Sociology of Globalization: Contributions to Development Planning in Iran

This article examines the implications of globalization for development planning in Iran، and tries to give suggestions to the policy-makers with the aim of establishing constructive interactions with globalization in the context of Iran''s development plans. Needless to mention، such development plans، as national documents، are influenced by ideas of policy makers. To these ends، the article first، briefly، explains three sociological theories of globalization which cover the economic، political and cultural driving forces of globalization. The article critically reviews the basic assumption of these three theories of globalization، their main reasoning and conclusions in order to provide a new analytical framework for analysis of globalization and its implications for social planning in developing countries in cultural، economic and political areas. Later، the article tries to study how to apply the findings in the context of Iran''s five-year development plans. It surveys Iran''s development plans'' major goals and policies regarding globalization and argues that the plans have not employed a sociological approach to examine the effects of globalization. The paper concludes that the sociology of globalization leads us to some important contributions to the Iran''s development planning. One of such contributions holds that the development planning should initiate a cultural dialogue and a political interaction with the globalizing world to fulfill the required preconditions for using economic، scientific and technological advantages of current globalization. The recognition of the global development experiences and their fair critique assume a key role in accomplishing such preconditions.