INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY STUDIES
Year:2020 | Volume:2 | Issue:2|Papers Count:12

The Emergence of China and other rising powers in international relations era on the one hand, and the US reluctance or impotence in resolving issues, especially after monetary and financial crises in 2007 to 2008, and also its attempts on maintaining the current order on the other side have led to some important questions on purposes of rising powers and plenty of ambiguities about the future of international order. Many theorists, especially Realism and Power Transition scholars, believe that the future of the world order will be distinguished by a war. In this way, the main question that this article seeks to reply is the way that China’ s economic growth and performance affect the international order transition, and also how this transition could be done peacefully despite Power Transition scholars’ belief that any transition will be done proceeded by a war. On this basis, the research hypothesis is how China’ s parallel institutionalization for making a chain of non-American economic value in a long term will make participant states change their political approaches, where the result of which will be peaceful transition, and besides, how China will be turned into a confirmed multidimensional superpower without being involved in a major war. Therefore, examples of Asian Bank of Infrastructure Investigation, New Development Bank of BRICS (NDB), Belt and Road Initiative the Regional Comprehensive Project for Economic Association (RCEP) will be considered.

One Belt One Road initiative is a plan which proposed by China in 2013, the largest investment plan that presented by a country and ultimately, covers three continents and about 70 countries, via road, railroad, and maritime. Because of the vast area it has covered on the one hand and its important effect on different aspects in Asia, Europe, and Africa on the other hand, numerous studies have been done in this regard to discuss the probable position for China in the future as the current second economic power in the world. This study main question is what would be the EU main achievements in this cooperation especially, during Donald J. Trump presidency. Nevertheless, in case of refusing or accepting it, the EU will face with internal and external obstacles and threats in this regard, which require bringing them to the account and finally, analyzing them. Based on this study’ s findings, the cooperation in this project could be an opportunity for the EU as a one of the main partners of China to play a stronger role in Asia, and supporting this union and its members’ benefit.

China and Japan are now introducing as the largest ASEAN trading partners. This article main question is how China and Japan's position in ASEAN's economic policy be assessed? The findings reveal the fact that Southeast Asia as a whole is not fully inclined towards any of the two countries, and for this reason, ASEAN countries have tried to diversify their trading partners in order to Prevent unilateral and excessive dependence; However, some of these countries inclined to China and some are keen on Japan. This is for the reason that China and Japan have a high dominancy in various areas of trade and investment among ASEAN countries, and these countries tend to balance the two powers in their interactions (Japan through technology, and China through consumer markets and economic volume). This article is a qualitative one, where it seeks to analyze China-Japan's position in ASEAN's economic policy as well as China-Japan's priorities among the countries in the region. Besides, the compilation method is a documentary one.

Gaddafi's dictatorial governorship in Libya was the one that was ousted in the wake of the revolutionary upheavals of the 2010s, with the mobilization of society and the participation of international institutions and forces. In explaining the collapse of this political regime, internal factors (backward political structure, suffocation and tyranny of the rulers, wave of democratization and new media) and external factors (role of international institutions and forces and major powers) have been raised. This research with a general Understanding has combined the government interaction and globalization processes into two internal and external factors. The results of this research show that globalization in its various economic, social and communicative dimensions has created an understanding and space for human rights discourse in Libya. As a result, society realized its depleted theoretical and normative rights and demanded the realization of its political, economic, and cultural rights. With the help of new media which turned into protests and revolution, the regimes’ brutal and repressive confrontation with citizens led to a civil war and human rights enforcement tools. A situation that brought coalition of international institutions together with Libyan society and ousted Gaddafi in order to realize the supreme values of freedom and the right to self-determination of the society.

In the political economy of terrorism, the methods of financing terrorist groups have become increasingly important. Using a comparative approach, this article seeks to answer the following questions: 1. What are the main sources of funding for ISIS and al-Qaeda? , 2. What are the similarities and differences between these terrorist groups in financing themselves? And 3. Finally, what are the reasons for these differentiations and similarities? Firstly, this article identified 14 sources of al-Qaeda and ISIS's revenue. Secondly, it showed that these terrorist groups had similarities in some areas, such as foreign financial support and hostage taking. Yet, in other cases, such as opium trafficking, antiques smuggling, oil and jewelry sales, b-ank robbery, their leaders’ personal wealth, charities and taxation some distinctions live. Thirdly, we identified that their main similarity was the variety of ways in which they financed. Fourthly, we argued that the reason for tendency of these groups' to diversify their financial resource was the reduction of foreign assistance to these groups and the necessity of seeking private micro resources. It also facilitated the circumvention of national and international bottlenecks. Ultimately, it showed that some of the differentiated aspects of their funding were due to their different contexts and environments, as well as their distinctive political structure.

The purpose of this study is to examine the political structure of Islamic State (ISIS) in the Middle East with a focus on the two countries (Iraq and Syria). The main question of Islamic State's (ISIS) structural research is to provide resources, costs and its impact on the economy of both Iraq and Syria. The research methodology is an applied one in terms of descriptive / analytical method and in terms of qualitative content. This study shows that the political economy and financial structure of ISIS is a combination of traditional and modern financial techniques with a false trade. This has been done from ISIS establishment until their collapse of Mosul and then Raqqa in 2017-2018 through three means: 1. Natural resource, 2. Resources derived from Illegal Criminal Acts, 3. Relied on the Financial Network of its Sponsors. From 2017 to January 2020, and meanwhile preparing the present report, ISIS has almost lost a major part of its Political, financial and economic structure. In response to the second part of the main research question which is upon the effects and consequences of ISIS terrorist structure on Iraq and Syria economic structure; this study shows that ISIS actions have disrupted the economic structure and destroyed the infrastructure of the two countries. The limitations of this study also focus on the implications and validity of its sources because the research documentation is primarily based on Western media data, journalists, indirect witness statements, and few official reports. In view of the importance of the research, it is necessary to understand the structure of ISIS political economy as an important factor in the survival of this terrorist organization and its weaknesses.

Theoretical discussions on development and modernization argue that with the advent of the "post-era" age, and although the look and expectation of development and modernization has undergone a fundamental transformation, some countries and institutions continue to adopt a one-line approach to progression. However, over the past few decades, and due to the postmodern epistemological and cultural shift from a trans-theoretical perspective, a paradigmatic situation has emerged that has been critically criticized by so many social science theories, including development theories, where they still exist in this alternative theories domain. This article answers this question by asking how has postmodern epistemic deconstruction affected developmental mindset? It has been hypothesized that, in terms of the meta-theoretical tendency of fragile construction, the subjectivity of development which is affected by modernity paradigm will collapse. The findings of this paper show that while the developmental mindset was in a modern assumption of a single history, text and culture, it has now replaced by the post-developmentalist with fluid narratives and the proliferation of theories. This article has a meta-theoretical critical approach and it is written in a descriptive-analytical way.

Generally Speaking, investment is the heart of economic growth and development. Financing investment, on the other hand, is one of the major economic challenges, and yet, this is a very crucial issue in developing countries. Investment is made in the form of domestic and foreign investment, and therefore foreign investment is affected by economic and political conditions. Therefore, in this study, the effect of democracy on direct foreign investment has been done among two selected groups of countries including those with high and those with low level of democracy from 2001 to 2015 using panel data method. The results showed that democracy has a significant and direct impact on FDI in countries with high and low democracy, while the effect of democracy on FDI in countries with low democracy is much greater than in countries with high democracy. Besides, fixed capital formation, economic growth rate, literacy rate, exchange rate, trade and government size have direct and significant effects on FDI in countries with low democracy. However, in countries with a high level of democracy, exchange rates and government size have a significant negative impact on foreign direct investment.

In the present article, the historical impact of militarization on Iran's economic growth from 1973 to 1979 is examined based on the memories of Pahlavi government agents and staffs. The main question is how the Second Pahlavi military spending affect Iran's economic growth in a negative way. According to the research hypothesis and during the second construction Programme, the military expenditures, which in addition to insufficient oil revenues from foreign grants has decreased, caused a small waste of the country's financial resources. Military spending has devastated financial resources during the three subsequent development Programme with the improved oil revenues and these spending has negatively affected Iran's economic growth. The results of this research which is written in an analytical and descriptive method and has used the first-hand sources – Pahlavi staffer memories – show that militarism influenced on two components of economy, investment in human and financial asset caused deviation on economic growth which reached significantly in the decades od 40 and 50 and had a negative effect on the economic growth.

The foreign policy of the interim government is a phase of changing Iran's foreign policy from unity with the West to non-compliance foreign policy. This period also has fundamental differences with the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic in the 1980s. Therefore, understanding the reasons and the factors that make it appear is crucial. This article uses the political economy approach to explain the formation of the interim government's foreign policy and to illustrate the causes and causes of this change. Political economy goes beyond existing approaches and emphasizes domestic and international elements and the dynamic interaction of economics, politics, and society with the formation of foreign policy in this period. This explanation is based on how social forces operate and their nature at this juncture, the dominant political ideology and structure, and the economic conditions and forces that shape the interaction and influence of international political economy in this period. The findings of the research show that the foreign policy formation of Iran Interim Government can be explained in terms of understanding the nature of the government consisting of political and ideological power construction, social forces and their relation to power and economic institutions.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the causal relationship between political and economic development in Iran in the two Rafsanjani and Khatami presidency period. To answer the main question of this article which is “ what is the causal relationship between economic and political development during Rafsanjani and Khatami presidency period in Iran, two sets of hypotheses arouse as the causal relationship between economic and political development. 1: The causality from economic development to Political development and 2: The causality of political development to economic development. In this study, Granger causality test is used to evaluate the ratio of economic and political development indicators in Iran and the software used in this study is EVIEWS. The variables representing economic development include 9 variables of GDP growth, global competitiveness, foreign investment attraction potential, economic freedom, economic corruption, economic risk, financial risk, export and import diversification and industrial competition in the period under review and political development variables include: Politics, foreign disputes, government stability, internal disputes, corruption, increased democratic accountability, ethnic tensions, increased rule and law, military interference in politics, religious tensions and the quality of bureaucracy. The data belong to the PRS (Political Risk Service) group. The results obtained from the descriptive and statistical analysis indicate that in the period under review in Iran, economic development provided the basis for political development but political development was not the cause of economic development.

The present study attempts to investigate the right to the city in Sadeghiyeh town. The theoretical framework for the research is based on Henry Lefebvre's views. Qualitative research methods and techniques are used for data collection, observation, interviewing and document review. The results show: 1: Urban spaces (educational and cultural space, green space, sports space, consumption space and transportation system) in the town are either absent or inadequate. Neighboring towns are also under siege and Sadeghieh residents are unable to use them, so they are deprived of the right to own the city, 2: Town residents are not involved in the construction of public spaces and community activities in the town, and community life, shared memories, and feelings of belonging to the town are not formed. So they have no right to participate, 3. The reasons for disrespecting the city are due to the migration of the villagers to the city in the 40s and 80s (the Persian year) and their exclusion in the daily life. Trends that tore the city apart make them financially disadvantaged groups that were unable to enjoy urban amenities, and on the other hand, such groups live in Sadeghieh Town were pushed to the edge of the city and denied the right to the city.