JOURNAL OF CENTRAL EURASIA STUDIES
Year:2010 | Volume:2 | Issue:5|Papers Count:10

This research seeks to study the impact of Pan - Turkist ideology on Central Asia. The collapse of the Soviet Union and independence of the Central Asian and Caucasian states once again revitalized hopes among the Pan - Turkist theoreticians and strategists who were hopeless about the implementation of their project of establishing a Turkic empire in the southern parts of the Soviet Union. Considering the Pan - Turkist ideals in Turkey's foreign policy and the 15-year long efforts by the country's politicians and intellectuals in promoting the Pan - Turkist project of alliance among Central Asian republics, this article addresses these efforts and their effects on Central Asia and finally regional countries' reaction to the Pan - Turkist ideals. The main hypothesis of the research includes that unlike original ideas, Pan - Turkism has not progressed so much in its political aspects, which made Turkish politicians hesitant about it. Nonetheless, Turkey is still hopeful that it would create an empire in economic and cultural areas in the future.

This paper deals with the importance of regionalism in Iran's foreign policy. Some of the existing outlooks view the characteristics of Iran's power structure and politics in such a way that make any security - political, economic and cultural coalition and cooperation difficult in the region. But the author holds that political, security and geopolitical changes in the Middle East region after the September 11th events have reinforced the place of regionalism in Iran's foreign policy. Indeed, Iran's strategic value and role in boosting regional factors are related to such factors as strong nation-state, geopolitical identity and dynamic Shii ideology. In this relation, the author defines two concepts of traditional regionalism and new regionalism in Iran's foreign policy orientations, each of them seeking to secure Iran's national interests and security with a different outlook. The author concludes that the Islamic Republic of Iran has to resolve political-security dilemmas with trans-regional powers including the United States by redefining elements of its national power at the regional level, establishing economic opportunities and sustainable development

This paper seeks to examine the current developments in the Middle East and particularly the challenges ahead of the region in attaining sustainable development in the near future. The elitist theory is adopted as the conceptual framework for the research, since in the absence of institutionalization, the attitudes and behavior of power-holders serve as valid guides for political change. Then the author addresses the place of the Middle East among the other developing regions of the world and studies the reasons why this region is exceptional due to its backwardness from the world dominant trends in the economic and political fields. The other parts of the paper deal with the political and economic challenges arising from the dominance of the rentier state in the region as well as problems resulting from women's insufficient participation in the region's development process. The author indicates that the post-September 11th events posed serious problems for U.S. dominance in the region, leading to the start of its role-playing in the region. This, in turn, would provide chances for Iran to play a more significant role in regional equations. The author concludes that the precondition to achieve sustainable development in the region includes democratization of all countries and acceptance of the free market economy.

The regional studies discipline (which considers regions as connecting links between nation - states to the grand level of the international system) studies conflict, war, crisis, cooperation and integration among the countries located in a region. To study the characteristics of the countries found in a region needs a model. The author suggests a pre-model for comparative study of regional constitutional law system. In this article model, ten items have to be examined about any country separately and then all of them should be studied comparatively. The items for examination include political regime and governmental system, the situation of separation of powers, limits and origin of the legislature's authority, limits and origin of the executive's authority, limits and origin of the judiciary's authority, party and electoral systems, basic individual rights, public civil liberties, governmental institutions, protection of constitution, method of revision in constitution and the general form of the political-legal system's structure.

Regionalism as a manifestation of international cooperation began in Europe after the Second World War, but this spread gradually to other geographical regions including the Latin America and Southeast Asia. The end of the Cold War and the bipolar system provided new opportunities and possibilities for the establishment, enhancement and expansion of new regionalism. New regionalism differs from old regionalism in some respects including agency, the motivation of the agency, as well as direction and scope of cooperation and integration. Since there is a close interrelationship between theory and practice especially with respect to the experience of European integration, this article seeks to explore changes in the theories of regionalism in a response to the change in the process of regionalism. Such changes have been manifested in the theorization on regional studies in a way that the presumptions of the existing regionalism theories have been revised and on the other hand new regionalism theories have been devised which are based on different meta-theory foundations. The author discusses such theories as neo - functionalism, neo-liberal institutionalism, neo-realism, constructivism, critical theory and globalism in order to reveal and explain the aforementioned changes.

The geopolitically important basin of the Mazandaran Sea found its new identity after the collapse of the Soviet Union as an active region with specific functions. The power vacuum arising from the collapse of the Soviet Union and presence of huge energy resources attracted the attention of trans-regional powers and flow of big investment companies to the region. Hence, most of the regional developments are affected by energy and questions related to oil and gas pipelines as well as policies concerning transporting them. The need of Caspian littoral states to world markets and imports and exports particularly exports of oil and gas on which the regional countries' economies depend and need to political stability which hinge on economic stability the strongest current is shaping an intra-regional pattern. Given the importance of energy transit from the Caspian Sea basin, this paper seeks to answer the question what role Iran can play in this respect. Iran's geographical location between the Caspian and the Persian Gulf will create an extraordinary possibility for constructing oil pipelines through Iran. The construction of oil and gas pipelines through Iran will bring about linkage and proximity between the oil-rich Central Asian and Caucasian republics and Iran. Oil pipelines possess such a power that can replace integration with divergence.

Iran is situated at the center of a regional subsystem including the Middle East, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Southwest Asia and the Persian Gulf basin. Iran's relations with each of these subsystems refer to a special ground that is rooted in the foundation of Iranian civilization. If relations with each of these regions are designed according to cultural, economic and political realities on the one hand and efforts are made at the formation of regional cooperation on the other, Iran will gain unrivaled power as a core connecting these subsystems. Obviously Iran's orientations in each of these regions might be in contradiction to the requirements of relationship with another region which needs an active diplomacy in order to remove. Such differences and paradoxes require the creation of an Iranian coordination center so that what happened to Bismarck's system could be avoided. At that time, conflict between Russian and Austrian interests caused the destruction of the Bismarck's first system. This article is comprised of two theoretical and case study parts which are adapted. First the grounds necessary for the formation of a subsystem are specified and then differences the structure of each of the aforementioned regions may unfold are discussed.

Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is one of the institutions that have been established to help identify and resolve the problems faced by the region. In order to celebrate the ECO day, a meeting was held at CEP., the Center for Graduate International Studies, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran as attended by Yahya Maroufi, ECO Secretary - General, Mr. Taherian, ECO Under – Secretary - General, Elaheh Koolaee, Director of the Central Eurasia Program (CEP), Ebrahim Mottaghi and Davoud Aghaei, professors at Tehran University. In this meeting, cooperation among nations particularly among the neighboring countries with common culture and religion was underlined and reasons for success and Challenges in the Organization were discussed.

Iran enjoys a unique geopolitical situation in the world. It is adjacent to the Middle East from west, the Persian Gulf basin from south, South Asia and the Indian Subcontinent from southeast and east, Central Asia and the Caucasus from northeast and north, and to enlarged European region through Turkey from northwest. It can be claimed that no other country in the world possesses such a geopolitical situation. Although such a situation provides the country with a set of opportunities, any wrong decision - making, apart from national and international realities, in choosing the focus of policies and foreign relations activities may turn it into a ground for crisis and continued failure for Iran. Recent developments in the past two decades at the national, regional and global levels and numerous and sometimes strategic problems in expanding its foreign relations on the one hand and increasing external threats to Iran prove the fact that geographical focus in the country's foreign relations needs a serious and extensive revision. This paper seeks to trace the roots of problems in Iran's external relations from the perspective of its geographical focus and to make suggestions for rectifying it. Considering political, economic and geopolitical changes in recent years on the regional and world scales, the author believes that change in the regional focus of Iran's foreign relations from the west (i.e. the Arab Middle East) to the east in both the Indian Subcontinent and Central Asia not only will help open the deadlocks in foreign policy, but also may bring about a higher, better status for Iran at the world level.