JOURNAL OF POLITICAL STUDIES
Year:2010 | Volume:2 | Issue:6|Papers Count:8

The purpose of this article is to explain the relationship between Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity through ontological and philosophical point of view. It seems in the first look that they are contradictory but it is really not so, because both use the discourse method to prove their viewpoint. Modernity has negated the traditionalists and it’s related customs to proof itself and Islamic Fundamentalism has negated tyranny and colonialism. Both apply science and knowledge to expand their influence in all over the world. Both are accepting the Shariah and disregard Tarighat and essence of the religion.

Undoubtedly, ideology is one of the influential elements on foreign policy of the two countries of Islamic Republic of Iran and China. While Marxism ideology enjoys the economic nature and does not have any belief in religious and metaphysical issues, the ideology of Islamic Republic of Iran, owing to its roots in national and religious culture, enjoys metaphysical and religious aspects. Hence, Iran seeks its national interests in Islamic-Shiite framework rather than its national capacity. Therefore, seeking its national interests, in its classic and realistic sense, has been troublesome. On the other hand, Marxism ideology not only did not benefited from a stance in the old and ancient culture of People Republic of China but also it has been in contrast with many ancient cultural and national elements of this country while Islamic ideology of Iran, is deep rooted in the context of national culture and particularly religious one, Hence possesses the aspects of beliefs and faith in it. Therefore, putting it aside or adjusting it compared with China is a very difficult task. However, enjoying military, political, economical as well as the bipolarity of international system and its readiness, China was able to make use of ideology for identity constructing while Islamic Republic of Iran did not enjoy these capacities and situations for utilizing the ideology.

An intellectual is a thinker who is creative and critical, his curiosity revolves mainly around following points: 1) creating ultimate and final values (like truth, justice, etc); 2) distributing knowledge, propagating beliefs, establishing new ideologies and criticizing current situation; 3) being influential in the development and advancement of nations and countries. Throughout history, intellectuals have always played a major role in progress and developments of countries and nations and it can be asserted that they are of necessities for development and growth of a society; in fact they are the live spirit of the society.Investigating the role of Iranian intellectuals before and after the Islamic Revolution, this article attempts to examine their roles and functions from political psychology, functional psychology and sociology of power, as well as relationship between intellectuals with that of development and identity.

Investigating America’s military strategies, during the cold war and its aftermath up to September eleventh shows, that the foundation of America’s military strategies has been on deterrence.However, studying United States military approach and the statements of its senior officials after September the eleventh, it becomes clear that military strategies of this country have been changed. Before this incident, United States, feeling commitment towards the security of its ally countries in Western Europe, Eastern Asia and Pacific area, intended to establish military stations in particular places around the center of its main foe and ideological rival, Russia.But, as a result of neoconservatives power gaining and the incident of the 11th September terrorist attack, America experienced new threats (such as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and evil government) and statesmen criticized all previous strategies and emphasized that deterrence strategy has been inefficient towards the new threats facing America. Hence they began defining a new strategy encountering the threats ahead. Therefore, this article attempts to investigate the deterrence and its influences on military strategies after the events of September 11th, 2001.

Security studies of structural theory in international relationships have commenced its task of criticizing the rationalist interpretation of neorealist and neoliberals. The main theme in structural theorists` discussions is that players` decisions and stances are based on their interpretations resulted from interaction with others and prior to beginning interactions, they conceive no identity and interests. According to Nicholas Avnf, the world ahead is the world that we make, not the one with fixed rules and regulations; we are those who interpret and manage the world. Due to the advent and development of network and post-industrial society as well as considering the emphasis laid on the central role of viewpoints, the structure of reality between minds and the outstanding rank of identity, structural analysis of the concept of security has succeeded in adjusting the mechanical neorealist view point and bringing forth a qualitative analysis of the concept of security.

Justice has been considered as one of the most important concept in western political philosophy; however this concept has undergone special semantic changes in its historical process; particularly in 20th century. The reason for this change is that like the other sociological concepts and terms, justice has been under the influence of two variables of time and place. In fact, it can be asserted that the intellectual guidelines for justice have been changed in 20th century since in this century profound changes occurred in field of knowledge, culture, economic, and politics and crisis in liberalism, capitalism, technology and many in the same vein are what this century confronted with.These changes led to a sort of meaning formation as well as development of new theories in justice; namely Rawls Conventionalism, Nozick libertarianism, Dworkin equality, post modernist view of illusion, and Hayek spontaneous condition. These theories put emphasis on concepts and principles like necessity of equilibrium between liberty and justice, farewell to government-oriented justice, decline of systematic view towards justice, and also highlight the general field of justice or social democracy. This article tends to analyze this noteworthy concept.

This article begins with different definitions of geopolitics and formation of new categories of geopolitics and its developments. It tends to focus on Heartland as an idea-based geopolitics, and give a through definition of it.Considering the location and position of Middle East in the period of the second half of the 20th century, this article discusses the displacement and local tendency of Heartland towards Middle East. To do so, the manifestation of political, economical, and military considerations in some organizations, unions and focused or finished treaties on Middle East will be stated.Heartland tendency towards the Southeast direction through finding new geopolitical position in East and Southeast of Asia, settings and parameters for achieving this position, which happens with the turn of century, are the other issues this article intends to investigate. Finally, the role of Oceania as the natural tail of Southeast Asia, placement of Oceania and Southeast Asia in the same region known as Pacific are dealt with, moreover, this region is considered as the 20th century Heartland.

Utopia is one of the concepts that for years was of interest to the thinkers and philosophers such as Plato, Augustine, Thomas More, Thomas J. Campanula and Marx in Western culture. This concept was also of interest to the Islamic and Iranian philosophers like al-Farabi, Khajeh Nasir Tusi and Ibn Khaldun, Shahab Al–Din Suhrawardi. In this paper, it has been tried to compare the reflection of western, Islamic and Iranian philosophers on the concept of utopia.