.

The study investigates the decline in American hegemony through a longitudinal within-case analysis which focuses on the causal path of decline in hegemony in the case of the USA, since the events of September 11, 2001, and tries to identify the causal mechanisms behind this decline. Following George and Bennet (2005), the study uses process tracing to examine its research question. Process-tracing method seeks to identify the intervening causal process – causal chain or causal mechanisms or the steps in a causal process – that leads to the outcome of a particular case in a specific historical context (Mahoney, 2000; Bennet and Elman, 2006). The study chose this method, as it offers more potential for identifying causal mechanisms and theory testing (George and Bennet, 2005); it opted for a specific procedure, among the variety of process-tracing procedures listed by George and Bennet, which is the detailed narrative presented as a chronicle, accompanied by explicit causal hypotheses. Using this process tracing procedure, the study assumes that American hegemony has witnessed dramatic changes in the aftermath of critical junctures, particularly the events of September 11, 2001, and the financial crises, 2008, which contributed significantly to this decline. Consequently, it traces the impact of these events on the state of American hegemony, in light of the review of contributions of different theories on hegemony in the field of international relations, both traditional and critical. Consequently, introducing the theoretical framework used in the study (the four-dimensional model of hegemony), which transcends criticisms of previous theories.

The crises of the modern world order and the decline of American hegemony – being the main manifestation of such crises – revealed the inability of the traditional and critical approaches reviewed in the study to interpret this decline and those crises. The reason behind that was the inability of these interpretations to reflect the various dimensions of American hegemony and its decline since the September 11 events. This highlights the importance of using the four-dimensional model, which combines different factors in the analysis and has proved to be an appropriate model for studying the case of American hegemony and its decline after the events of September 11, as it deals with the phenomenon of hegemony as a social relationship based on specific social networks.

Despite the currency and relevance of the decline of US hegemony for both the academic and political world, the topic needed to be analyzed systemically and addressed in a thorough scientific way. Through the application of theoretical concepts into the analysis of empirical data, this study contributes to a field where too often the discourse about decline of American hegemony is led without the required theoretical or conceptual considerations.

The rise of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets has triggered concerns about regulation and security. Governments and regulatory bodies are challenged to create frameworks that protect consumers, combat money laundering and address risks linked to digital assets. Conventional approaches to confiscation and anti-money laundering are deemed insufficient in this evolving landscape. The absence of a central authority and the use of encryption hinder the identification of asset owners and the tracking of illicit activities. Moreover, the international and cross-border nature of digital assets complicates matters, demanding global coordination. The purpose of this study is to highlight that the effective combat of money laundering, legislative action, innovative investigative techniques and public–private partnerships are crucial.

The focal point of this paper is Australia’s approach to law enforcement in the realm of digital assets. It underscores the pivotal role of robust confiscation mechanisms in disrupting criminal networks operating through digital means. The paper firmly asserts that staying ahead of the curve and maintaining an agile stance is paramount. Criminals are quick to embrace emerging technologies, necessitating proactive measures from policymakers and law enforcement agencies.

It is argued that an agile and comprehensive approach is vital in countering money laundering, as criminals adapt to new technologies. Policymakers and law enforcement agencies must remain proactively ahead of these developments to efficiently identify, trace and seize digital assets involved in illicit activities, thereby safeguarding the integrity of the global financial system.

This paper provides a distinctive perspective by examining Australia’s legal anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing framework, along with its law enforcement strategies within the realm of the digital asset landscape. While there is a plethora of literature on both asset confiscation and digital assets, there is a noticeable absence of exploration into their interplay, especially within the Australian context.