POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE
Year:2017 | Volume:13 | Issue:1 (25) |Papers Count:8

Preserving the social and political system of society is a matter that has long been the subject of attention among thinkers in various fields of the social sciences. Regardless of the attitude toward this issue, trying to maintain a social and even political system is a worthwhile practice, and disturbing public order and security and the society's livelihood is considered a disgrace. In Shi'a jurisprudence, this issue has been raised by Imamia jurisprudents under the guise of the "maintaining the system" and "prohibition of creating disorder ", and has been the base of issuing sentences and its implementation in various cases. Imam Khomeini is one of the most prominent contemporary jurisprudents who has paid great attention to the position of this Shiite jurisprudential principle, and has benefited greatly from the issuance of jurisprudential rulings and their implementation. This research seeks to answer the question of how the principle of preserving the system has had an effect on the issue of political jurisprudence in Imam Khomeini's mind. It is concluded that the principle of preserving the system in the thought of Imam Khomeini is based on the four axes of "preserving the very existence of Islam," "preserving the social system", "preserving the livelihood system" and "preserving the political system"; and the most important of his inventions as compared to his predecessors, is the conceptual extension of the principle of the necessity of maintaining the system and adding the pivotal dimension of preserving the political system to the scope of this principle.

One of the internal conflicts in contemporary Salafi discourse is over "apoliticism" or "politicization". Scientific (or the so-called Albanian) Salafi discourse is a contemporary sub-discourse that strongly prescribes apoliticism and claims that it has purified Wahabi Salafi discourse from those elements inconsistent with the Good Forefather, on the one hand, and it has played the role of a resistance center against the dominance of politicized Salafi discourse (Sahwa). Hence this sub-discourse, while defending a new Wahabism cleansed of Muslim Brotherhood's impact, simultaneously confronted Muslim Brotherhood, on the one hand, and traditional Wahabi institution, on the other. This article examines the scientific Salafi sub-discourse, its formation and emergence context, and its challenges vis-à-vis the traditional politicized Salafi hegemony. The research method and theory used has been the meaning constellation of Laclau & Mouffe's discourse analysis.

Regional integration, as a way for regional collaboration, reducing conflicts and achieving peace after the end of World War, was introduced in the political domain with the Coal and Steel Europe and has continued as a successful model for cooperation in other areas of the world. With the development of relations and increasing importance of cooperation, various theories have been proposed to explain the elements and principles of regional integration. Despite their successfulness in some areas, there still exist some significant challenges in the way of cooperation and regional integration in west Asia, to the extent that some consider this as an exceptional one. This study answers the question of how we can benefit from the theories of convergence in the geographical region of Iran and its neighbors and what model can explain this convergence so that we could design a tripartite model in the classification of Iran's relations with neighboring countries in the areas of communication, transaction and confrontation. It also tries to use the existing theories for both offering a model and defining the characteristics of each field, hence providing a local model for the convergence of Iran and its neighboring countries.

Most countries emerging after the collapse of Ottoman Empire, among them Syria, have faced weakness in the process of nation-state building, a fact that has caused their fragility in the last century. Meanwhile, the geopolitics of this country has brought it into focus for great regional and international powers. In Syria, despite the diversity of ethnic and religious entities and their co-existence and despite the activity of different parties and ideological trends, the political and cultural institutions remain weak and fragile, and national solidarity has not been built. The result of such weakness can be traced and seen in its ongoing civil war in the last five years. The civil war and the conflicts in this country which have coincided with the pursuit of the national interests of regional and international powers and forces demand a common right and will for political and social reforms in this country. Bashar's reform in 2011 failed in a short time due to sabotage of Baath party and collaboration of the army. Meanwhile, the violent repression of protesting people in Syria by the army, and the interventions of the foreign powers in the current evolutions of this country have caused instability and raised the old problem of weakness in nation-state building process, in a way that this problem itself is one of the great factors of continuation of the civil war.

Political education literature is an innovative domain in political and educational science which requires due attention in terms of its nature from different perspectives. Explaining the concept of political education, without any regard to the principles and fundamental methods of Islamic thought, may not lead us to the ultimate goal. Therefore, the article wants to explain the principles and objectives of political education methods with a religious perspective. The statistical sample was 321 citizens above 18 years of age in district 1 of Shiraz. In this study, respondents were asked about factors that had the greatest influence on their political education. The results showed that according to the collected data the most important factors which have the greatest impact from the viewpoint of respondents include: First, the media with Student's T test criteria 12.70, and then the individual traits with an average of 11.72.Then it comes the government (6.71), Islam (4.95), scientific centers (4.88). The social factor (0.70) and socio-economic factor (0.46) showed no impact on the political education.

Deconstruction is a strategy for demonstrating the contribution of philosophy to achieving the meaning of democracy in the postmodern world. It seeks to establish philosophical principles consistent with the principle of tolerating others and democracy in the post-democracy world. Meanwhile, Derrida's ideas in the field of socio-political democracy, such as future democracy and its oncoming challenges, are also rooted in his philosophy. Hence, democracy and deconstruction are the two sides of a coin, and one cannot be understood without the other. This connection is unbreakable and necessary and pivotal to Derrida's thinking about philosophy and politics. The breakthrough has come to suggest new horizons with the critique of modern systems including Western democracies that marginalized forces on the frontiers of democracy can actively participate in determining their own destinies. Contrary to positive methods, the underlying breach does not have a relative relation with the ultimate clarity of the Western society, and it is considered to be the fruits of the linear maturity of history. On the contrary, with the critique of metaphysical systems, it is a strategic breakthrough, so that the inertia of the universe becomes the instrument of successive negotiation. As far as the subject of this article is concerned, it attempts to define the Western metaphysical breakdown, then it shows how Derrida has benefited from this strategy in order to open up the political blockade of Western democratization with ongoing openings. The study of the link between deconstructive philosophy and democracy and how they interact with each other will be the cornerstone of this article.

At first analysis, “National Interest” seems to be an evident and unquestionable concept; hence, many international and foreign policy scholars have been interested in studying it. However, ambiguity in the nature and position of this concept can create some problems in designing and implementing the foreign policy of any political system including that of the I.R. of Iran. It seems there is no independent research that has emphasized the difficulty of defining national interest as the prime directive for I.R. of Iran's foreign policy. Hence, the question raised here could be: what are the major difficulties of clearly defining national interest in I.R. of Iran's foreign policy? To respond, one can say that a lack of national thinking, lack of elite groups' consensus on the definition and instances of the issue, and ambiguity in the relation between ideal and reality are some of those problems. This article is to rethink about the meaning of national interest as the prevalent concept in the justification of our foreign policy actions. In the framework of Ferdinand de Saussure's linguistic theory, this research would emphasize the problem of fixing the relation between “National Interest” concept (as the signifier), and its objects (as the signified). Discovering some important reasons for the indefinite meaning of national interest, and the necessity of a serious rethinking of it and purifying its meaning and delineating its instances in I.R. of Iran's foreign relation policies, could be regarded as some results of the article.