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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.

Agricultural and food systems in the Mekong Region are undergoing transformations because of increasing engagement in international trade, alongside economic growth, dietary change and urbanisation. Food systems approaches are often used to understand these kinds of transformation processes, with particular strengths in linking social, economic and environmental dimensions of food at multiple scales. We argue that while the food systems approach strives to provide a comprehensive understanding of food production, consumption and environmental drivers, it is less well equipped to shed light on the role of actors, knowledge and power in transformation processes and on the divergent impacts and outcomes of these processes for different actors. We suggest that an approach that uses food systems as heuristics but complements it with attention to actors, knowledge and power improves our understanding of transformations such as those underway in the Mekong Region. The key transformations in the region include the emergence of regional food markets and vertically integrated supply chains that control increasing share of the market, increase in contract farming particularly in the peripheries of the region, replacement of crops cultivated for human consumption with corn grown for animal feed. These transformations are increasingly marginalising small-scale farmers, while at the same time, many other farmers increasingly pursue non-agricultural livelihoods. Food consumption is also changing, with integrated supply chains controlling substantial part of the mass market. Our analysis highlights that theoretical innovations grounded in political economy, agrarian change, development studies and rural livelihoods can help to increase theoretical depth of inquiries to accommodate the increasingly global dimensions of food. As a result, we map out a future research agenda to unpack the dynamic food system interactions and to unveil the social, economic and environmental impacts of these rapid transformations. We identify policy and managerial implications coupled with sustainable pathways for change.

The main aim of this research was to investigate whether and how digitalization affects sustainability and performance in wine tourism.

Based on the data emerging from the 2019 National Report on Wine Tourism from the National Association of “Wine Cities” in Italy (the most extreme case in the world of wine), three macro-agglomerates were investigated: digitalization, sustainability and performance, adopting descriptive and inferential statistics.

Although rigorous correlation between adopted digitalization and performed sustainability on one side and performed sustainability and market performance on the other cannot be verified for the 92 wineries under investigation, there is visible evidence that the more digitalized wineries are, the more sustainable they become and the better their performance. Evidence was not found to support the idea that the more sustainable wineries are, the more they are digitalized and the better their performance. Research implications and limitations to theoretical and practical application have been discussed.

Wine tourism, which is naturally associated with rural tourism, is a form of tourism in which sustainability has strong relevance, particularly considering the future needs/desires of post-pandemic tourists. At the same time, digitalization, especially in pandemic and post-pandemic tourism, is credited with developing a huge impact in this business, although wine tourism is most probably conceivable as a meta-market, with a strong cultural essence. In this respect, a digitalization > sustainability > performance approach seems practicable and globally profitable.

This paper argues that cultures with the same climate have similar handicrafts as they have similar cultivation and identical raw materials. This study focuses on how mountainous, coastal and hot regions partaking in similar crafts and cultural heritage use palm leaves and analyses the resulting handicrafts' similarities.

A review of mapping these samples establishes this similarity in the traditional industries of some civilizations' cultural heritage from countries sharing similar climates.

The handwoven crafts using palm leaves were significant patrimonial artifacts in different societies' and communities' cultural heritage. Our studies revealed that climate plays an active role in influencing all aspects of humanity’s life. It affects the construction methods and style, agriculture and lifestyles.

Traditional handwoven palm leaf product models, especially plates and baskets, are studied from South America, Africa, Gulf Countries and Asia.

Additionally, this paper focuses on preserving these treasures as an essential part of interior elements as accessories for most inhabitants of these areas.

Cultural heritage also embraces intangible aspects such as skills passed down through generations within a particular society. The tangible and intangible elements complement each other and contribute to an overall legacy.

Cultural heritage reflects a society’s way of life carried down through the years across lands, items, customs and aesthetic concepts. People are the gatekeepers of society, as they preserve their way of life for future generations to emulate. Tangible artistic and cultural heritage comprises artifacts. It comprises all human evidence and expressions, such as traditional handicrafts, pictures, documents, books and manuscripts.

This paper aims to shed light on how children's literature in Africa deserves to be studied because African writers “decolonize” the minds of African children and children and adults around the world.

This paper defines children's literature from an African perspective and the “decolonization of the mind.” This is done to examine how two African writers provide narratives for children inspired by their cultures. They deal with themes, characters and symbols that interest children and adults.

Achebe and Youssef crossed many borders: the world of children and adults, animals and humans, vice and virtue, supernatural and real. Their stories take the reader on journeys that involve enriching, engaging and inspiring adventures.

Youssef and Achebe are prolific writers. Providing a survey of what is available in Arabic and Nigerian literature for children, is beyond the scope of this paper.

This paper sends a message to those in charge of the curriculum in schools in Egypt, the Arab countries, Africa and the world at large: decolonize the syllabi in schools because the world is not black and white. Literature for children that encourages critical thinking is available by African writers in Egypt, Nigeria and elsewhere.

The works discussed show that African writers are creative, and their works inspire the African child with pride in his/her identity, culture and heritage.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, no one has compared Egyptian and Nigerian literature for children before. Youssef and Achebe provide evidence that “Good literature gives the child a place in the world … and the world a place in the child.” – Astrid Lindgren.

Through the lens of self-perception theory, this paper investigates how avatar design (i.e. avatar user similarity) affects users' self-awareness and shapes their task engagement and performance in the Metaverse.

The authors conducted a 2 (avatar user similarity: high vs low) × 2 (task type: procedural vs creative) lab experiment and collected data from questionnaires, the recording of users' behavior during tasks and their actual task performance.

The results show that higher avatar user similarity leads to higher task engagement in general. Furthermore, while a similar avatar promotes users to regulate their behaviors and achieve better performance in a procedural task, high similarity also inhibits users' creativity by invoking habitual thinking, resulting in worse performance in generating original ideas in a creative task.

This study is expected to contribute to the information systems literature by revealing the value of avatar design and providing new perspectives on improving users' experiences in the Metaverse.

There is a global concern about the effectiveness of vocational education and training (VET) programmes in developing job-related skills and competencies for real-world environments for disadvantaged and unemployed youths. Experiential learning (EL) is a major component of VET programmes. This article aims to examine the effects of facilitating VET through EL theory to promote youths' skills acquisition. The study looks at the effects of material resources on the use of experiential learning theory (ELT), the types of EL and the contribution of ELT to VET programmes.

The research design mainly entails a qualitative research design and research method to allow the researcher to view the reality as is experienced from the inside out by the trainees and training centre managers on important data for a thorough understanding. The study participants were 512 young trainees who completed different training courses from the VET programmes and 24 centre managers in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.

The findings reveal that the use of ELT in VET programmes helped the trainees to gain real-world skills, hence contributing to their empowerment in terms of work experience and competence for their future employment. Based on the findings, the study concludes that ELT is an effective instrument to promote VET programmes for disadvantaged and unemployed youths.

The practical and social implications of the findings are that, while disadvantaged youths cannot access and afford higher education, public and private sectors can remedy their situation by providing non-school-based technical and vocational training to help such youths enter the labour market. The findings will motivate the providers of skills development for unemployed youths to use ELT in designing course curricula, planning resources and directing teaching-learning approaches to help trainees to acquire skills and competencies to perform tasks close to real-work situations.

The socio-economic implication of the article is that skills development plays an important role in poverty reduction. Investing in the skills development of citizens is vital to raise the incomes of poor groups and to reduce poverty (ILO, 2018). Although the causes of unemployment have also to do with economic factors in a country, skills development is an essential ingredient in developing capacities for labour market entry and increased income generation of a vulnerable group of people.

The article is significant because the study provides new insights into the use of ELT in VET programmes to improve their effectiveness in developing job-related skills and competencies for real-world environments for disadvantaged and unemployed youths. The study contributes to the body of knowledge by establishing a solid base for the evidence-informed practice of the effects of facilitating the VET programme through ELT to promote skills acquisition for the employment of unemployed and disadvantaged youths.

In this paper we examine the validity of the J-curve hypothesis in four Southeast Asian economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand) over the 1980–2017 period.

We employ the linear autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) model that captures the dynamic relationships between the variables and additionally use the nonlinear ARDL model that considers the asymmetric effects of the real exchange rate changes.

The estimated models were diagnostically sound, and the variables were found to be cointegrated. However, with the exception of Malaysia, the short- and long-run relationships did not attest to the presence of the J-curve effect. The trade flows were affected asymmetrically in Malaysia and the Philippines, suggesting the appropriateness of nonlinear ARDL in these countries.

The previous research tended to examine the effects of the real exchange rate changes on the agricultural trade balance and specifically the J-curve effect (deterioration of the trade balance followed by its improvement) in the developed economies and rarely in the developing ones. In this paper, we address this omission.

As of May 2022, the National Pension Service of Korea is the world's third-largest pension fund, with assets worth KRW912tn (approximately $US800bn). Of the KRW152tn (approximately $US133bn) invested in domestic equities, 45% is outsourced to external asset managers. Given the absence of prior research on the National Pension Service's (NPS's) management method, this study analyzes its trading strategies and market impact according to the fund management method from 2005 to 2022. The results are as follows: First, the stock characteristics selected by internal management using passive strategies are different from those selected by external management, in which various strategies are combined. Second, the contrarian investment strategy, which acts as a market stabilizer, is a characteristic of the external management trading pattern, while internal management increases volatility and does not improve liquidity. Third, there has been a change in the internal management strategy since 2016, when the fund management headquarters was relocated. This study is practically significant and distinctive in that it confirms the differences between the NPS's two investment methods in terms of trading strategies and market impact.

This paper investigates the effect of state-society relations on the industrially-related growth paths of developed countries.

It introduces a novel theoretical framework, the state-business-labor relations (SBLR) framework, where four main actors are identified: the state, big businesspersons or tycoons, owners and managers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) or Entrepreneurs and labor. Different SBLR categories or modes are introduced depending on levels of coordination and power relations between the studied actors. The paper then investigates how these SBLR modes, through adopting various policies targeting the industrial sector, lead to different growth paths. Rather than focusing only on economic growth, this research regards a growth path as a matrix of the performance in long-run growth and equality of distribution.

Using regression analysis and statistical data, the results suggest that the Co-Balanced mode, having higher levels of coordination and lower favoritism, leads to the best growth path among the four introduced modes, especially with its emphasis on high levels of venture capital availability and easiness of starting business. while the Lib-Capture mode, characterized by lower coordination and higher favoritism, seems to have the worst growth path and the best implemented policy for this mode is suggested to be high profit taxes that seem to counter the negative impact of the existing high levels of favoritism.

Despite the important findings that this research has reached, this paper is mainly meant to open a further investigation into this topic and open this dimension that the research on VoC and political economy have under-researched. A deeper investigation of SBLR typologies that could only be possible by having richer datasets with more data on coordination for the whole world, rather than only the advanced economies, would further our understanding of the dynamics that shape the growth paths of different countries of the world.

To realize the best industrial growth path, fighting favoritism should be an important objective. The negative impact of favoritism on innovation could not be disregarded in the eve of the fourth industrial revolution, where innovation is increasingly pivotal to future industrial development. Actively engaging societal groups in the policymaking process is important in addressing their concerns and balancing them at the same time. This should lead to the double benefit of formulating better policies that should foster growth as well as provide better distribution of this growth. High levels of coordination should help in realizing this objective. Yet, this could only be possible if societal groups are free to associate and aggregate their power and when there are means of preventing one actor from gaining more favorite treatment and exclusive influence over policymakers. The presence of both powerful and broadly represented business associations and labor unions and the existence of a government interested in coordinating their efforts-rather than letting itself be controlled by one group at the expense of the others-should help in the realization of the best growth path. Thus, institutional reform that empowers societal groups and enables them to defend their interests as well as fights all forms of corruption should lead to the realization of a more prosperous and equitable industrial development, with the “re-industrialization” of the developed world being no exception. The technological and social challenges of intensive automation and digitalization accompanying the fourth industrial revolution make the envisaged institutional reform more urgent.

This paper is introducing a novel theoretical framework for studying the effect of state-society relations, particularly SBLR, on the industrial growth paths of developed countries. It integrates three important bodies of literature in order to build a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of state-society relations and their economic consequences. These are the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC), State-Business Relations (SBR) and Industrial Relations. The SBLR framework differentiates between tycoons and entrepreneurs, an important distinction that often goes unnoticed. Different SBLR categories or modes are introduced, depending on levels of coordination and power relations between the actors. It is proposed in this research that the effect on growth paths goes beyond the simple dichotomy between CMEs and LMEs usually present in the literature of VoC and that power relations provide an essential complementary dimension in explaining this causality.