فصلنامه دولت پژوهی
پیاپی 9 (بهار 1396)

Iran’s revolution as a profound social change in which most part of population took part heavily changed the fundamental aspects of political order in the country and helped to set new institutions in power and state structures after revolution. These institutions were helpful in harnessing extreme domestic and foreign crisis that emerged soon after the revolution. Revolutionary elite in Iran in a rather short term between January 1979 and May 1981, succeeded in establishing new political order after revolution. The main claim of the article as its hypothesis is that “Iran revolutionary elite in three years after revolution (as critical juncture) in response to huge crises and necessities of building new order inclined to institution building from the bottom and as a result effective institutions for supporting new political regime and new political order were formed.The article studies making of some new governmental institutions and revolutionary organs and emergence of new political behavior in the first years after revolution and searches the causes of their successful functions in managing crisis and sustaining new emerged political order. The article uses historical institutionalism as its approach and historical-causal analysis as its methodology. The article shows that high capabilities of revolutionary system in managing crises originated from this mode of institution building.

The subject of this article is about the decision of Ban Ki-Moon, the former secretary general of the United Nations in relation to the threat of Saudi Arabia to stop all its financial support to the United Nations, if the secretary general does not remove Saudi-led Coalition from the annex I of his annual report (2016) to Security Council. In his report, the secretary general explained the fact of killing and disabling children, and military attacks to schools and hospitals in Yemen by coalition. My attempt is to evaluate the decision of the secretary general on this issue by using conceptual analysis and critical evaluation as a methodology, regarding a dilemma of the moral interference on the basis of deontological ethics. In fact the secretary general confronted a dilemma concerning two options in this regard: first removing coalition from the report and preventing Saudis to stop their support to the United Nations; second, avoidance of removing coalition and confronting execution of the threat of this country. He chose the first option.
Based upon deontological ethics, in my view, assessment of the decision of secretary general indicates that although he has committed immoral deed by removing the name of coalition from the report, nevertheless through preventing Saudi Arabia from executing its threat, his decision is in conformity with deontological ethics. Conversely, measures taken by Saudi Arabia and other member states of coalition using pressure and threat against the United Nations indicate immoral behavior, in addition to their individualist acts and disintegration of these countries regarding their international obligations as the members of the United Nations.

The perception and expression of state is the most important element in political thought. It is impossible to have a democratic system without a theoretical perception of state. Due to the fact that there are many different theories concerning state, the principal question of this research is as: within which of the theories of state does the state considered by the Islamic fundamentalists lie or to which of them is nearer? In this research, our assumption is that the theory of state from an Islamic fundamentalism point of view has more proximities to the theory of absolute state. In other words, in many features, the perception of the Islamic fundamentalists of state is near to the features of the theory of absolute state. In order to survey this subject matter, we have used a descriptive, analytical and comparative method. In this essay, the features of the Islamic fundamentalism approach to state have been surveyed with the help of the theory of absolute state based on such criteria as the kind of perception of authority, the bases of authority and its legitimacy, the expediency of state, the divine right of ruling, the base and realm of ownership, the concept and realm of the law and legislation and the goals of state and its realm. In the end, the relation of these findings and perceptions with the modern state has been studied, since the modern state has been the most important form of a democratic state.

ISIS could put into reality an idealistic and old-fashioned concept of Caliphate for the first time after the collapse of its last version, Ottoman caliphate. It also tried to turn the theory into an ideology by which the group was excepting to establish a state with the main aim of overcoming the dominancy of western civilization both over the region and the world. Based on this, the group tried to purpose a new approach toward political Islam idealism and Arab-Sunni fundamentalism in order to make it suitable for an effective fight with its enemy not as partisans but as a state. It shows that the study of the phenomena of ISIS not only as a practice in the range of real politics, but also as an ideological effort in the theoretical sphere is important and notable. There is a theoretical benefit in doing research on the way ISIS state (as an alternative for the westernized states) is formed. Based on this, this paper intended to study the concept of state in ISIS through the application of discourse methodology. After the explanation of the method, it focused on Salafi discourse as a source of ISIS ideology. Then the concept of power in this discourse is explained. Finally it showed how this concept is formulated and articulated within the framework of ISIS discourse to justify both its legitimacy and actions as a state actor.

The Gülen movement as a religious movement rose in the early 1970s and has enormous resources, millions of fans and thousands of educational institutions, culture and numerous media outlets in Turkey and worldwide. In recent decades elements such as democracy, tolerance, inter-religious dialogue and market economy have been included in the discourse of the Gülen movement. Different researchers’ emphasis on civil and modern elements of movement caused the ignoring of its undemocratic and deeply political layers. In the past decade, these features have created major challenges for the Turkish government and the coup in July 2016 has been one of the main examples.
The main question of this paper is whether the movement can be a democratic and non-political Islamic movement. The hypothesis is that statist understanding of Islam, and the government's lack of preference for the rights of the individual, elitist tendencies, extreme centralization of organization, hierarchical structure, top-down decisions and absolute obedience and lack of accountability of the movement against criticism reveal the repressive policy, the authoritarianism and undemocratic nature of this movement.

According to what has been observed in the history of different societies, the conflict between states and nations has always been one of the main problems societies have encountered whether they are developed or underdeveloped ones. The paper tries to study the effects of congruence of state and nation on economic development in the last years of the 20th century and the dawn of the new millennium. The present research is carried out on the basis of the comparative – longitudinal method in which secondary data obtained from 144 countries during the years between 1990 and 2004 have been analyzed. According to our results the congruence of state and nation has huge effects on economic development of societies directly and indirectly. Then in our research it was observed that in developed societies nation and state are more congruent than other societies in the world. Therefore it seems that among different patterns of relation between state and nation around the world the kind of relation that exists between state and nation in developed countries of Western Europe and North America is an interactive and mutual one. In these countries the state is responsible and accountable to the nation and in return the nation is obliged to associate and cooperate with the state. While in the underdeveloped countries of the world the kind of relation that exists between state and nation is a kind of conflict and struggle.