POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE
Year:2016 | Volume:12 | Issue:1 (23) |Papers Count:7

The aim of this research is to answer this basic question: How much have the political culture of university students (attitudes, beliefs and participatory behaviors) been influenced by the extent of their trust and membership in social associations (social capital)? The research method was survey with questionnaires and statistical population was all of Shiraz University students with 373 individuals as a sample. The important findings of this research are: 1. According to multivariate step- by -step regression test, trust and membership in voluntary associations and collaborative tendencies have had a 50 percent impact on the students' orientation to civic and democratic culture (attitudes and participatory behavior). 2. In bivariate test with Pearson correlation, the correlation between trust, collaborative tendencies and former membership in social associations and the political culture of students have been verified. 3. The research’s hypotheses related to control variables such as religion, educational course and educational grade have not been verified. In sum, the total finding of this research is that the students who enjoy a higher degree of social capital are more tended to civic and democratic culture than others and get distant from traditional political culture.

The review of developments in Iran before the Islamic Revolution shows that Pahlavi's so-called developmental and pseudo-modernist policies, instead of targeting people's social satisfaction and well-being, aimed at their forced political integration. This review by focusing on the theoretical framework of relative deprivation demonstrates the fact that the general orientation of Pahlavi regime's policies since the 1330s, which can be considered as "Founder's Trap", caused the relative deprivation, discontent and anger of the people, a necessary condition for revolution. Due to the mismatch between the state and society, modernist Islamic views of Imam Khomeini acted as sufficient conditions to create the groundwork for a political revolution. By utilizing qualitative method and descriptive-analytical approach, the article first tries to explain the discontent and frustration in society in terms of relative deprivation. It then tries to provide an analysis from the perspective of political sociology in connection with the origin and causes of this discontent during the second Pahlavi reign. Finally, it is shown that Imam Khomeini's modern views acted as catalyst in the occurrence of the Revolution.

Designing an Iranian-Islamic Model of Progress seems to be a very strategic initiative with many national, regional and international dimensions and requirements. This paper is an attempt to explore the requirements of this initiative in the realm of diplomacy and foreign policy in pre and post implementation phases. The paper argues that in designing and implementing this model it is vital to benefit from the positive and successful experiences of other nations while paying a special attention to the Iranian unique religious, cultural, geographical and national characteristics. The article, furthermore, argues that the final output of this model must have this capacity to be transferrable and appealing to the outside world particularly to the neighboring countries and Muslim world.

Power as one of the main concepts of international relation science has a history as old as civilized humanity. This significant concept has evolved in the aftermath of the Cold War under the impact of different factors, especially modern information technologies and social networks. One substantial development is the transformation of hard power to soft power. The worldwide changes in information has led to the transformation of the concept and arena of power. Therefore, the idea of soft power has been more important as a means and aim in the international arena. Moreover, the cultural and soft aspect of power has become the main issue of international relations.The main goal of this paper is to see how new information technology changed the concept and function of power. The findings show that there are reliable relations between the formation of new information technology and the evolution of the concept of power. With normalization and socialization of the concept of power, the geographical boundaries and the source of power have been affected.

The 2011 uprising in Egypt paved the way for the formation or growth of discourses in that country, each trying to giving prominence to itself and marginalizing their opponents, thus hegemonizing its own discourse system so that they could provide meaning for the opponents' floating  discourse signifiers within their own discourse framework and create a new identity. Among these discourses that could benefit from its hegemony, though temporarily, and imprint its name on the first official election in modern Egypt, was the "Islamic Democrat Discourse". The rise and fall of this discourse brings a question about the discourse logic and identifying signifiers, principles and indicators of Islamic Democrat Discourse in Egypt, and about those political parties and groups which represent it. One could deduce that the existing discourse conflicts and inability of each to establish itself and the absence of any groundwork for their expansion, including that of the authoritative Islamic, secular democrat, and authoritative secular discourses, can lead to a certain uproar in the society for a long time. This article's method is Laclau and Mouffe discourse analysis. The results show that those groups, like Ikhvan-al Moslemin, which were defined under the Islamic Democrat discourse and offered a new interpretation of political Islam, could rise to power in post-Mubarak era for some time, but their failure in providing identity for the floating signifiers in their discourse and the lack of this latter's comprehensiveness, resulted in their collapse.

The main objective of this research which is based on descriptive - analytical method and documentation is to demonstrate the impact of globalization on the new social movements and the role and impact of the Internet in this regard. The results show that the new social movements and globalization are interrelated so that most of the movements are orchestrated when associated with global problems. Meanwhile, the possibility of establishing this kind of exchange and raising awareness about global problems has largely increased through the second aspect of globalization, namely the spread of transnational communication . In this context, internet is also one of the main tools of information and communication technology that has helped to increase the new social movements' power. One of these movements is Occupy Wall Street that can be explained according to the structural changes in industrial capitalist societies having as one of its indicators the widespread use of the Internet and especially the virtual social networks that have contributed greatly to its internationalization.

Tolerance is considered a salient characteristic feature of the thoughts and teachings of Ikhwan-al Safa va Khellan-al Vafa(Brethren of Purity), a group of Islamic scholars and mystics who lived around a thousand years ago during the flourishing years of Islamic civilization. Ikhwan’s tolerance has been studied by various researchers but the roots of this attitude and Ikhvan's open teaching of toleration towards other beliefs and practices, which appeared several centuries before the western counterparts, have been more or less neglected. This study seeks to delve into the roots and sources of this prominent feature of Ikhwan’s thoughts. After explaining the main tenets of this lesser–known school of thought, we make an attempt to find out the main sources and underlying currents of thought that led to Ikhwan’s amazing ideas about. The method used in this research is descriptive and textual interpretation.