The theme of this research paper is political Islam and democratic transition in the MENA. The study is delimited to the Ennahda Movement and the Muslim Brotherhood as two prominent political Islamist movements, focusing specifically on their experiences during the democratic transition period. It employs a comparative analytical framework, drawing on a qualitative analysis of primary and secondary databases, including survey data, statistics tables, documentaries, media sources, and scholarly works. Through a comparative lens and within three theoretical anchors, the study explores the puzzle of contradictory outcomes, with Tunisia experiencing a relatively successful democratic transition while Egypt faced setbacks and a return to authoritarian rule. By examining their ideologies, governance styles, reform approaches, and responses to in-and-external challenges, the study illustrates the key factors resulting in their divergent trajectories.  The study findings indicate that the Ennahda's adoption of a bottom-up reform approach, inclusive leadership philosophy, and flexible governance style; not to mention the ability to tackle in-and-external challenges effectively, contributed to the success of the democratization process in Tunisia. In contrast, the Brotherhood faced serious challenges due to its top-down reform approach, exclusive leadership philosophy, and rigid governance style; let alone the disability to handle in-and-external challenges adequately, led to the failure of the democratization process in Egypt. The study concludes that leadership philosophy, governance ways, reform approaches, and capacity to navigate in-and-external challenges play pivotal roles in shaping the trajectories of Islamist political movements in the course of democratic transitions.

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In recent years, China has become an increasingly influential actor in Muslim-majority countries the world over. This is despite growing international condemnation of Beijing’s imprisonment of Muslims living in northwestern Xinjiang province, in so-called "vocational training schools" where their religious identities are forcibly assimilated under the guise of counter-extremism. Nevertheless, Muslim-majority countries have remained silent or even supportive of China's treatment of its Muslim minorities. This seemingly contradictory policy position is frequently explained by citing these countries’ dependence on Chinese trade and investment in their economic and infrastructural development, however this argument inadequately assesses other important factors behind these countries’ support for China’s treatment of its Muslim minorities. Beyond the theory of economic necessity and the equally realist consideration of security ties, this research further posits that Muslim-majority states support or defend China’s treatment of Muslims in order to secure Chinese ideological support to defend themselves from reproach against their own domestic policies towards separatist movements and religious extremists. To evaluate these hypotheses, this thesis examines the engagement of some key Muslim-majority states with China by analyzing realpolitik factors like (1) economic relations; and (2) security and military cooperation; as well as more ideological factors, namely whether or not they share a common vulnerability to (3) domestic secessionist movements challenging their authority; or to (4) religious extremism that threatens state security. This research examines the economic and security relations between China and six of the most geopolitically significant Muslim- majority countries (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey), as well the influence of secessionism and religious extremism in each country. It then assesses the analytical validity of these four hypotheses, and concludes that the ideological considerations consisting of common vulnerability to secessionism and/or religious extremism, exhibited the greatest explanatory power for predicting Muslim-majority countries’ level of support for China's treatment of Muslims. Although realpolitik considerations like economic and security cooperation with China can also clearly be seen to influence the position of Muslim-majority countries on this issue, ideological factors like obtaining Chinese support for their suppression of secessionist movements or religious extremism are clearly paramount. In addition to these four variables, this research also briefly acknowledges the explanatory potential of other ideological factors in influencing the support of Muslim-majority countries for China's policies towards its Muslim minorities. These include factors like regime type, the prevalence of anti- American sentiment, as well as the desire to form an alliance with China against Western democracies and the norms and standards they espouse in multilateral organizations. Ultimately, this dissertation demonstrates that China has already achieved widespread political and ideological support among the developing countries of the Global South, including many Muslim-majority countries. If Western democracies wish to exert pressure on China to change its behaviour, they will first need to win back the support of the Global South by offering a suitable alternative source of political, economic and security support, while foregoing neocolonial demands to enact changes to their domestic political systems.

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Poor quality of information and forecasting create a number of problems for manufacturing companies, such as poor planning of products and insufficient service levels, which leads to increased inventory and stock holding or stockouts and increased total costs. Cussons (UK) Limited is experiencing precisely these problems. Apart from these problems normally associated with forecasting demand for fast moving consumer goods there is an additional problem of reconciling the Western calendar with the Muslim calendar, and a recognition of the effects that Muslim religious holidays, as opposed to Christian religious holidays, have on demand. Muslim religious holidays rotate backwards with regard to the Western calendar, but in fact they occur at known dates and therefore the effect they have on demand for products can be taken into consideration when attempting to forecast demand. An additional problem that influences Cussons' sales in the market is the seasonal pattern of demand. Due to this, there is an increase in demand for Cussons' products during summer months. From the analysis of both data sets it was identified that the warehouse movement data is less variable and more reliable for business forecasting than order data. In this thesis, these forecasting problems are examined as a case study, focusing on these particular problems. To overcome these problems and to improve business forecasting of Cussons' products in the Middle East market, a forecasting strategy has been suggested which will enable Cusson's to reduce the inventories throughout the supply chain and to improve their customer's service. / Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan, Cussons (UK)Limited.

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The purpose with this paper is to study anti-muslim content within Swedish parliament proposals between the years 2019 and 2022. The constitutional comittee response is highlighted so it could be compared to EU:s attempts to create a unified European identity. The questions for this paper are: what ideological content is uttered in anti-muslim Swedish parliament proposals during 2019 and 2022, what ideological content is shown in parliament debate and the following parliament decisions in relation to anti-muslim proposals and how does the Swedish parliament debate relate to both binding and nonbinding international guidelines and documents? Document- and content analysis has been used for this paper. The chosen theory for this paper is the multilateral model for understanding islamophobia as well as the conclusions made by Olivier Roy. The conclusions for this paper are that Swedish parliament proposals are in accordance with what is warned by international documents where islamophobias presence is increased in Sweden. The constitutional committe is seen as in accordance with international documents for the promotion of a united European identity and European values.

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