محبوبه روحی

Initially, it was believed that signing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) would bring a happy ending to one of the biggest challenges between Iran and the United States. However, with Trump's inauguration and his aggressive approach towards Iran, the JCPOA has not only failed to function as a tool to end the deep conflict between the two nations, but also became a victim of Trump's stance. There are many analyses as to what caused this behavior by Trump, but it seems that an understanding of the continuing relationships or spaces of the social structure, beyond material and immaterial analysis, can more appropriately and realistically explain his approach. Thus, the main question addressed herein is, “What factors caused the performance and construction of Trump's social world concerning the JCPOA? Assuming that the JCPOA will be reinstated in the Biden era, what scenarios await if Trump returns to power?” Based on descriptive and analytical methods, this study found that the idiosyncrasies of capital, character, and symbolic violence as three dimensions of Trump's decision-making field led to resistance to and, as a result, his withdrawal from the JCPOA. Due to their stability, the exit policies resulting from these dimensions will cause Trump to adopt the same behavior if he regains power in 2024, assuming the revival of the JCPOA during the Biden era.

Turkey's relations with Russia have been influenced by several factors throughout history. But since the AKP came to power, these relations have undergone major changes , Which cannot be imagined suddenly and without background. In the formation of this golden age of bilateral relations, Turkey's interest in the development of these friendly relations is undeniable . Among the various causes at the domestic, regional and international levels, the Two variables of decision-maker and structure seem to have played a major role in smoothing Turkey's efforts for this type of relationship . Therefore, the main question of this article, What has been the impact of the two variables of decision-maker and the structure in the Turkey's relations with Russia? The results of the study, by examining the objective manifestations of the effect of these two variables, indicate that these two factors have provided the ground for changing Turkey's attitude towards Russia from a maximally confrontational and hostile form to an interactive and friendly minimum.

Russian-Turkish relations from the time of the Empires to the last decade can best beinterpreted as a sinusoidal relationship swinging from cooperation to conflict. However,since Putin and Erdogan came to power, despite some challenges, the economicties between the two countries have grown tremendously. Some believe that this economiccooperation could provide the basis for achieving a strategic partnership at thepolitical level. Based on this assumption, the primary question of this paper to evaluatethe realistic assertion that “the economy does not extend to politics“ is whether theimprovement of the political-security relations between Turkey and Russia is affectedby the economic cooperation between the two countries. The findings of the researchusing the descriptive-analytical method show that, in accordance with realism, economicrelations have been an essential factor in closing two countries to each other,but these relations will never pave the way for improving the political ties. The reasonhas been the domination of strategic and political context over the economy. Despitethis privilege, realism is analytically weak because of ignoring some non-politicalfacilitating reasons for improving Turkish-Russian bilateral relations.

The relations between Russia and Turkey expanded considerably from the beginning of 21th century particularly after coming into power of Justice and Development Party (AKP). Taking into consideration the expansion of relations between the two, the present paper wants to answer this question whether the expansion of economic relations between Russia and Turkey between 2002 to 2014 have led to expansion of political relations between the two? This question is based on one of the main assumption of liberalism theory i.e. economic interdependence leads to political cooperation. The underlying hypothesis of the article which is examined by a descriptive analytical method is that between 2002 to 2014 the economic relations between Turkey and Russia has had a noticeable growth and parallel to that the political relations between the two expanded but political integration has received lesser impact from political cooperation. The political integration has been influenced from variables other than economy and trade. The examination of the above hypothesis shows that in analyzing the ties between the countries one cannot rely on one theoretical approach but a collection of different approaches should be used to analyze their relations.

It seems there are at least two principal schools in Turkish foreign policy namely Eurasianism and Europeanism. Each school has its cons and pros. The Europeanists adhere to Turkey’s integration to Europe while the Eurasianists adhere to Turkey’s closer ties with Eurasia. Few factors may be named as influencing Turkey’s foreign policy orientation in this regard, i.e., different Turkish governments` capacities, the dominant ideology in each government, the geographical and geopolitical factors as well as Europe’s policy towards Turkey specially with respect to its integration in Europe. In this paper we seek to examine Turkey’s key goals and interests in Eurasia by examining in particular its relations with Israel and Iran.