World Sociopolitical Studies

Islam’s view on the status of women has been among the controversial topics in the American universities in recent decades. The rise of the political Islam and its embodiment in the Islamic Republic of Iran is considered by many critics as the turning point in the making of the Muslim women as an analytical category for the Western observers. This study focuses on Muslim women’s citizenship as a modern concern, and analyzes two major American academic approaches to the quality of Iranian women’s citizenship under theIslamic Republic. It addresses two textbooks, Women and Gender in Islam (1992) and An Enchanted Modern (2006), which represent the most frequently addressed textbooks in the course syllabi used at the top twentyAmerican universities in the academic year 2014-2015. The present paper, then, exploits Saied R. Ameli’s classification of discourse to compare the two prevalent discourses of Islamoromia and Islamoverita in the mentioned textbooks. Islamoromia indicates that Muslim women’s citizenship under the Islamic-oriented government is frequently put against the secular “normal” form of the state when the latter is given discursive advantage. However, an emerging voice of Muslim women about the enabling capacity of the Islamic Republic, on the Islamoveritic side, is recognized as a promising changing narrative.

A decade after the establishment of the Saudi regime Riyadh and Washington constructed a strategic alliance between themselves in 1945. On the other hand, given the “Pivot to Asia” doctrine adopted by the Obama and Trump Administrations, the decline of Washington's dependence on Saudi oil, as well as some important events such as the murdering of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Riyadh officials, the prospect of relations between the two countries has been highlighted in political circles. Based on a scenario-planning study, the current paper tries to answer the question: “what will happen to the future of US-Saudi relations considering the aftermath of the Khashoggi murder?” Concerning the impact of this fiasco on the future of US-Saudi relations, we can logically consider five scenarios: the continuation of the status quo, the deepening of strategic relations, the decline of strategic relations, a strategic shift, and, finally, the elimination of strategic relations. But given ongoing circumstances, the deepening or end of strategic relations is unlikely to happen, the present article only focuses on the three other scenarios; the continuation of the status quo, the power shift and the decline of strategic relations amidst the two countries. However, the removal of Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) from the position of crown prince (should it be low-cost) could also be in Washington's agenda for maintaining strategic ties between the two countries. The paper's hypothesis is inclined to the status quo scenario and argues that with the official stances of the Trump Administration, in particular that of November 20, 2018, the strategic alliance of Riyadh-Washington will continue, with more expenses shouldered from the Riyadh side.

It has been argued and stated that the 21st century is America's Pacific Century, the century or millennium of Asia, and century or era of China, the inevitable superpower. This paper explains the essence of the new changes when the Pivot Policy was announced by President Obama in 2011. The main question discussed is therefore the following: ‘Why (and how) did President Obama adopt (and implement) the Pivot to Asia policy in 2011?’ One probable answer to this question is that President Obama intended to prevent China’s hegemony in East Asia through the Pivot Policy; however, China’s hegemony was carried out by economic and military levers. The theory applied is Joseph Nye’s “Liberal Realism,” because the Pivot as a question of foreign policy is considered to be part of Realism and Liberalism simultaneously, and can be used for analysis at both global and domestic levels. The methodology used in this research is a mix methodology of Qualitative Content Analysis and Case study. The “Pivot” or “Rebalance” to Asia is a policy based on significant changes such as the rise of China and the US relative decline, at global and domestic levels, respectively. The Pivot is a regional coherent strategy from the Indian ocean to the Americas, a strategy of cooperation and competition toward China, implemented through smart leadership, rather than hegemony by economic and military tools like modern alliances, partnerships and institutions in order to prevent “China’s hegemony” and lead it to a responsible emerging power when in the half of the millennium, 2050, it reaches its peak of progress. The U.S. tries to maintain its worldwide leadership status up to the 22th century through the implementation of the Pivot Policy in 2011.

As international relations develop into a network-like arena, new public diplomacy receives more attention, both in research and in practice. At the same time, with the increasing role of non-state actors in international relations, their significant roles and functions have come under substantial scientific analysis. While companies engage in business abroad,  unintended results may emerge, affecting the image of their country of origin. One of them is the effects that brands and products have on the perception of their home countries’ foreign policy. This article examines the role of brands in public diplomacy. The question is whether it is scientifically reasonable to assign a public diplomacy role to brands. While such a relation has not been treated in previous research, the authors of this article try to explore and analyze the various elements of this relation to find a well-founded answer. Our analysis uses the national image as a mediator concept between brands and public diplomacy. It starts with a definition of new public diplomacy and its differences with the classical one. It then continues along the concept of corporate diplomacy, national image, the country of origin (COO) effect, and its inverse version. In the end, the most possible and clear answer, according to currently available literature, will be discussed.

Existing evidence seems to indicate that Muslims in Scotland have constructed hyphenated or hybrid identities that draw on religion, ethnicity and nationality. However, minor attention has been given to the differences in importance, meanings, and strengths of these identities, or the significance of their identity markers. Ethnic minority people can be identified with both their ethnic groups and their country of residence; each identity can be either strong or weak, or identification with both can be high. The extent and degree of identification with specific identity markers (such as ethnicity, nationality or religion) can be varied and subjected to difference. This paper discusses the importance, meaning, and strength of these markers in Muslims’ identity negotiation in Scotland through an analysis of the importance of ethnicity, religion and nation. Drawing on a study based on twenty-seven semi-structured and qualitative interviews carried out in 2011 with second-generation[1] Muslims across Scotland’s major cities and small towns, this research suggests the importance of social imposition (labelling behaviour and mis-recognition), family education and cultural ties in varying the meanings and the strength of  second-generation Muslims’ national and ethnic identities in Scotland. In addition, this paper  highlights the significance of various levels of religiosity in differentiating the meanings and strength of participants’ religious identities. [1] In this paper, ‘first generations’ are those Muslims who were born outside the UK and immigrated to UK and the term ‘second generation’ refers to those Muslims who were born in the UK to non-native parents.

Changes in the international system, along with crises in the Middle East and the emergence of inefficient states coexisting with religious and racial groups in the region, make one wonder about the nature of the state in today’s systematic world, in general, and the nature of the state in the Middle East, in particular. The present study provides a theoretical framework based on quantum mechanics, known as New Global Governance or the pattern of proliferative order (in contrast to the distributive order pattern) in an attempt to examine changes in the concept of the state in developed and developing/underdeveloped (the Middle East) countries. It focuses on class structure in the context of global governance and the way in which it is related to the state in order to examine the nature of the state in the future. The study argues that in the new systemic order in developed worlds, states drive class struggles from the economic realm into the political realm and sustain themselves as an institution. However, in the Middle East, states are mythic; they lack social bonding forces and are highly influenced by class structure, dominant political and economic structures, their meta-class nature, and the emergence of multi-group movements challenging states, making them vulnerable to continuous breakdown. In such a situation, new myths of governance as governance institutes, such as partisan-urban governance in the Kurdistan region, the Islamic emirate of al-Qaeda, the Isis Islamic Caliphate, the Rojava Cantons and the Democratic confederalism of P.K.K. will replace the state and the collapsed states will never regain their power.