Iranian Journal of Sociology
Year:2013 | Volume:14 | Issue:1 |Papers Count:8

The main question which this paper has dealt with is: What the role of oil revenue is in political development? Using the theories on the rentier state such as those of Luciani, Lane, and the like, the research has compiled several hypotheses on the basis of these theories. The main hypothesis of this paper is that "Oil revenue plays an important role in the political development of countries with rentier states." This hypothesis was broken down into some sub-hypotheses which explain the mechanism of the relationship between oil revenue and political development. These hypotheses were tested by the comparative method. Political development is defined by seven indices, and countries of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Malaysia were chosen to be studied. The political development indices of these counties were compared with one another, in a specific period of time. The results of the research showed that Saudi Arabia which has the greatest oil revenue has the lowest level of political development. Iran has a slightly better place than Saudi Arabia in this ranking. But Turkey and Malaysia which hardly have any considerable oil revenues are more politically developed than the rentier states of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

On the verge of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran, the three social forces existing in the socio-political arena were competing with each other and at the same time, struggling with the Monarchy to increase their share of power: independent intellectuals, traditional followers of religion, and merchants. This rivalry set the scene for a discursive battle in which, each social force was trying to load nodal points such as the nation, king, and monarchy with contents that were compatible with other features of their discourse to push forward its hegemonic project. Finally, these forces formed a temporary coalition against Monarchy in Tobacco movement that sets the scene for appearing the nation in which intellectuals were dominant in discursive struggle. In this paper, we describe and compare different contents loaded by these forces on nodal points and the social context conductive to their conflicts and struggles and their temporary coalition and emphasis on discursive hegemonic of intellectuals based on discursive approach, and specially through the theory of producing the culture, as put forward by Robert Wuthnow.

This research is an attempt to study the causes of change in values of the family in the city of Bukan. It also seeks to determine the social factors that might have impacted these values. The research is of survey-method using the questionnaire technique. The unit of analysis is the individual and the level of analysis is micro. The statistical population consists of all family members of 15-year age and older in Bukan. The sample size is 394 persons and sampling method is multistage cluster sampling. The assessment tool was a questionnaire containing 67 questions. The results show that among other independent variables, internal capital has the most influence on the values of the family especially modem values, being significant on the level of 0.01; that is with increase of internal capital of the family, the modern values of family will increase and traditional values will decline. Among other variables affecting modem values, an orientation toward universalism has a significant and positive effect on family values at 0.01 level. The impact of external capital on modern values of the families is also positive and significant. The results of the research denote that there is no any relationship between socio- economic status of family and its values. These results also show that traditional values of family still exert a powerful influence over the family and that modern values are also forming step by step and gradually in the family.

This essay is on the Iranian graffiti writers. Recent years have seen conflicts among the police, the city council and the graffiti writers, who through their artworks have turned the city walls into a disputed subject. This situation has caused graffiti writers to post their artworks on isolated walls and to photograph them in order to be put on the internet and the social networks. In fact, the inability of graffiti writers to act freely versus the authority of urban policy officials has created a different chance in the virtual space. Here, through the method of depth interview, we interviewed a number of active graffiti writers of Tehran as well as some of the administrators of the Tehran city council. The data analysis is that of open coding and thematic analysis method. The results revealed that the Iranian graffiti exhibits a kind of resistance against official structures and legal possession of the urban spheres. The resistance through graffiti expresses new identities embedded in the urban life. For the graffiti writers of the Tehran the most striking aspect of resistance refers to presence on the streets.

Social order in social relations forms the basis of collective life. Disturbance in social relations can cause social disorder. The statement on theoretical framework in this research is that the erosion of social capital, that which is being called here Weak Intergroup objective and subjective relations in society, can result in disorder or law evasion. So this article explains the effect of erosion of social capital on law-evasion. In this research theories of Putnam and fukuyama are used for the analysis of social capital erosion. The method is that of the survey research. The statistical population of this study consists of all women and men of over 24 years of age in Tehran. The data was collected by the questionnaire from a sample of size 400 persons in Tehran. The method of sampling is that of multi-stage sampling. After data collection, research hypotheses were examined at two inferential and descriptive levels by Amos and SPSS package. Law evasion is divided in two dimensions: objective law-evasion (behavior) and subjective law-evasion (orientation). In contextual variables, meaningful relationship is seen among gender, marriage status, and type of job, age, education, economic position, with two dimensions of law- evasion. Basic variables in this research with their total effect on dependent variable consist of societal conception of individualism (%17), extreme individualism (%.32), civil distrust (%.15), generalized distrust (0.0109), weak formal relation (%.03) and informal relation (%.24). Generally, these independent variables explain %25 of the dependent variable variance (objective law-evasion).Whereas these variables (except informal relations) explain %40 of subjective law-evasion variance. The results show that social capital erosion has more effect on subjective law-evasion (orientation) than on objective law-evasion (behavior). Hence supporting intergroup social capital in society can revive law orientations and thereof obedience of the law in society.

The main goal of this study is to investigate the effect of the Internet and satellite on social behavior of the youth in Isfahan city. This research considers three different aspects of youth's social behavior: their behavior in the family, towards friends and in the society (social participation). The population of the survey consists of youth aged 15 to 29 in Isfahan. The sample size is 400 respondents who were randomly chosen through cluster sampling method from different districts of the city. Findings indicate that using the Internet and satellite have no effect on the behavior of youth in the family. However, they have positive relationship with behavior of respondents with their friends. The results show that the effect of using new media on social participation is different for the internet and satellite. Internet use, in particular types as using sites have positive association with youths' participation in NGOs, their voluntary activities and political participation, while satellite use has negative impact on political participation of the youth.