پژوهشنامه علوم سیاسی
سال یازدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 44، پاییز 1395)

Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilizations has widely attracted the attention of scholars as well as practitioners in politics. In this article, the reaction of the Iranian political factions and academics towards the theory is explored. As it contains specific views on the Islamic civilization, it has enthusiastically been discussed in Iran. Such views can clarify the attitudes of the Iranian political activists and academics towards the interaction with the West. Hence, the article’s main question is: what is the response of Iranian political groups to the theory of the clash of civilization? The study’s hypothesis is that the theory of the clash of civilizations has provoked different views of rival political discourses in Iran, as one took it to emphasize the continuation of confronting the West and the other arrive at the need for détente in relation with the West. The answer to the question is explored through the analysis of the views of activists relating to competing dominant political discourses as well as those of academics in Iran.

A fundamental problem facing the process of democratization is the lack of gender equality in political leadership and decision-making positions. Today, only 23.33 per cent of all national parliamentarians are women and 10 women are serving as Head of State and 9 as Head of Government worldwide. In Iran, 17 women were elected to be present in the 10th Islamic Consultative Assembly in 2016. If growth at this level is maintained, we can expect that Iranian women parliamentarians will achieve parity with men 60 years from now. Multiple factors have contributed towards this situation, including social structural and institutional barriers, but what is the role of political culture in this process? Do the attitudes towards women as parliamentarians play a significant role in hindering their empowerment? Hypothesis of this study are (a) traditional attitudes are a major barrier to the election of women to parliament; (b) culture continues to prove a significant influence on the proportion of women parliamentarians; and (c) cultural barriers have been fading among younger generation as a result of modernization. The data for this research are provided from parliamentary survey study and qualitative interviews with political activists regarding their cultural attitudes towards gender equality. The conclusion showed that although the alter of deep-rooted attitudes towards sex roles may facilitate the process of introduction of more women to the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the combination of cultural change in conjunction with institutional reforms will hold considerable promise that can accelerate the move towards a more optimistic scenario before next 60 years

What was the logic of political action of Imam Ali (A.S)? What conceptual frame would correctly assess the political action of Imam Ali as a political actor? It seems that we should cross from immanent religious reading to the historical-political reading on Imam Ali's methods of life. The importance of this transition and its results would be doubled under the political discourse of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, where we clearly see trying to achieve the model of politics in compliance with the logic of political action of Imam Ali (A.S). This transition can also be considered as a new aperture to link Islamic revolution studies and Shiism history studies.
In this research, we try taking advantage of an "agonistic pattern" - as a pattern that without ignoring fundamental conflicts in the political field, is going to design a system for achievement of political cohesion among conflicting forces that has been provided in "Ernesto Laclau" and "Chantal Mouffe" opinions. At first, we try to get out some principles for "political moderation" and then, match those principles with the political method of Imam Ali (A.S) - especially in events from the assassination of Othman to Jamal war. At the end, we try to present a model of political action of Imam Ali (A.S) that respond to the needs and matters of our days in politics.

Using marketing principles, concepts and tools in political activities and competitions is one of the exciting new functions of marketing. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of integrated political marketing communications in the context of social media on the selection of candidates in the tenth election of parliament. The population of this study includes voters of the tenth election of Parliament in the cities of Shiraz, Semnan and Ilam. Research methodology, in terms of purpose, is applied, and the method of data collection is descriptive. It is a co-relational study based on structural equations. According to the infinity of the population, 384 persons were selected for sampling. Sampling method is accidental. The data collection tool is a standard questionnaire. Making the questionnaire indigenous and investigating its validity, the researchers have used the views of the academic experts and for its reliability, combination reliability is used. To analyze the data structured equation, LISREL software is used. The results showed that integrated political marketing communications and social media have a positive and significant impact on the selection of candidates. Moreover, dimensions of integrated Political marketing communications (including political advertising, political sales promotion, political PR and direct political marketing) have a significant positive impact on candidate selection.

This paper has been written to investigate the opinion of contemporary Clergymen about the relationship of religion and state during the years 1961 to 1978. At this paper, using "Qualitative Content Analysis" method and the theory of "dialectic shift of form and content”, the hypothesis of "substitution of new content and form” in the religious and political structure of the Iranian society was investigated. The findings showed that in the old form, "conservative Islam" and " reformist Islam" have recognized separate identities for the politics and religion accepting the concepts of "sovereignty" and "king". Hence, the idea of "religion for religion" and "religion for politics" were two-generated contents on the idea of this group of Shiite Clergymen in Iran. In 1960’s, as the result of the intensive conflict between Islam and regime, frustration of the Iranian Intellectuals from rival ideologies (Marxism, nationalism and liberalism), the emergence of new capacities for the modern Islam in society and the hegemony of the revolutionary character of Imam Khomeini in seminary, a new link was created in the politics and religion and merged them. The result of this structural combination was the emergence of "political Islam" and a new content named “politics for religion".

This article tries to present an explanation of the relationship between public interests and ideology image from the perspective of imaginary approach. Theoretical framework of the imaginary proposed by Cornelius Castoriadis could be a useful base to explain complex social-political interactions which are irreducible to functional relations. The imaginary is basically an image which connects the object or outer perceptions of social life and the subject or inner conscious of citizens; in other words, social imaginary is a form of immediate knowledge of human society. At this article, we present an explanation of the imaginary institution of the society and an analysis of the concept of imaginary proposed by Cornelius Castoriadis to elaborate the charming and illusive nature of ideology. The imaginary, the fundation of collective knowledge, has two characters: creative and covert. The first is the origin of institution and the necessary condition of autonomy. The second is a pseudo-image which links social affairs to an outer source concealing the creative power of human in the society and the reality of social – political relations. This ultimately prioritizes the autonomy principle. As we explained, if public interests as the imaginary unify free citizens of a state respecting the ethic mode of the imaginary which guarantees the individual rights and freedoms providing national interests, ideology imaginary observes the false mode of the imaginary substituting the private or individual interest. Ideology is an illusive imaginary which represents reality by means of an inverted image of life wanting members of the society subordinate and knowing public resources as tools in the service of political purposes and for maintaining hegemony and domination. Therefore, according to Castoriadis, ideology is a set of ideas that relate to a reality not in order to shed light on it and to change it, but in order to veil it and to justify it in the imaginary, which permits people to say one thing and do another, to appear as other than they are.

Sermon 216 in Nahjulbalaghah greatly contributes in verifying the relation between the state and people according to Imam Ali’s political thought. Adopting descriptive approach along with the efficiency of discourse analysis method, this research provides a discourse format which is designed in six stages: finding and probing lexical meaning as well as finding the concept, category, axis and discourse. The output of this format is a pattern called, “The Discourse Hierarchy of Ruling Power Criticism” which is within the context of “True Discourse”. The conditions and conclusions of this discourse format, whether fulfilled or not in the society, are among the other outputs.