Political Quarterly
Year:2005 | Volume:- | Issue:69|Papers Count:13

This article intends to explore the political behavior of Iranian people in July 2005 presidential election. It uses extensively the findings of a research which was carried out two dears before the election by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance under the title of “the values and attitudes amongst the Iranian" (2003). This research showed basically that for many Iranians economic considerations and priorities were more important than political considerations. It further showed that whilst the Islamic regime carried the legitimacy amongst the people but the Islamic leaders had lost their legitimacy because they had failed to satisfy the economic needs of the people. The political climate in Iran thus needed someone to provide the people with the economic promises to win their votes. He could thus win the election not so much because of the failure of the reformists, but because the winning candidate was schemed enough to fulfill this need.

The main argument of this article is that e-government and democracy are not necessarily parallel and presenting them as similar is based on a technocratic perspective which itself is founded upon a positive epistemology and an interpretation that considers legitimacy as effectiveness in political arena the fundamental question is that how e-government works towards strengthening of democracy. Does increased efficiency and effectiveness in offering the services to the citizens mean consolidating democracy? The answer to this question with respect to the prevailing global reality in which many undemocratic governments offer proper services even through the means of new electronic and information technology, is no.This article intends to deal with democracy and electronic government from a pathological perspective. Electronic government by nature requires electronic expertise, a skill that only a techno bureaucrats master. This leads to technocracy, therefore, restricting the choices by people or their representatives. This phenomenon is even more acute in the so-called third world countries.

The aim of this essay is to discourse the end of history in philosophical-religious perspective. The great philosophers discuss the route of history and its end in their own philosophical views.The philosophy of history and its origin is derived from the past 25 century, however the subject of this article is to elaborate the end of history from Oswald Spengler, Karl Jaspers, Arnold Goseph Toynbee, P.A. Sorokin, Francis Fuyukama and Samual Huntington.Each of mentioned above name has his own historical view which will be examined in the essay.

The matter of civil philosophy is “Voluntary of Human" that depends on his wisdom and his freedom and its goal is making basic change in existence of human for attaining true prosperity and thus has origin in Human nature. It shows that ethical concepts and propositions of connection between “is” and “ought” are under consideration and important. In this view "ought is meaned “necessity” and “certainty” and this necessity is deductive necessity. It means that on basic deductive necessity we say for reach to result "B" voluntary praxis "A" is necessary, it means ought acts thus in view point of actual philosophy propositions of justice for example: “justice is good” or “injustice is bad” and so on; bring up in form “ought equal necessity”  because its concepts are objective. So, on ontology, isn't a split between is and ought and both are real. Thus acts have inherent properly goodness or badness and Human understand it by his wisdom.

The main question of this article is the relationship between H.G. Gadamers philosophical hermeneutics and the political poverty. My claim here, based upon Gadamers, philosophical approach, is that there is always in all era a reciprocal relation between knowledge and political poverty. Therefore, contrary to Rortys claim that pluralism and democracy are the only political systems that needn't any epistemic explanation, I claim that all political systems even democracy require the epistemic foundations. Thus, we must provide the appropriate epistemic grounds for them.

In the aftermath of the ninth presidential election, Iran has come under increasing global pressures. In this article, an attempt is made to sled light on Iran's foreign policy from pathological vantage point. In the second Section a conceptual frame work is improvised to redness the pathological shortcoming in Iranian attitude regarding formulating Iran's foreign policy.

The United States of America today embodies a paradoxical policy toward international security. These paradoxical factors are omnipotence and vulnerability. US military force is greater than any other great powers. This country’s economic ability is greater than European Union and greater than Japan, Russia and China.Despite those elements, US strategists attempt to play an Imperial role in international relations.This strategy is based on pre-emption and counter - Proliferation. For non - Proliferation and arms control, this Conjunction has had paradoxical implications.The Bush administration, public rollout of the new national security strategy has generated considerable criticism and confusion, particularly about key issues. These issues have created policy tension at the core of the U.S strategy. In this process, military strategy of U.S and its intervention in Middle East countries has been changed. Coercive diplomacy is an alternative option for pre-emptive strategy.

Modernization and reforms in Iran in the early 19th century and in the period of Abas Mirza and then in the era of Amir Kabir and Sepahsalar, from above and by government official, were not successful because of the tyrannical nature of Ghajari regime and the opposition of vested interests with the weakness and decline of the central government, reformist social movements from "Tobacco" to "Constitutional" movements emerged which could not reach to their goals and then the modern and absolutist state of Reza Shah came to power.During the era of Pahlavi modernization, especially by the increase of oil revenues in the 1960 and 1970 decades, intensified, but because of the lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework and again the tyrannical nature of the state in the form of a "Neopatriarchy" and corruption and repression and non-participatory nature of decision making process and then conflict between the state and society or religion, led to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

"Thomas Hobbes" (1588-1679) one of the greatest of all political philosophers, and certainly the most brilliant and profound ever to have written in English. Hobbes's must influential writing in political philosophy span the period of English civil war, and are widely interpreted as an intellectual major work leviathan (1651) offered a justification for absolute political authority which purported to be a deduction from "human nature". Here Hobbes sets out first what he takes to be axioms of human behavior analogous to the geometrical axioms that underpin Euclid’s system. Hobbes axioms are that men are rational and desire above all their own preservation. Hence they are led by "a perpetual and restless desire of power after power". But I humans are possessed of rationality and foresight. They are thus able to recognize that their security would be better guaranteed by a voluntary act of giving over their individual power to an individual or group who would thereby be established a sovereign power over all of them.

According to circumstances of traditional international law humanitarian interferences was affected the possibility of use of force by states. The use of force gradually was prevented since the early decades of the 20th century and then transformed into a fundamental principle of international relations. By the end of the Cold War interferences rarely took place with humanitarian intentions. After the Cold War era and fundamental changes that happened to the international order and system, and because of some crisis around the world, there have been done activities under the new humanitarian interference approach. However, some new procedures are taking shape that would affect international politics, international law and the national policy-making processes. This article intends to survey and analyze the transformation of the international system, changes in the UN Security Council attitudes and functions toward international peace and security issues, essence of some crises and new approach of some regional arrangements to humanitarian affairs.