GEOPOLITICS QUARTERLY
Year:2010 | Volume:5 | Issue:3 (16)|Papers Count:7

Many political geographers treat the concept of vertical organization of state with territory as its horizontal feature defined within the concept borders as a product of the peace treaty of Westphalia in 1648 (Glassner and de Blij, 1989, 46-59). While this may be true in the case of state within the modern sense of the term in Europe, certainly the concept of state as a vertically organized political structure with its territorial identity is much older than any idea of nation state when measured with Gottmann’s iconography (Jean Gottmann, 1964). This is in deed old with its foundation rooted in more ancient civilizations.There are indications that ancient civilizations were familiar with the notion of state. Ancient texts reveal that this basic principle existed in ancient Persian literature. Similarly, the likelihood exists that these Persian notions could have influenced Roman civilization.It is widely believed that a combination of ancient Greco-Roman and Persian civilizations is a major contributor to what culturally constitutes ‘West’. On the other hand, considering that 'justice' formed the foundation on which the idea of Iran emerged and her territorial identity began to take shape, the idea that ancient Persian spatial arrangement might have contributed to the evolution of the concept of democracy in the West may not be too difficult to contemplate. This is to say that the Iranian tradition of statehood, flourished on the basis of justice enshrined in its socially oriented territorial identity might have contributed to the emergence of the notion of nation state in the West that emerged in the political evolution of space after Westphalia.

This research, with an assessment and comparison of diverse economic, social and geographical indices of two Iranian provinces of Yazd and Kerman (which are the birthplace of the two presidents of Iran in recent years) tries to seek a response to the question as whether or not the accessibility to the political opportunity like presidency caused the use of national feasibilities towards the development of hometowns /birthplaces of the presidents?For that reason, data and statistics of different economic indices of the above two provinces were gathered and processed with the help of the Statistical Center of Iran. Results show that the provinces of Yazd and Kerman enjoyed extraordinary development compared to the mean development of the country as a whole.

Today, ethnicity and pluralism is one of the important international issues because some 179 countries across the globe have been formed out of ethnicity or racial multiplicity. From the ethnic point of view, India has the foremost place and Iran is one among the multi-ethnic country. The problem of ethnicity in Iran goes back to the last 100 years and to some respect it was propounded during the post-constitutionalism era. Iranian society is consisted of multi-ethnic and diverse local cultures-each of which, apart from common Iranian-Islamic identities, possesses a bit of local and regional identities hence, Iranian society is counted as multi-ethnic and multi-cultural one. However, a multi-ethnic society, in a particular condition, causes challenges and crisis to the government or social management. Instances of those challenges can also be observed in the contemporary Iranian history.Going through assimilative method that leads to absorption of different ethnicity in a culture as well pluralism method that is based on the official recognition of different ethnic groups and granting them some rights, authors have propound a new approach emphasizing on the rights of citizen. In this respect, in the society, everybody living free from ethnic and cultural prejudices enjoy equal rights. Consequently, we may not talk about ethnic security without focusing on the rights of citizen.By this way, multi-ethnic issue of a country can be presented like an opportunity and can be placed as the beginning of crisis management of this domain. While discussing ethnicity, the current paper emphasizes on opportunistic approach hence, tries to transform existing challenges and threats into progressive opportunities.

Since taking office, the Obama administration has repeatedly affirmed its intent to prevent potential future international crises from becoming the source of costly new U.S. military commitments. In one of the earliest foreign policy pronouncements of the new administration, vice President Joseph R. Biden declared: “We’ll strive to act preventively, not preemptively, to avoid whenever possible or wherever possible the choice of last resort between the risks of war and the dangers of inaction.”This would not be the first time senior U.S. officials have extolled the virtues of better crisis management and conflict prevention as a way to avoid costly military entanglements.Yet for all the avowed interest in preventive action, the United States has repeatedly found itself responding to foreign crises belatedly and hastily with damaging consequences for U.S. regional interests and policy goals.In many other cases, moreover, regional instability and conflict have eventually necessitated major U.S. military interventions to stabilize and reconstruct the stricken country. The Obama administration’s declarations will intent to make preventive action a policy priority for the United States.The hypothesis of this article indicates a direct relation between Obama's foreign policy and preventive action in U.S. strategy. The Obama's foreign policy is the independent variable and preventive strategy is the dependent variable and the theoretical framework is based on Agent-Structure approach.

The present paper is an attempt to study the impacts of Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline on trilateral cooperation between Iran, Pakistan and India in the context of regional development. The pipeline can work both as a deterrent and a confidence-building measure, in a geopolitical set up where interstate and intrastate forces as well as extra-territorial forces are at work to undermine any attempt for regional cooperation aiming at flourishing of regional development. The political environment in South Asia is marked by an ambience of hope and anticipation. The most intensive diplomatic engagement has occurred between Pakistan and India. Three wars in 1947-48, 1965, and 1971 and a constant state of military preparedness on both sides of the border have marked six decades of bitter contest between India and Pakistan. Today, both the countries need a peaceful ambiance to concentrate on economic development of their nations. The IPI pipeline can provide an opportunity for both the countries to engage in a mutually beneficial economic project and begin a new phase in their bilateral relations on the one hand and enter into a trilateral relation with Iran on the other. Iran has the second largest gas reserves of the world at its disposal and is a major member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and hence can be a very effective party to this triangle. The engagement of the three countries in this giant gas project can pave the way for a dynamic regional cooperation. The data for the present paper has been collected through library research. The garnered data has been analyzed based on descriptive-historical-analytical method. The theoretical framework of the present study is Stephen Jones' Unified Field Theory of Political Geography (Jones, 1955), who maintains that geopolitical fields are just like magnetic fields and any change in one field leaves its impacts on other related geopolitical fields.The hypothesis of this article indicates a direct relation between Obama's foreign policy and preventive action in U.S. strategy. The Obama's foreign policy is the independent variable and preventive strategy is the dependent variable and the theoretical framework is based on Agent-Structure approach.

In the analysis of the democratic movement of Iranian Azerbaijan, the present paper tries to reach to the conclusion that this movement emerged due to socio-political and economic backwardness of this region as well as lack of land reforms, education and health care. This movement although could not reach to its ultimate aim of correcting these issues due to its short tenure of one year in power (1945-46) however it revives and gave a new soul to the Azeri language that led to its acceptance among the native people. Despite the viewpoints of some of the researchers that the movement culminated with the backing of the erstwhile Soviet Union, it must be said that this was purely native based on the desire of local people. Soviet Union initially supported the movement but because of the pressure from the central government of Iran and the Western powers (Britain and the United States), it deceived the movement the time it was on the verge of success. The current paper tries to prove that it was such pressure that led to the collapse of this movement and accordingly I think the West succeeded by giving vague and hidden promises to the USSR for taking out its support from the democratic movement of Azerbaijan.

The following is a case report on a study was held on the border region of the province of Khuzestan, southwest of Iran. This border line with Iraq has experienced different events of conflict since the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979, such as the 8 year war between Iran and Iraq. Conflicts between Iran and Iraq at this region have been special to influence the security and development’s interrelations within the development process of the region and the country as a whole. This has to be considered by any development planning for the region, especially Spatial Planning. This was the main subject for doing a research held for the region with the aim to examine interrelations between development and security indicators in this border region.The main objective of this study is to answer questions on the mentioned above expected interrelations as they were set within the hypothesis. The hypothesis of the study examined in a term of 30 year between 1979-2009, which has divided into two periods. This study is composed on the research methods and quantitative analysis conducted.It was found in this research that many aspects in border regions are related to each other, and they affect each other in an interactive systematic way. Development is related to security status in border regions. Border areas with rich economic structure such as Abadan and Mahshahr had higher security indicators than other regions that suffer higher rates of unemployment and poverty. Rregions with high indicators regarding security, are also defendable regions, and they have experienced a successful development process. This can be explained in term that security attracts economic activities and investment that are necessary for a successful development program.