RESEARCH LETTER OF POLITICAL SCIENSE
Year:2011 | Volume:6 | Issue:3 (23)|Papers Count:9

Since the 1970s, we have been witnessing an increasing call for "bringing the state back in" to political science studies. In particular, the theories of state-building earned a great importance. This led to the multiplicity and diversity of state-building theories and as a result a kind of textual disorder in this literature. Thus, we argue that it is a must to give some theoretical order to these theories and build some coherent theoretical structures in the field of state-building theories through one of the methods in theory-framing that is theoretical approaches. In doing so, this article offers four main theoretical approaches to state-building theories including war approach, approach of economic and social crisis and dynamics of feudalism, cultural approaches and finally Third World approach. This article then follows a critical and pathological perspective and discusses the theoretical imperatives to be observed by the above-mentioned theoretical approaches.

“State theory” and different and contradictory perceptions of it, is counted as a prominent approach in the contemporary political knowledge. Various liberal, Marxist and Third World models of “state theory” have always had a widespread reflection on the study of politics in different Western and non-Western societies and have been the central predominant theory particularly in the literature of political economy, political sociology and historical sociology. The main objective of this article is an attempt to formulate a new theoretical approach and an alternative to “state” and “political system” theories so that the new theoretical approach (titled as “paradigm of power” approach) may enjoy epistemic, methodological and theoretical capacity and desirability, while avoiding some existing reductionism in “state” and “political system” theories.

By the end of the Iran-Iraq war, debate on modernization and reconstruction, and a new period of policy-making was started in Iran. Any plan and policy in such period, was aimed at rebuilding of devastation caused by the war, economic improvement and fortification of economic infrastructures. On this basis, the 1st Economic, Social & Cultural Development Plan was formed. This article discusses the role of the 3rd period of the Islamic Consultative Assembly as a state institution involved in the process of policy-making and ratification of the 1st Development Plan. It shows that the Assembly has had a subordinate and affirmative role in the process of transition to reconstruction period and relevant policy-makings.

By beginning of the financial crisis in the U.S economy, many analysts, in their survey to find the roots and causes, point to different aspects such as state intervention or the lack of its timely presence in economic sphere. The first and most critical impact of such depression on domestic area was the fall of financial indexes and reduced public welfare. Focusing on the US depression in the scope of its internal structures, this article argues that it has led to the weakening of the welfare state in the U.S, due to the gap and income deficit and inability of the state in performing its welfare function for the vulnerable classes, resulted from the adoption of some strategies such as tax collection from financial institutes and classes and allocation of supportive financial resources to companies and institutes, along with the intensification of military presence in different regions of the world. To explain our argument, this article first articulate its theoretical framework consisting of imbedded liberalism and neo-liberalism theories in order to better understand the U.S economic dynamics and developments, then in the second section we refer to the roots, causes and also results of the crisis, and finally we investigate its impact on weakening of the U.S welfare state function.

Nowadays, the theory of political instabilities resulted from a rentier economy and a rentier state is once again criticized by academic circles and theorists in economic and political science. A majority of critics believe that empirical observations are not so much compatible with the instabilities resulted from this theory. Thus, this article tends to introduce instability as a factor creating economic fluctuations and study the case within the context of political business cycles. In fact, it attempts to discuss a new type of political business cycles which is a characteristic of rentier economies. This theoretical framework may be deemed as an exordium to design quantitative and technical models in the field of business cycles studies.

Regional policy making is one of the communicative concepts in the field of political economy which shapes the regional connections between governments, multi-national corporations and economic organizations. These effective structures cannot establish sustainable cooperation among them unless they consider the social and cultural characteristics of their partners. In the other hand, regionalism cannot be significantly developed without reinforcing the associative connections between dissociated groups, people and societies. This paper has been prepared in accordance with regionalism experiences in East and South-East Asia. It could also be applicable and a guide model for countries located in South-West Asia. Associative coherence in East Asia firstly organized a variety of "world cities" and then provided the ground for transition process from "passive integration" to "proactive integration". Proactive integration occurs when regional policy making is in line with establishing economic interactions between countries through decreasing or removing the obstacles, on the other hand, integration strengthens the common factors between partners and economic structures. This integration is formed through conversion of regional markets into global markets. This paper attempts to explain the associative coherence in regional policy making based on interdisciplinary studies. To establish such integration, a combination of "Structuralism Approaches" and "Structural Regionalism" may be applicable efficiently. Realization of the associative coherence can be seen in organizing regional and world cities.

The Qajar period, when Iranians first met the modern world, is usually assumed to be the beginning of thinking over development and the role the state plays in it. The issue of development is still alive within the intellectual circles as well as authorities and has led to accumulation of a fruitful literature. Relying on the theory of democratic developmentalist state, the present study attempts to review and analyze the developmental programs during the second Pahlavi era (1941-1979). Our argument is that 1) during the 1941-1953, the type of politics prevented the state from generating the required capacity for developmentalism, during 1953-1962 a transformation in the state-society relation led to some rupture and change in politics and consequently prepared the ground for some efforts for adopting developmentalist policies (the transition period), and during 1962-1979, with an increase in oil revenues, developmentalism flourished and its positive characteristic was significantly revealed. But the country’s situation and the kind of politics did not encourage the Iranian state to become democratized.