STUDIES THE STATE
Year:2021 | Volume:7 | Issue:26|Papers Count:6

Owing to their lasting and permanent effects, geopolitical factors play a significant role in the politics and behavior of state. Given Tajikistan’ s geopolitics, it is important to consider geopolitical factors and their effects in order to understand and predict policies and behavior of the state in Tajikistan. This is also of special importance due the proximity of Tajikistan to the Islamic Republic of Iran as well as myriad commonalities between the two. Adopting a descriptive– analytical method and relying on library research, the present study aims to analyze the politics and behavior of the state in Tajikistan by investigating the effects of Tajikistan’ s geopolitics on the state. The hypothesis is that the geopolitical characteristics of Tajikistan are factors causing tension for the country and creating, directly or indirectly, threats, instability, and insecurity which all affect the politics and behavior of the state in Tajikistan. This has led to the state’ s authoritarianism and centralism in the domestic arena and its dominated, submissive character in the foreign arena.

How the government is formed is one of the important themes about the phenomenon of government. Yet more important is the issue of the dissolution of government. This paper studies the dissolution of government from the viewpoint of John Locke as one of the greatest political philosophers in the modern world. The main research questions are, what are the foundations in Locke’ s political theology that can explain the dissolution of government? and what conditions should be met in order to concede the possibility of the dissolution of government or confer on citizens the right to it? Locke believes that in the state of nature, human beings have rights as well as the ability to govern themselves. Human beings enter the political society with some rights, the most important of which is the right to judge the performance of rulers. Moreover, they have the right to dismiss or even penalize rulers whenever they do not fulfil their obligations, and if rulers go against the popular will, people can resort to force and revolution. For Locke, revolution is not the worst thing in politics but in the despotic politics. In Locke’ s viewpoint, revolution is necessary to ensure rulers’ adherence to their obligations. More importantly, revolution is both the foundation of freedom and the greatest manifestation of humans’ self-government.

Khawaja Nasir and his contemporary, Thomas Aquinas, are two prominent philosophers and theologians belonging to Abrahamic religions (Islam and Christianity). Considered as rationalistic and proactive, both scholars discussed religion and state in their works. The question arises as to whether they view the formation and administration of state as an exclusively religious– divine issue or a natural one related to the civil nature of mankind. Using a descriptive– analytical method, this paper tries to analyze Khawaja Nasir’ s and Aquinas’ viewpoints in order to answer the above question. The data shows that both Aquinas and Khawaja Nasir consider the legitimacy of state as a matter of nature conditional on justice and wisdom regardless of whether state is divine or conventional. For Khawaja Nasir, the administration of Utopia is not limited to the prophets and imams— who are distinguished by divine inspiration— but the scholars who are distinguished by the power of reason are also entitled to the administration of Utopia. According to Thomas Aquinas, any government that acts justly and rationally is in the public interest and in line with human nature, so it must be obeyed.

From an institutionalist point of view, political development is essentially defined as the process of institutionalization of political power within the state institution, an important criterion of which is the institutionalization of political power acquisition. This paper studies the evolution of political development in the Islamic Republic of Iran with respect to the institutionalization process of political power acquisition, aiming to identify the difficulties inherent in this dimension of political development in Iran. The content analysis of the data collected through a documentary method shows that there are two major difficulties in the institutionalization process of political power acquisition in the Islamic Republic of Iran. One of the difficulties is linked to the continuing dispute over the ‘ identity’ of those who lay claim to power, which involves debates over the identity of natural and legal persons, including political and quasi-political groups. The second difficulty is related to the dispute over the ‘ process’ of political power acquisition, including analyzing eligibility, monitoring, and voting. Despite many obstacles to access various and valid documents containing valuable data about these difficulties, the findings of the study can provide powerful impetus for collecting more data and conducting thorough research in future. They can also offer different perspectives for finding more effective ways to cope with the difficulties and face the obstacles inherent in the institutionalization of the process of political power acquisition.

Research on the ineffectiveness of political parties in Iran is mainly focused on historical, cultural, social, and economic factors. However, there is a little research based on the institutional perspective in this field, leading to negligence of state party politics. Following an institutional perspective, this paper examines party politics of the political system and its impact on the ineffectiveness of political parties in Iran. Political systems adopt their own party politics in line with different approaches, hence exerting different effects on the life of political parties. Therefore, the present study compares the approaches of party politics adopted by Islamic Republic of Iran with those adopted by Federal Republic of Germany, as the pioneer in party policy-making in the world. The central questions are, what are the differences between the party politics in Iran and in Germany? and how do these differences influence the life of political parties in Iran? According to the results, the approach in Iran’ s state party politics is controlling and restrictive. This feature, assuming other conditions are good, has made it difficult for political parties to form, grow, and operate effectively and thus their ineffectiveness. Finally, some suggestions are proposed for favorable party policy-making in Iran.

Most critical discourses against the status quo in the Qajar period attacked the authoritarian regime and called for the transition from despotism to the rule of law. Eventually, the constitution became the main demand of critics, and the constitutional decree was issued. However, at the stage of drafting the constitutional amendment, constitutionalism faced a major challenge after being considered by clerical constitutionalists to be contrary to Sharia (Islamic law). Consequently, Habl al-Matin, which had been promoting constitutionalism with explanations based on customary law (orf) for some years, changed its position and promoted constitutionalism based on the idea of separating Sharia from custom (orf). Adopting a descriptive– explanatory method, this study examines the bases and purposes underlying Habl al-Matin’ s attempt to explain and promote the idea. The findings show that after the constitution being considered contrary to Sharia, the journal organized its customary explanation of constitutionalism around the jurisprudential permission of the Islamic scholars of Najaf on the necessity of the separation of Sharia from custom during the Occultation, and as a way of linking the idea of the modern state with Sharia.