Iranian reconstruction of realism

Critical discourses of IR has always tried to replace realism with an alternative approach by bolding it’s weak points, but these theorizations have not been able to weaken realism role in explaining international affairs. Even it can be argued that critics have strengthened the basis and status in academic sphere. Nevertheless, the most important achievement of critics of realism is to turn light on this fact that realism and its assumption are social constructs. So realist assumptions could have different meanings in various cultures and societies. In other words, realism is not a unitary and universal theory. This article based on this claim tries to show that realism has a different construction in Iranian culture. The question of research is how realism is perceived in Iranian tradition. Based on Shahnameh and Golestan as the main sources of national cultural discourse, Authors argue that there is an Iranian concept of realism with the same assumption as main stream realism in IR. They claim that significance of power in Iranian tradition is a normative affair. And even the power itself is a social norm. There is also a sharp difference between realistic power and Iranian perception of power which is reflected in fundamental contrast between Pahlavan (hero) and Gahraman (champion, both using to point a different kind of power, the latter realistic and the first a praised power which is used to maintain social norms and values.