GEOPOLITICS QUARTERLY
Year:2010 | Volume:6 | Issue:2 (18)|Papers Count:8

Although otherization plays an important role in influencing the creation of human identity, its extreme form in which outsider is transformed into anti-insider (enemy) creates a sort of domineering system with the supremacy of a special discourse over other discourses or systems of meaning. The present paper is an attempt to discuss the benefits incurring from perceived enemy for the discursive systems. Although the ethical nature of the perceived enemy is always doubtful, its benefits are so great that the discursive systems more or less through its verbal and media presentation try to reproduce it. The findings of the present study indicate that the most important function of perceived enemy in which invisible domination of discursive systems is inherent include: provocation of the public opinion against the other, nation-building, identification, reconstruction of the collapsed identities, legitimization of expansionist behaviors, winning the support of public opinion, neocolonization, consolidation of political positions and borders, strengthening of the sense of territoriality and patriotism, increasing national activities, diversion of public opinion, satisfaction of inner feelings of the nation, covering up the domestic problems and excitement and consolidation of the morale of insiders.

Cultural engineering is among the necessities of promotion of geo-cultural position of Islamic Iran which is the creator of the most superior theory of government, that is, religious democracy. Cultural engineering and preparation of the cultural map of the world can offer an indigenous and effective model for the cultural map. The metropolitan city of Tehran as the metropolis of the Islamic world enjoys a special place in the field of cultural issues. As a result, the preparation of the cultural map can offer as a guide map and a database and measurement tool for major directions of development of the city of Tehran as a model of Islamic city as well as practical guide for urban management.The present study tries to offer a model for the preparation of the cultural map of the country on the basis of Islamic values to promote the geo-cultural position of the country. The findings of the research substantiated the hypotheses of the research indicating that societal network model is a suitable model for the preparation of the cultural map of Tehran in order to promote the geo-cultural position of the country.

Regionalism has become very prominent in the global politics and theories of international relations since 1980, but the literature of regional studies, particularly model of regional security, do not offer the needed model for the analysis of regional security. Hence, the objective of the present paper is to offer a framework or an analytical model for the analysis of regional security. In fact, in the complicated system of analysis of security, the understanding of the security of units is not possible without understanding the regional network. Attempts have been made to offer a model based on network theory and geopolitical paradigm to make the understanding of the regional security and connection of different components possible. The Middle East network has been studies as a case.

With the transfer of the discourse of geo-strategy to geo-economics in recent decades and the superior role of economy in the international relations, the geopolitics of energy and its security has enjoyed a special place in international relations. In our era, energy, particularly oil, has played a significant role in security and regional and international skirmishes. Hence, such concepts as security of energy, strategic reserves, oil resources, consumers and producers of oil, oil and gas pipelines and their security has become very crucial. Today Iran is internationally important with regard to the production and transfer of energy. On the one hand Iran is in the center of the strategic energy circle and on the other it is located at the center of transfer of energy to the world’s great energy markets, that is, Europe and South and Southeast Asia. These features have potentially endowed Iran with special geoeconomic and geopolitical characteristics. Attempts should be made to actualize those potential charactersitics to promote Iran’s status in regional and international arena.

Globalization is progressing and is creating changes in geographical-political spaces of our world. While we are witnessing de-territorialization and removal of borders in our life, it seems that trans-border currents due to the recent developments have brought us closer to the flying carpet. The condensation of space-time, global village, borderless world and many other universal concepts, expressing globalization of economy, culture, security and information, will materialize when borders and other obstacles become immaterial. Through a neo-realisitic approach, the present paper is an attempt to prove that not only obstacles and borders exist in front of extra-territorial currents such as informationization of global space, but also due to the geopolitical and security nature of different social-humane currents such as information, exchange of information and goods, borders are natural issues. It is pertinent to mention that by borders we do not mean mere physical borders but the existence of structural limitations and obstacles in the information space, Internet, etc. which constitute the borders, sovereignty and territorial control.

Despite their limited geographical areas, free zones, in the light of their existential philosophy and different management systems, can be turned into small centers with great roles in macroeconomic systems in the arena of geoeconomic equations. However the economic role of these regions in geoeconomic equations is to a great extent under the influence of geopolitical position of the region. Attempts have been made in the present article to study the role of Aras Free Commercial-Industrial Zone in northwest Iran as an entry gate and connection with the CIS countries. Also attempts have been made to study the role of Aras Free Commercial-Industrial Zone in Iran’s trade exchanges.

Tourism industry as an economic activity over the past few years has drawn the attentions to the extent that attempts are made to boost this industry to prevent its slow down. In the light of the definition of the word geopolitics, the utilization of tourism opportunities in a region can strengthen access to power. Such concepts as strategic planning, strategy and tactic were forged in an attempt to offer practical policies in management and decision-making to be able to encounter complicated, vague and unpredictable environments. Tourism strategic planning is capable of accommodating grounds of decision-making, expressing the reasons behind the decisions and presenting the decisions as practical policies as an effective process in the field of tourism.The objective of the present case study is to study the method of application of the process of strategic planning in tourism planning at trans-local and regional levels. Relying on the process of strategic planning and its related techniques in tourism activities of the City of Chadgan and Fereydon Shahr (regions of Kohsavar Tarar) in Isfahan Province, attempts have been made to study the problem as a case study.