RESEARCH LETTER OF POLITICAL SCIENSE
Year:2010 | Volume:5 | Issue:1 (17)|Papers Count:7

The feminist movement has emerged expanded in the West since the nineteenth century. By adopting a humane view, this movement believes in the equation of men and women and therefore seeks for the legal equality and similarity of them. There are various trends in this movement such as black, radical, liberal and socialist feminists, which are resulted from current developments inside it that caused its moderation by accepting some responsibilities for women such as the roles of motherhood, matrimony, and family-orientation. Revivalism in the Islamic thought Trends, with an identity outlook and relying on tradition, tends to draw border lines separate itself from the global feminism. However, reformism as another trend of Islamic thought tends to align with recent moderate trend in the feminist movement by a special kind of rethinking in the Islamic texts. Finally, it can be said that Muslim reformists and the recent feminist trend, while having differences in identity, are generally moving more or less in a same direction, by considering feminine issues, motherhood and matrimony roles and also emphasizing on the foundation of family.

The unitary state system refers to a kind of political power which is united and undivided in one geographical arena. There seems to be a relationship between the unitary state system and national unity. The favorable characteristic of the unitary state system regarding the national unity and solidarity is reinforced when the country is nearly uniform from the cultural and human point of view. This research is intended to study the relationship between the unitary state system and national unity in Iran. Descriptive-analytic method has been used in this research, and data has been gathered through designing questionnaires. The research population is consisted of 70 researchers and experts in the fields of political geography, political science, political sociology as well as government officials. The findings of this study indicate that notwithstanding the advantages of the unitary state system, excessive centralization in the unitary state system weakens the national unity.

Each text is produced in certain conditions and with different degrees of selection and based on a certain relation with power, and it is available for readers who have different conditions. Analysts believe that there is no null and neuter discourse, because of the lack of pure social fact, but we are faced with discourses or texts belonging to certain people, fractions, ideologies and cultures. However, it is still impossible to recognize the author’s social, political and ideological views and positions which are hidden both iwithin the text and outside it, notwithstanding that different people view the text or discourse in different manners. Therefore, the text shall be viewed as a meaningful totality while this meaning is not necessarily inside the text itself. Meanwhile there is no null and neuter text, because it will have an ideological value, by being affected by the social/cultural texture or background, just because each text is produced in certain condition and situation and therefore it is always accompanied with the creator’s color and nature. The text of the article 44 of Iran’s Constitution has special meaning and is resulted from a special texture. Using a deconstructionist view, the author seeks to show the true face of the text of that article as well as reveal the meaning was attached to it at the time of its production. Deconstruction actually shows that each text has two meanings. First is a meaning and understanding which is loyal to the text and shows its one-dimensional determination. The second meaning and understanding is deconstructionist, i.e. it shows the concepts on the edge and margin of the text that have been omitted or suppressed. At the time when there are different understandings of the article 44, we need to understand what meanings have been attached to it when was being produced in order to realize the differences with current understandings. Is Article 44 of the constitution of Iran practically applicable?

As there are no natural compatibility between philosophical foundations of modernity and the discourse of tradition and oriental philosophy, the entry of modernity to other societies, especially the Islamic countries, has led to fundamental contradictions. Such issue being accompanied with colonialism at the beginning, and non-development of eastern societies later on which resulted in continuation of their subordination and backwardness, was faced with resistance by the elites and people of these societies which led to fundamental evolutions and formation of new social forces. In Iran, especially after the Constitutional Revolution in 1906, we see at least two different kind of encountering with modernity. The intellectuals generally sought to accept the modernity but the religious thinkers usually opposed it. In opposing the modernity, however, the religious thinkers were divided into three groups, namely, the theology-centered, justice- centered and modernist-centered. This article will review the process of the rise of religious modernism and its encountering with the modernity after the Constitutional Revolution that, in its turn, initiated the emergence of fundamental conflicts and new social cleavages in Iran. This still is one of the fundamental issues of the Iranian society.

This article reviews the impact of good governance and social capital on political trust. The effects of feeling social security, non-existence of discrimination and corruption as three variables representing the concept of good governance, as well as public trust and membership in volunteer associations as two variables representing the concept of social capital, and some background variables representing political trust, have been tested. The amount of trusting 21 government institutions has been evaluated in order to measure the dependent variable in this survey.The method of research is quantitative and the applied technique is survey. In this regard, two samples containing 600 individuals within the range of 18-65 years old in Mashhad and Sabzevar, have been selected randomly and interviewed. Multi-variable test results show that variables representing good governance explain the political trust variance better than social capital variables, in a way that all three variables of good governance, have entered into the regression equation of political trust, while among the social capital variables, only membership in Basij volunteer association, has entered into the aforementioned equation. The said variables, together with method of socialization in family, gender, education and city of residence explain totally 40 per cent of the variance of public trust variable. The findings of this research show that good governance variables better explain the public trust in the population under study. Moreover, results of political trust factors analysis show that the trust of interviewees to 21 government institutions may be categorized into three concealed factors: institutions related to everyday life, control institutions as well as political institutions.

Political participation is one of the important types of participation which has been discussed frequently. Political participation in legal and conventional frameworks has been considered as a main characteristic of political development in countries around the globe. It seems that in a society where citizens don’t take part in political activities effectively, there is not much of feeling of commitment and dependence on political system and they won’t act as supporters of the system in critical situations. This article seeks to study the extent of political participation and effective factors on political participation in Tehran. The method adopted for this study was to conduct a survey. The research population was people aged 18 and more who lived in Tehran. The sample size was 1943 people who have been selected by stratified sampling proportionate to sample size. Our findings show significant correlation with 99% confidence level between each of the following variables with political participation: age, marital status, education, religious flexibility, religiousness, life satisfaction, political freedom, political legitimacy, political confidence, political friends, feeling of political efficiency, feeling of political powerlessness, political alienation, distribution of responsibilities, political family, political consciousness, political isolation, use of media, social confidence, satisfaction of government function, contents of candidates’ slogans, having free time in polling day, stability in party sympathy, importance of outcome of election, and importance of public control.