RESEARCH LETTER OF POLITICAL SCIENSE
Year:2007 | Volume:1 | Issue:5|Papers Count:7

This article examines the impact of the Islamic topics on the discipline of political science through survey research of 140 samples of the students and professors of Mazandaran state university. This article has two sections. In the first part it seeks the theoretical foundations caused the islamization of the political science discipline after the Islamic Revolution. These foundations refer to maximalist view of Islam, the natural functions of ideological governments and maintenance of pattern variables according to Talkot Parson’s theory. In the second part of the article, according to the findings of the questionaries, the respondents believe on the desirability and usefulness of the Islamic syllabuses in the discipline of political science, but simultaneously they believe on the necessity of changing and updating them too. The most important point is that according to the data, the contribution of these topics to the process of political-man making of the Islamic regime is not as it was expected.

This article seeks to examine general scientific research methodologically through surveying Ph.D. dissertations in the departments of Political Science and International Relations at university of Tehran. The author tries to shed light on the way scientific method is being used in these dissertations. By doing this, the article seeks to propose some criteria which can be utilized by scholars in social sciences generally and in Political Science and International Relations particularly in order to evaluate researches being done by others. The article concludes with suggesting 10 criteria for scientific evaluation of researches in social sciences.

The analysis of the MA entrance exam items set for Political Science in the last five years was carried out or the basis of the following criterion: content validity, sources of exam materials, repeat question, and the problems prevalent in the test items, and to augment their validity and reliability to adequately discriminate qualified candidates. Research results indicate that all test items analyzed lad adequate content validity, the readings for the tests were not adequately identified in advance for the candidates, the incidence of repeat questions was inordinately high, the preponderance of the questions did not tap candidates independent critical ability but rather had them remember what they had already memorized. Despite the weaknesses, the questions set for the MA entrance exam seemed to follow the principles of item formulations in terms of their formal aspects. The main suggestions based on the empirical analyses of the study are as follows: the readings for the exam have to be announced in advance by the concerned authorities, the exam items must be reevaluated by a specialized committee, the items set have to be further modified by a group of educational experts, the analysis of items on a yearly basis to ascertain their being standardized, the authorities responsible to administer the test have to keep themselves up-to-date by referring to new findings.

Constant communication among scholars is one way to promote the standing of any discipline. To do this, scholars have to examine the way teaching and research is being done in their discipline. The course "Introduction to International Relations" is the first and almost the only theory course which political science students at BA level take in the Iranian universities. Through this course, students become familiar with different issues in world politics and learn how to analyze them using concepts and theories of International Relations. This article seeks to survey how this course is being taught in different universities in Iran by asking: 1) what are the main texts being used; 2) how up-to-date the course outlines are; and 3) how satisfied are the students who take the course. According to the nature and type of the research, the inductive method is employed to analyze the data which are gathered from 13 universities all around Iran.

The content of main Iranian political science journals is reflective of the main characteristics and fields of this discipline in the country. Based on content analysis of main Iranian political science journals, this article argues that the discipline of political science in Iran is significantly theory oriented, depends heavily on non-Iranian sources and texts, and research activities are not very profound. An inclination towards very general and abstract subject matters as well as theoretical debates has made political science in Iran far away from applied and policy -oriented research and study particularly one which is related to Iran. As well political science in Iran is heavily dependent on other social science disciplines such as law, sociology and philosophy.

despite of the expanded spectrum of subjects and questions which may be posed in relation to M.A. and Ph.D. dissertations in Political Science and International Relations in Iranian universities, this articleis dedicated to answer this limited and at the same time significant question: "considering the immense variety of subjects, the student dissertations in political science and international relation in Iran are of what position and state"? In this way, through a survey of some universities in Tehran, the article will examine that 1) what percentage of dissertations deal with Iran and what percentage are dedicated to foreign countries, 2) to what extent is the concentration of dissertations on abstract and/or theoretical subjects and 3) how much they are policy oriented and finally 4) how much are they overlapping or repetitive of each other in terms of the subject matter as well as the content. The main argument of this paper is that a considerable part of these dissertations, because of lack of dealing with realities and socio- political needs of the society and the country, are non-applied and repetitive and their subjects are mainly overlapping each other considerably; though this argument is not confirmed by computational research measurement. According to the nature and type of the research, the inductive method is employed to analyze the data.