Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been accused of Islamizing society through its family-centered policies that overlap with discourses originating from the Islamic faith. At the same time, the AKP government has maintained that it abides by Turkish laicism. This essay identifies and analyzes the extent to which the AKP's discourse and rhetoric have changed over the years to discover whether the party truly has a hidden agenda or if the shifts serve as strategies to win votes. The essay highlights how the observed changes are related to the perceived strengths of the party, with Islamic rhetoric rising and falling with the support the party receives. The results suggest that the AKP cannot be seen as a party that had always intended to turn Turkey into a religious country. The strategies undertaken by the party since early in the twenty-first century show that the shifts in discourse were meant to manage the support of conservative Turks rather than to challenge the secular establishment.

Islamophobia has been on the rise in the twenty-first century. Muslims from all over the world has been subjected to prejudice, hatred and fear based simply on their perceived religious affiliation. This is the new reality facing Muslims especially those living in the West. Scholars have debated this issue from the historical development of Islamophobia to the mistakes policymakers made in dealing with Islamophobia. It has been found that Islamophobia is the product of a systematic attack on Islam and Muslims by people who have an agenda to keep the world divided for their benefit. While this much we know, what is obviously missing in current literature is research from the perspective of non-western communities. Through the conduct of a focus group and thematic analysis of primary and secondary sources, this research aims to discover the causes of Islamophobia in Indonesia in the twenty-first century and its impact. With the rise of Islamic extremism, there has been a parallel rise in Islamophobia in Indonesia. Moreover, the study discovers that Islamophobic sentiment can be found not only among non-Muslims, but also among Muslims towards other Muslims. In combating Islamophobia, it is important for us to understand the new trend of rising conservatism in a country that prides itself with its own indigenous culture.

This article aims to elaborate and describe the supports and challenges towards the development of political Islam during reformation Indonesia. This qualitative research used literature reviews methods of data collection. After validating and removing irrelevant data, the collected data were analyzed using Nvivo 12 Plus as an analysis tool. The authors found that some supports of political Islam during reformation Indonesia are the emergence of Islamic groups supporting Islamic law, Islamic values in various fields, and the favorable Islamic pop culture. On the other hand, the challenges of political Islam are in the form of the anti-Islamization movements and the issues of Islamic terrorism. Moreover, the supports for the existence of actors bringing the ideas of political Islam developed significantly in the era of President Habibie, which was the earlier phase of changing from the Suharto authoritarian regime, for instance, by the emergence of various Islamic political movements. However, the development has steadily declined following the increasing challenges towards political Islam during reformation Indonesia, especially since the second era of Presidents Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) government, such as by the emergence of the anti-Islamization movement and the issue of Islamic terrorism. In the future, the field research through survey and interview is expected to validate the findings of this article.

This article analyses the influence of the use of social media among terrorist groups toward the development of terrorism in Indonesia. This research is crucial and interesting because the development of social media could be a prominent tool for a particular person or one group’s existence. Data were collected through literature reviews and studies on social media publications on the issue. The collected data were checked, classified, and analysed by using Nvivo plus 12. Based on the data analysis, it was found that terrorist groups have already used various social media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp to recruit, share their ideologies, and spread their threats towards people. Each activity has its target and steps to strengthen their existences. These groups have implemented artificial intelligence (AI) by arranging the content management strategy for using social media within their groups or collaborating with other terrorist organisations' links. The result of this study could be the consideration of government policies in facing the development of terrorist groups, primarily which exist in social media.

Political scandal has become very common in a democratic country as political rivals bid to discredit one another. An open and free media allows politicians from different sides to publicize alleged wrongdoings by their opponents. There are different scandals ranging from financial, political to moral scandals. Using dignity as a framework, this paper argues that moral or sex scandals are most effective to defeat a Malay politician in Malaysia because a section of the Malay population looks upon virtuous conduct to evaluate the capability of a leader. Specifically, this paper uses homosexual accusations against Anwar Ibrahim and Azmin Ali to show that this is the type of scandal that is convenient to bring into question their dignity. The paper concludes that after the same tactic is used over the decades, it appears that voters are reaching a saturation point, especially among middle-class Malays.