JOURNAL OF POLITICAL STUDIES
Year:2011 | Volume:3 | Issue:12|Papers Count:8

Politics and political subject in opinion of scholars and many political scientists have somehow undergone transmutation and departure from its old and classical definition and function. It has lost its true place and function as a mean of providing happiness and political order for humanity.Arendt argues that the economic interest of citizens has replaced the classical notion of political objectives and this replacement has been the source of much human hardship in our time. This article is a comparative study of Aristotle’s political thought as a classical philosopher and Arnedt as a contemporary thinker on the meaning of what political objective ought to be. It is an attempt to have a comparison of their approach for a better understanding of what the subject of politics should be in our contemporary world.

Voluntary and creative participation by the various urban and rural citizens in the planning, and organizational activities at the local, regional or national level is the signs of a democratically run civil society. Cooperative participation among the people constituting a society is a prerequisite for a sustainable societal development at all levels of social activity. The main objective in this paper is to find out the grounds and opportunities that women like any other social, economic and political groups in this country could provide women for more presence and participation in decision making process concerning public interest and societal development.

Philosophy has gone through fundamental cyclic changes and metamorphosis during the recent decades. One of the metamorphoses is the manifestation of post - structuralism. In this paper, realism and objectivism are introduced as ways of getting out of noncritical deadlock in the post structural philosophy. Critical realism approach of Putnam and Bhasker is investigated in the first stage of this research, then it is tried to defend social objective by applying the principles of critical realism extracted from the philosophy of natural sciences. Acceptance of experimental and applied outcome of a scientific theory has been interpreted mainly in two ways. Realists believe that there is a phenomenological belief based on the existence of external universe and theoretical conformity behind any experimental sufficiency of any theory. Anti-realists, in contrast, argue that experimental c criteria are the only necessary condition for examining the validity of theory. This article confirms critical realism approach to be a better model of explaining the social identities and political philosophy. Thus, believing in social objectivity, political philosophy is better equipped to provide political critic and defend political ideals.

Argument concerning the meaning of power is one of the most controversial issues in the thought of thinkers such as Michel Foucault. Foucault and his like-mined thinkers, with their departure from conventionally held opinion about power, believe that power does not reside only in the formal structures of politics but it is also in the whole fabric of society. Foucault himself points out that he intends to suggest a shorter way that would make us better understand the meaning of, as he puts it, “new economic of power relations”. His suggested method is more experimental, having closer relation with our current situation and guaranteeing the connection between theory and practice. In this article, it is tried to investigate the origin of Foucault’s thoughts as one of the influential thinkers of 20th century, and then analyze the concept of power and its relation to liberty and knowledge as expressed by Foucault.

The aim in this research is to learn about the relationship between the social capital and the feeling of security. Social trust, social participation and social relations are taken as the indicators of social capital. Field survey is the methodology employed and data were collected through the researcher made questionnaire. Statistical population is the whole student body of Islamic Azad university-Tabriz branch in 2010. A sample of 379 students was drawn from statistical population. The main finding is that the variables of social trust, social participation and the social relations have positive and linear relations with the feeling of security. Multivariate regression, by the method of step by step, showed that variables of social trust, social participation and social relations have as the indicators of social capital consecutively the highest and the lowest relations consecutively with the feeling of security.

In the recent decades, political literature has had its own ups and downs phases. Due to these developments, we have witnessed the flourishing of new terms understanding of which requires the knowledge of anthropology, terminology and epistemology. One of these terms that has had much use in the realm of international relations is “soft power”. Although soft power, from the point of pragmatism, has a long history, however academically and conceptually it is a new phenomenon. In the realm of international relations and international community, nations have used various forms of power to achieve their goals. Even though hard power was the first mean used by nations to achieve their goals, however, by the passage of time, due to its heavy cost, casualties, unclear outcome and declining popularity and legitimacy, soft power is gradually becoming preferably the first means employed by nations to pursue their goals in the international community. Soft power is a multidimensional and complicated matter which suffers from its own plastic and junction nature. These features make soft power a time consuming job which requires new ways and means. Soft power involves channels such as media, press, and internet, war of information and psychological warfare which each of them has its own complexity. Due to these complexities, after trying to present a critical analysis of soft power with respect to various speculative dimensions such as terminology and epistemology, then arguments on psychological warfare are presented.

By the turn of the this century, globalization can be counted on as the most used concepts among thinkers in most fields of sciences in general and humanities in particular. This concept has had wider application in the economic sphere and has become a viable trend. Process of globalization has had its effect on various dimensions of living style. One of the fields of activity being affected by globalization is the nations’ planning system of economic development. This research examines the influence of economical aspect of globalization on codification of economical, social, cultural development of Iran during the period of 1989-2011. In this research concepts, indicators, dimensions, and the opinion of experts on the globalization and its effect on economic development planning is presented. Then arguments about policies, objectives and some of the acts of four plans for development after revolution which are thought to be affected by the globalization process are presented.

Terrorism, either domestic or international, has become a wide spread phenomenon throughout world and is now viewed as one of the complex problems facing the world at the turn of this century. Various political and social conditions are believed to be fomenting terrorism and terrorist groups. Basically, terrorism is the illegal application of violence or threat against others or property with the political or social motives. Hostage taking, kidnapping, political killing, terrorizing, high jacking, sabotage, shooting at the people, social, cultural, political or scientific institutions are ways and methods used by terrorists to achieve their ends. The main objective of terrorists is to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation or forcing governments, people or particular groups to change their present stand and behavior. Hence, the main objective of this paper is to present an in-depth analytical review of this phenomenon called terrorism.