POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE
Year:2011 | Volume:6 | Issue:2 (12)|Papers Count:8

Islam as a universal religion adopts a specific approach to the International Relations. This approach is different from realism and liberalism as the two major theorizing trends within the mainstream of western IR. The IR theories have various meta-theoretical principles, namely, ontology, epistemology, and methodology. These principles, however, strengthen their adopted approaches to the IR. As a consequence, their views about the entity of IR become different.This article is a comparative study of principles of ontology of the Islamic Theory of IR with the two major trend of western I.R namely, liberalism and realism. In the course of the discussion two following questions are answered: 1. What are the principles of the ontology of Islamic IR? 2. What is the major difference between the Islamic Theory of IR and the two other trends namely, liberalism and realism.In order to answer these questions two theories are examined in parallel with each other. These two theories are: 1. The principles of the ontology of Islamic IR have a humanistic trend and they are pessimistic like realism or optimistic like liberalism. In other words, according to Islamic thought the entity of human being is a mixture of human nature and instinct, religious oriented policies and the theory of Godly-oriented government. So, the prominent principle in IR is the authenticity of peace.2. The sharp distinction between the Islamic theory of IR and liberalism and realism is in their ontological principles of Islamic IR.Islamic IR, according to its ontological principles, has presented an interpretation about the nature of IR which is more compatible with the reality of the International system than realism and liberalism.This paper is the result of a library research and the research methodology is analytical.

How is it possible to gain a better understanding of the past and present content of the Islamic political thought and explain the Muslims’ opinions in a better way? Theorizing can be established at first by raising a question about the subject and the issues we want to understand better. This article by utilizing the Islamic thinkers’ inter subjectivity teachings and the comparative method and also by referring to the diverse and scattered elements of these thoughts, prominent in the intellectuals’ works and the thoughts related to this discipline, has tried to gain a systematic understanding of Islamic political thoughts. Then the three pillars of Islam, namely, beliefs, ethics, and commandments, known as undeniable and certain concepts and considered as the sound and secure foundations, are used for a theoretical research in Islamic political thought. So, in Islamic political thought the political ethics, political jurisprudence, and political beliefs are considered as main pillars. Along with the brief explanation of these three, the hexangular interaction of them is identified and the influence of them on each other in the context of individuals’ life, society and government is theorized. Within each of these hexangular interactions some other subdivisions are identified and organized. The plurality of the subjects of each three packages and the hexangular interactions within the three frameworks of the true Islam, the Islam realized in the intellectuals’ mind, the Islam realized in the Muslims’ and statesmen’s actions, is led to the fact that the present theoretical research be flexible as a mode in the explanation of thought or its production. This research’s critical and liberating dimension of it is laid on the distance it considers between the Muslims’ existing situation and their ideal situation. So, identification of the ideal and pure objectives of true Islam is similar to the construction of “pure concepts” that can improve the research conducted on the discipline. Furthermore, this identification can be useful in the administrative policy makings in a way that every researcher or policy maker can understand what he is searching for within the hexangular interactions and epistemological packages and what will the probable influences be.

In this research the transformation process of the entity of the bond of the elite establishers and its influence on the “structure of the government” from the outset of the Saffavi dynasty to the end of Shah Abbas’s reign will be studied by a historical approach. The structure of Saffavi government, throughout Shah Ismail’s reign was a “religious” one. Within such a structure, Shah had not only materialistic power, but also religious power. The religious foundations were superior to the political foundation and military forces. Furthermore, the political institutions of the government such as “Vakile Nafse Homayoon” and “Khalifatol Kholafa” were deeply rooted in the Sufi monastery culture. Such foundations performed the function of a mediator between the king and people. During this period, the governors of the states had high authority and the existence of mediators put obstacles in the way of the establishment of dictatorship. After Shah Ismail’s death, the Sufis’ bonds were weakened and “tribal bonds” were forged. The establishment of the new bonds led to the construction of “bureaucratic kingdom”. Such structure found and ultimate form during the Shah Abbas the First.Within the new structure, the bureaucratic system was developed and many state lands were usurped by the king. A new army was established which was organized which was under the king’s direct rule. The religious foundations were separated from the political foundations and military forces. Under the undue influence of Shah Abbas’s policies, a central, authoritarian and bureaucratic government was formed.

Barak Obama, who gain the power, having change as his presidential slogan, failed to do what he had in mind against Iran. In other words the foreign policy of United States did not undergo much change related to Iran. Furthermore, Obama’s administration followed Bill Clinton’s and G. W. Bush’s same policies namely, enforcement, military threat, and sanctions, against Iran. I this article, after the presentation of a theoretic framework based on the theories of international relations, the factors in forming the sanctions against Iran and the reasons of their continuation are studied. Also, the actions and interactions of these decision-makings in the reciprocal policies of Islamic Republic of Iran and United States will be studied. In this regard, the reciprocal distresses and troubles and also the distant horizons of their relations are studied. Also, by adopting the reductionist approach it has been identified that the Foreign policy of I.R.I is dependant of foreign stimulants and is more based on interior dynamics. However, it cannot be denied that psychological and environmental factors can affect the foreign policy of Islamic Republic of Iran.

Social capital is a facilitator in the political, social, cultural and especially economical relations. Social capital is produced as a result of human relations within a framework of trust and honesty. After 1990’s, the experts attention was drawn to the social capital as a factor which can reduce the bureaucratic problems. The researchers, in this article, have tried to measure the social capital index in the provinces of Islamic Republic of Iran. After calculating this index, the decreasing trend of this index in the provinces is explained through the regional economic analysis. The researchers have measured the social capital by the Analytical Hierarchy Process and the results are shown by utilizing ARCGIS software. Ultimately, it was concluded that we can divide the country into three U-shaped regions, namely, internal layer, outer layer, and central one. The central and outer layers have, respectively, the most social capital.

This article focuses on the methods and apparatuses which were used in the mobilization of people in the Tobacco Movement for the better understanding of the modern social movements and their function.The question raised in the article is: what methods and apparatuses were used in the Tobacco Movement for the mobilization of the people’s protests? The hypothesis is that within the Tobacco Movement the communiqués, lectures in the Mosques, issuing of Fatwa (Shiite creeds), and telegraph messages were used for the mobilization of people. Also, the protests were canalized by marches, demonstrations and taking sanctuaries. Also, the brochures of the colonial administration were torn off by people. The article is based on library research based on a descriptive-analytical method. In this article, first, the methods managed to persuade people for uprising and also the quality of the formation of the protests are studied. Then, the methods that the protesters applied for the fulfillment of their demands are studied. The methods of protestations that are studied in this article are: sending letters of complaint, holding public demonstrations, taking sanctuaries and imposing religious sanctions. Also, the colonial administrators were not let in; the advertisements of the colonial administration were torn off, and the newspapers, lectures in the mosques, and communiqués were used as the methods of protestation.

This paper seeks to study the factors which are effective in the political participation of the University of Tehran’s students of politics and engineering. The research is an applied one and its method is descriptive and analytical. The data were collected by distribution of questionnaires. The research population was 3920 students at the University of Tehran. Based on Cochran formula, the sample size was 352 of the students. Firstly, according to the branch of the study, the stratified sampling was done and then according to the population of each group random sampling was conducted. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire designed by the researcher. The questionnaire comprised 40 items of close-ended and open-ended questions based on Likert spectrum. The data were processed and analyzed by SPSS. According to the study it was signified that the students of politics were more influenced by their course of study. The students of engineering, however, were more influenced by the political environment of their faculty. The relation between the city of the faculty and the political participation was not a meaningful one.The students’ motivation for political participation was different in the two groups. So, in the group of the students of politics, the major motivations were friends and family at first. Also, the political motivation made a major contribution to the political participation. In the group of students of engineering, however, friends and political environment were more influential than other motivations.