POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE
Year:2013 | Volume:8 | Issue:2 (16)|Papers Count:7

Trust as basis and foundation of social interactions and relationships is very important especially in relationships between people and government. The result of the conducted studies around the country showed that the rate of political trust has been in variation since the beginning of the Islamic revolution. This series of studies have enumerated different factors for this situation. These studies had less attention to students as active actors in the political arena. This research is trying to investigate the factors related to the political trust of Shiraz University students with the use of survey (measurement) method.Engle hart theory was applied as a theoretical framework to study the affects of variables such as social capital, religiousness, satisfaction with life, use of mass media and super-cultural structures on students political trust. In this research, political actors and institutions were taken under consideration as the indicators of dimensions of political trust.The result showed that 26.7 percent of the students have low political trust, 73.3 percent of them have average to high political trust and the rate of confidence in political system is more than confidence in political institutions and actors. According to the step by step regression results, it can be said that among the variables entered the regression, religiousness, use of internal media, use of external media, membership in political religious associations, satisfaction with life, Shia’ religion and membership in socio-cultural groups remain that make 47.1% of the dependent variables. The inward group social capital variant has a positive and significant relation with the political trust, but the amount of income has a negative and significant relation with political trust. The relationship between variants of level of education and ethnicity is also significant.

The role and work of the associations of constitutionality primary on subversion of the pillars of the young political system in Iran and particularly the downfall of the first parliament (1906) has enough space and dimension in the contemporary history and even has created a kind of monopoly to majority of political analyst. It's clear that developments in the initial years of the constitutionality and in particular the downfall of the first parliament has a firm relations with the actions of the associations of this era and has overshadowed the judgment on the association's work report in every respect, but any analysis and evaluation concerning the associations' constitutionality Primary without taking the existing reality's of the political and social scene of the country under consideration would inflict serious damage to the final judgment. In the whole even though, associations and some news papers had great role in radicalization of the atmosphere, but evidences exist that clearly show the associations had not been the main influential factor, rather a combination of factors with the presence of associations has led to the aforesaid events.

This essay is to discover the political thoughts of Sassanid era, based on the Letter of Tensar. This letter has important contents in explaining thoughts and workings of Ardashir Babakan and followed by it, the prevalent dialoques of Sassanid era. In this letter, Tensar draws his boundaries with two patterns, Manaviah which is set in the frame of "manner based" discourse and Mazdakiah in the frame of "Justice Based" discourse, in this essay. With these two patterns Tensar proceeds with interpretation and explaining of his thoughts. Religion is the central signifier of "manner based" discourse, but in the divergence shaped by this discourse which in the continuation is called "justice based" discourse, religion becomes a floating signifier that diminishes from the center and is replaced by another central signifier named justice and equality of social classes and in this condition religion becomes a second class signifier. In "order based" discourse, the order inspired by Cosmic order is considered the central signifier and in this essay, the framework of this discourse is explained in details, bit by bit.The main content of Tensar letter is "order based" Idea that leads to a pattern of governing named "Kingship" (Imperial). "King" (Shah) is the axis of all political, social, cultural and economical structures in the government and all of these structures have been designed and prepared for it. Yet, the formidability, consolidation and durability of these structures are inspired by "cosmic order" (Universal Order). The method used in this essay is discourse analysis and with the use of that has proceeded with the theoretical analysis inserted in the letter.

Organization is a key element in Charles Tilly's model of study about circumstances of political campaign. Ceremonial religious groups (Hey'ats) are one of the old organizations that have flourished from the Ashura culture of Tashayo and despite experiencing some ups and downs they have developed and evolved during a long process. This article tries to investigate the roles of the ceremonial religious group of Tehran in Islamic revolution of Iran in the city of Tehran. The method of this research is qualitative and it will use historical and documentary study and for compiling data it has referred to the existing documents and resources and interviews has been performed with some of the concerned authorities of the ceremonial religious groups that were under this study. The main question in this article is: What were the different roles and functions of ceremonial religious groups (Hey'ats) in the city of Tehran in the process of shaping the Islamic revolution of Iran? It is clear that these (Hey'ats) along with other organizations had important roles and functions in the process of shaping the victory of Islamic revolution. For instance we can mention the cultural, artistic, social, economical, political and military role of the above mentioned ceremonial religious groups in the process of shaping the victory of the Islamic revolution. The proof and witnesses has been provided for each one of these roles in the history of revolution.

Sectarian extremism is one of the growing, destiner and determining phenomena in our world today. It has had an increasing role in shaping national, regional and international events and today's interpretation and analysis of the political, security, social and economical events without consideration of these events and it's various dimensions would be helplessly imperfect and inadequate. Sectarian extremism in Pakistan emerged in the late 1970s, grew in the 1980s, and continued in the 1990s. Understanding the cause and spread of sectarian extremism in Pakistan has a significant importance in haltering this phenomenon.Whereas many of the accomplished studies have focused on textual discursive aspects, or subnational and national factors, this article combines the national and regional levels of analysis to study the effects of sectarian extremism in Pakistan in the time interval of 1979 to 2001. First, we define sectarian extremism, and introduce Pakistani religious sects and relevant approaches in its study. We, then, examine the effects of Islamization program in Pakistan, the Islamic revolution of Iran, the Afghan jihadi movement in the 1980s, the Kashmiri struggle, and the rise of Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1990s on sectarian extremism in Pakistan. Our argument is that national and regional factors are the main causes of sectarian extremism in Pakistan.

Power is one of the basic and fundamental elements in international politics therefore, the area of analysing power is one of the most important compasses for research in international relations which on the basis of reliance to diverse methodology discusses towards explaining the foreign behaviour of the governments. Based on the transformation in the political structure and behavior patterns of countries show that any change and displacement, resulting from a change in the approach, based on the power.Transformation in the concept of power which is referred to as "soft power", as a method of International Policy discussion and a tool for improving the country's foreign policy, is considered as a relatively young model that somehow founded on it's equivalent implications such as influence, power and even legitimacy. This power is the power of guidance, attraction and being role model. For this reason, is also intimately associated with shapeless powers such as culture and knowledge. On this basis, a country like the United States which is known as a Hegemon (Hazmon) in the international arena, is attempting with expansion and promotion of it's culture and knowledge as soft power components attain three goals, promote the level of legitimacy of political system at the international level, maintaining the international prestige and eventually manage and give direction to the public opinion in order to stabilize it's Hegemonic structure. The present article in a logical path first attempts to redefine power in classic narrative and introduce new interpretations of power, history as well as it's characteristics and then with taking the role of the United States soft power under consideration and with focusing on two elements of soft power (information technology and media and culture), studies the effects of this form of power in sustaining the hegemonic system.