POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE
Year:2014 | Volume:9 | Issue:2 (18) |Papers Count:7

This paper studies the role of the conceptual models of the policy makers in the quality of prioritizing problems in the agenda setting stage of public policy cycle. Several factors contribute to perceiving problems, presenting clear definitions of them, prioritizing them and then problem setting in the format of agenda for policy makers. However, expecting to examine the theories of enactment and social construction of reality, this study seeks to indicate what effects these theories have on identifying the causes, players and interested groups and the way of using various mechanisms towards convincing, deceiving and imposing something on the society, etc. It also deals with the question why and how these theories make analyzers of policies and agencies concentrate on some special problems .The research method in this article is analytical-descriptive, in the form of content analysis, adopting Fuzzy approach in its technique of analysis. Analyzing primary data gathered from some public policy scholars, Islamic Consultative Assembly representatives, and auditors of public policies indicated that agencies, individuals and interested groups are seriously affected by structure and context of current literature and sometimes the self-structured one. So in many cases, prioritizing problems is not relevant to the real world but to the subjective attitude of the policy makers.

Most theories in Social Sciences have aspects of causality, but understanding the causes of social phenomena is not possible through statistical correlation tests. To overcome this problem, fuzzy qualitative comparative analysis was developed to identify the cause of social phenomena. Having qualitative roots, this method tests the necessary and sufficient causes for the emergence of a social phenomenon. The present article seeks to identify the political causes of instability. To achieve this goal, a wide range of political variables affecting political instability were first derived from the theories of social sciences. Then these variables were tested experimentally by comparing 183 countries in the world. The results indicated that the following four variables out of 18 political ones are the causes of political instability: lack of rule of law, government corruption, lack of elite consensus and undemocratic political culture.

The simultaneity of the emergence of western civilization and the downfall of Iranian society created an environment and epistemological arena that Iranian intellectuals had an important role in the development of its semantic system. This article deals with the question how the first wave of intellectuals- when faced with the first wave of modernity discourse- defined its identity borders. The first wave of intellectuals in Iran including Malkum khan, Akhond zadeh and Agha khan kermani in line with the binary opposition logic of modernity reproduced some new concepts and elements under the influence of the positivistic and transcendental discourse of modernity. Relying on the discourse of modernity, the first wave of intellectuals defined the borders of Iranian identity in contrast with tradition, Islam and clergymen, initiating a new discourse in the cultural-historical sphere of Iran that made it inevitable to refer to the west and submit to it. In the present study, the penetration of modernity discourse in the discourse of the first wave of intellectuals and the reproduction of a fake Iranian identity are deconstructed

The People’s Republic of China is an ever rising world power and Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the most powerful countries in the Persian Gulf region. The ever increasing world needs for oil and the role of Iran and Persian Gulf in satisfying this need has made these relations more significant. The foreign policy of the fifth generation of leadership in People’s Republic of China towards the Islamic Republic of Iran is defined under the influence of the characteristics of leaders personalities and China’s national interests.Proceeding an analytical-descriptive method, the authors seek to respond to the following question: what kind of foreign policy may the 5th generation of Chinese leadership have towards the Islamic Republic of Iran?The outcomes of this research indicate that with the accession to power of this generation, the divergent as well as convergent agents have played an important role in the foreign policy of China towards Iran.According to the personality features of the 5th generation leaders, the relations between Iran and China can be fainted to some extent under American and western values and teachings of this generation. Thus the attention of this generation can be drawn to industrial countries like USA and Japan for further economic development. However, it doesn’t mean that this generation is western oriented. Rather, the fifth generation also acts based on realism and defending its own national interests.

The concepts being used in international relations are mostly qualitative, subjective and incalculable. However, in the middle decades of the twentieth century, some efforts had been carried out in order to make some of the concepts and propositions of this field formulated, calculable and statistical. This process suffered serious shortcomings and proved fruitless in making international relations computable. However, making use of mathematical symbols and formulizing the propositions, while knowing the uncertainty of results and being a human related issue, is significant and useful and contributes to better understanding of phenomena in complex conditions. The framework of Game Theory, in the theoretical literature of deterrence is amongst these concerns. In the early years of the twenty-first century arduous endeavors have been made to develop this theory and its models making its concepts and qualitative signs formulized and calculable in the European and American International relations. On the other hand, in recent decades, international relations theories have had a considerable tendency towards involving norms in their literature and analysis. In the present article the authors seek to study the ways in which norms affect and intervene in the field of international relations through symbolizing and formulating these concepts within the new versions of Game Theory. Actually the authors have tried to answer the following question: "When, how and to what extent can norms affect the performance of the countries in international relations?".

Happiness holds a central position in Farabi and Aquinas theory of ethics and politics. Both of these philosophers are considered Aristotle-oriented and peripatetic. While both regard God’s countenance as real happiness, their methods to reach this goal are separated in a stage and a place. Recognizing the insufficiency of intellect, Aquinas affirms the necessity of faith and other theological and Christian virtues towards making God’s countenance possible. Taking a comparative method, the present article deals with the identical and distinctive aspects of happiness in the thought of these two philosophers showing that the Aristotle teleology towards becoming religious has come to the same conclusion in the intellectual system of these two philosophers. However, the position of intellect in these two approaches and also the relation of desirable political order of the two thinkers with happiness show certain differences. The hypothesis of this article is that the intellect having the same origin as revelation holds a basic position in Farabi’s happiness theory. Other virtues become meaningful in relation with this virtue in the process of reaching happiness. However, Farabi’s approach towards happiness is philosophical in contrast to Aquinas who has a theological approach. In Farabi’s opinion, both worldly happiness and otherworldly happiness are in the field of government responsibility. Distinguishing intellect from revelation and faith, Aquinas makes government and church respectively responsible for worldly happiness and otherworldly happiness.