Purpose-The USA has been suffering from international/transnational terrorism for decades. There is no consensus on whether this situation is a result of the international status of the USA and the principles it upholds or the policies it embraces in its interaction with the outside world. Design/methodology/approach-This study adopts both the "American Primacy" theory and the "anti-Americanism" theory in its effort to reach a conclusion concerning this issue. This study aims to examine previous research that linked international terrorism to the US hegemony and the principles it abides by and showed the relevance of this perception to the "American Primacy" theory. It also examines the research that considered international/transnational terrorism as a result of the American foreign policy in its various aspects (economic, military, assistance or a whole combination of policies). Findings-This literature on the American foreign policy and international/transnational terrorism was extensive and manifested the explanatory power of the "anti-Americanism" theory, especially in its three variants: issue-oriented, ideological and instrumental. While examining the foreign policy terrorism studies, the relevance of the "American Primacy" theory appeared at very few instances. Originality/value-The study was able to prove that explaining the international/transnational terrorism is related to the foreign policy decisions taken by the American policymakers and cause harm to the outside world. The envy of "American Primacy" is of secondary importance.

This research paper highlights the link between economics and politics through exploring the controversial phenomenon of money in politics. Using the theoretical framework that highlights the importance of the multinational corporations in global politics as well as the structural relationship between the state and businessmen, this paper starts to analyze the complexity of this phenomenon. Most of the scholarly work emphasized the negative consequences of this phenomenon and a few showed that it could result in mixed outcomes. A number of scholars went beyond these results to show us the real paradox or dilemma about money in politics. Money was indispensable to electoral campaigns that informed voters in spite of any problems that money could cause. In addition, money had an impact on the democratic process, although this impact differed from a country to another. Then the paper highlights one of the most famous and perplexing manifestations of money in politics in today's world which is the willingness of businessmen to run for elections as candidates who seek office as legislators or executives. This desire to occupy a governmental position made scholars keen to explain the convenient environmental conditions for this to take place, the popular support for businessmen candidates and the motive behind this. The paper concludes the persistence of this paradox and recommends the necessity of collaboration between economic and political researchers in order to investigate this dilemma and further explain the conditions related to businessmen who reach office.

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Purpose This paper aims to discuss the dilemma of terrorism as a political phenomenon that many political scientists care about; however, they find themselves incapable of explaining some of its aspects and they resort to other disciplines. The second part of the dilemma is related to the incapability of well-established disciplines to provide political scientists with much help. This raises the following question: Will political scientists be able to enhance their knowledge of terrorism with the help of scholars from consolidated and well-established disciplines or with the help of scholars from interdisciplinary fields? Design/methodology/approach This research depends on the main theories of psychology and of social psychology and adopts a comparative approach to assess the effectiveness of both disciplines in providing political scientists with the knowledge they lack. Findings In spite of being a well-established and consolidated discipline, psychology is not the perfect discipline that can help political scientists know who a terrorist is. Social psychological theories of aggression provide political scientists with greater ability to understand what psychological and sociological factors motivate a person to turn to aggression and terrorism. Moreover, social psychology developed the “terror management theory” which clarifies various aspects of the phenomenon. Originality/value This research paper calls the attention of scholars of terrorism to the importance of adopting an interdisciplinary approach to understand the various aspects of a complex phenomenon such as terrorism. The interdisciplinary field adopted will differ according to the research question that a researcher needs to answer.