فهرست مطالب کاووس سیدامامی

Political legitimacy is the sine qua non of governing in the contemporary world. In the absence of legitimacy, brute force alone will be the sole means of sustaining a government. Given the large size of the youth in the population structure of Iran, measuring legitimacy in the attitudes of the members of the third generation of the Revolution gains particular importance. In this study, based on a secondary analysis of the data collected in four national surveys, we attempted to measure the changes in youth attitudes towards legitimacy of the political system. Items in the instruments of the surveys that measured legitimacy were drawn out and made commensurable before being used to illustrate the trend that existed from 2001 to 2011. To better tap all aspects of the concept "legitimacy," we divided it into its two essential components, namely "legality" and "justifiability," and then drew upon items that represented these categories in the surveys on four different times during the study period. In this vein, the changes in youth attitudes toward legitimacy of the political system were identified. Study results indicate that in the first half of the period under study, a rising trend is observed. However, in he second half of the period, perceptions of legitimacy seem to show a decreasing trend. At the end, the more salient factors responsible for the drop in legitimacy are identified.

Poverty with its far-reaching ramifications for the society is a fundamental social problem, especially in the developing countries. In response to the question that who is responsible for eradicating poverty, ‘the government’ is the first answer that comes to mind. Yet, state institutions in most developing countries are too weak and inefficient to properly address the issue of poverty and, hence, we are witnessing a growing rift between the rich and the poor in these countries. In this article, the authors examine the possibilities for poverty eradication through traditional institutions capable of such task and argue that, in the context of Islamic societies, the principle of takaful (in-group mutual aid) and the institutions to which it applies could positively be used to combat various forms of poverty. These traditional institutions all go beyond the customary people-government dichotomy and actually predate the state. Drawing from the holy Qur’an and Itra, we come to realize that institutions of takaful, including the family, kinship, circles of friendship, and the community of co-religionists, that function as supportive-protective layers around individuals, could effectively serve to achieve a society devoid of the scourge of poverty. Instead of pursuing development policies that rely primarily on the welfare capacities of the state and other solutions that basically seek to empower individuals, we could invest in the traditional institutions to which people naturally belong and from which they customarily derive support and protection in times of need and hardship.

Political trust is said to be an important subject in political studies especially in political participation context. Evolution of this subject particularly among the youth¡ shows us an actual picture of political system’s success and continuance of ruler ship. In order to analyze the level of political trust in the third post-revolution generation view¡ we examined the available data about the attitude evolution in this population group. Using surveys took place in 2000s and extracting useful questionnaires n analyze the level of political legitimacy¡ we conducted this research. Then through resembling the units of measurements¡ we tried to define the third generation attitude evolution during the 2000s. Accordingly¡ after reviewing the previous researches¡ the concept of political legitimacy was divided into two subject of “Trust in political bodies and decision-making procedures in political system” and “Trust in political players”. Reference questionnaires of which¡ was extracted separately from each of four survey duration. As a result¡ the trend attitude evolution obeyed in 2000s in political legitimacy presented. In this research by means of a secondary data analysis method¡ we used data derived from nation-wide surveys. Results show that trust in political system from the beginning to mid-2000s obeys a declining manner. The general level of political trust is low¡ too.

Ethnic diversity is a universal phenomenon. Each country designs policy for managing ethnic diversity on the basis of its objectives and approaches on the one hand, and the particular mode of ethnic diversity in that country on the other hand. Islamic Republic of Iran, as a country with a long-standing ethnic diversity, has tried to manage this diversity on the basis of the country's particular view of ethnic diversity and its unique mode of ethnic composition. While reviewing and critiquing some approaches to ethnic management, the authors have attempted to extract visions and objectives of handling ethnic issues in Iran and to propose policies for managing ethnic diversity based on the Islamic Republic of Iran's opportunity-based approach to ethnic diversity and the directives of the leaders of the revolution and the Constitutional and other legal documents of the Republic. The methodology used in this paper is a combination of existing data and document study research, elite panels, expert interviews along with drawing on the author's experiences.

There are limited empirical studies on the reasons for and causes of Iranian voter's participation in the elections, on the why and how of fluctuations in turnout, and on the impact of individual and social variables on voting behavior. The Eleventh Presidential Elections in Iran and the surprise victory of Mr. Rouhani prompted us to undertake a study to contribute to the existing research and to a better understanding of the voter's reasons and criteria for voting. Our main objective in this study was to understand voter's motivations and reasons for taking part in the elections and choosing to vote for a particular candidate. To achieve this, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews in the city of Khoy. Having analyzed the data, we decided that we could offer a reasonable explanation for voter's behavior by expanding our rational choice model to incorporate essential insights from 'framing' theory. Our findings indicate that citizens of Khoy are in general apolitical, conservative and traditionally religious. They cast their votes on rational grounds, but their rational choices are made within 'frame's shaped by the particular circumstances and persuasion discourses of the election time.

Utilizing morphological analysis method in the context of futures studies, a model for identifying various types of Islamism that are possible to be constructed in future is introduced. Morphological analysis is method and a tool that, by focusing on various classificatory criteria, enables us to develop all possible scenarios for a phenomenon. In this article we treat Islamism as a social movement that can emerge in a variety of types based on different theoretical foundations and various ways of constructing group identities. In order to identify characteristics and criteria that set various types of Islamism, some the existing typologies are introduced and assessed. Because of heavy reliance on assumptions, concepts and categories that are alien to the Islamic world, many of the existing typologies miss the picture and do not help us to gain a better and deeper understanding of various streaks of Islamism. Taking a critical stance vis-à-vis the underlying assumptions of the existing typologies, we try to present a model that encompasses a range of criteria that differentiate various types of Islamism that can possibly emerge in future.

Cultural diversity is an indispensible trend in today's world and has gained considerable momentum as a result of globalization and ubiquity of communication media. In this essay I attempt to provide a plausible answer to the following question: "given the fact that in the world today no society can truly achieve a monolithic culture, how would it be possible to draw up a cultural policy that would respect cultural diversity and yet fulfill the goal of national unity?" Criticizing various monistic discourses that insist on creation of a monolithic society and culture, a number of arguments are advanced in defense of cultural diversity and multiple identities. Relying on these arguments and in light of Iran's particular historical and cultural conditions, adoption of a cultural policy that is inclusive of various segments of Iran's society is proposed.

Classifying theories of political trust into "cultural" and "institutional" is among methods of classification of such theories. In the cultural approach, any trust, including political trust, is deemed to be related to the process of socialization and culture of a society. At the micro level, the proponents of this approach argue that individuals who are raised to trust others will elicit more political trust. At the macro level, political trust is seen as an index of particular kinds of political culture. Institutional approaches, on the other hand, view political trust as an outcome of the way political institutions perform in a country (macro level) or people's perceptions of those institution's performances (micro level). In the present paper which is based on a survey of a representative sample of students across all universities in Tehran, both cultural and institutional approaches are tested and their respective explanatory powers are evaluated. Specifically, the following two hypotheses, derived from cultural and institutional approaches, were tested: 1. Individuals, who have learned through their socialization process to trust others more, are more likely to scores higher on a scale of political trust. 2. The more positive a person's perception of performance of political institutions, the higher the level of political trust that he/she may show. Both hypotheses were confirmed in this study. However, the institutional explanation (the second hypothesis) revealed a stronger correlation (Pearson's r = 0.75 and Spearman's Rho = 0.74) compared to the cultural hypothesis (r = 0.35 and Rho = 0.30). It was also found that religiosity correlates positively with political trust in our sample of students.

Islamophobia is a complex of discrimination, violence, rejection and insult, the expansion of which had harmful influence in Muslim communities in the western countries. The growth of Islamophobia in some domains such as media or formal and governmental levels necessitates serious attention due to its intensity. In Britain, especially, Muslims make the largest religious minority; hence the existence of Islamophobia and its consequences there must be taken more seriously. The article concentrates on Islamophobia at informal and formal levels in the British society and after presenting a definition of the issue it brings the concept of structured Islamophobia especially in the aftermath of September 11 into focus. The discussion is divided into two categories. First, an investigation into pertinent theoretical and legal frameworks (with a look at the European convention of human rights and some other British laws such as ethnic-relation Act, and anti-terrorism Acts), and second a discussion of this phenomenon in practical and executive domains (such as disciplinary measures of the police and other law implementation groups and the existence of discrimination in anti-terrorist Acts). It is intended to explain that the formal and legal structure of British society both in the realm of legislation and execution, has failed to provide adequate support for Muslims as a minority group. The result is the formation, in recent years, of a special kind of Islamophobia and discrimination against Muslims, that we have formulated as structured Islamophobia

This essay is based on a study that sought to make sense of the perceptions of educated Iranian youth about their "Iranian identity." Unlike many writers who define Iranian identity by making reference to various readings of Iran's historical heritage and its pool of cultural, literary, linguistic, and religious traditions, this research assumes that any social identity, including national identity, is socially constructed and, as such, concentrates on the perceptions of the people themselves. In this study we tried to understand "Being Iranian" in words of the youth as a segment of the population which is considered a "strategic group" in the Iranian society both in terms of the young people's relative weight in the population and the role they will play in constructing the country's future culture. We conducted a series of semi-structured, qualitative interviews with 71 young people aged 18 to 29 who were enrolled as undergraduate students or had a university degree. A main finding of the study was that most interviewed individuals understood their Iranian identity quite differently with members of the previous generations and defined it in terms of a combination of emotional and personal values found in family relations or relations with friends along with values pertaining to development and progress of their country in the family of nations across the world.

Instructors of research methods courses in political science and international relations face a number of Paradoxes in the particular cultural and educational environment of Iran. Based on their perception of priorities in transmitting methodological knowledge to students, instructors usually emphasize certain material in their courses at the expense of other subjects. The main paradoxes discussed here are: (a) concentrating on epistemological issues versus teaching the actual techniques of doing scientific research, (b) teaching the fundamentals of research in lecture format versus teaching students methodological issues in a hands-on manner in the course of doing research, (c) placing maximum emphasis on being methodical versus showing a greater concern with useful content in producing scientific articles, and (d) emphasizing some established and fixed principles of scientific method versus introducing the students to the plurality of methodological approaches currently employed by practitioners. Limited teaching hours allocated to research methods courses puts further strain on all-sided teaching of methodologies in political science. Hence, many students who are close to the end of their educational program remain puzzled over usefulness and applicability of the methods they have learnt. Having discussed different strategies pursued by various professors of methods courses to address the paradoxes raised in this article, I have made some practical suggestions as a way of improving the efficacy of teaching methods courses in political science. The data forming the bases of my discussion were collected from graduate students of political science and international relations in different universities in Tehran. Course syllabi were also consulted.

The 9th presidential election in Iran was a turning point in the role of television in electoral campaigns. It seems that talk shows, the candidates’ campaign videos, and TV debates among political figures advocating the candidates had a key role in the viewers’ opinions towards the candidates, and in their final decision. Employing the results of a number of studies including the qualitative interviews with people by the author in the months following the victory of president Ahmadinejad, the present article discusses the role of IRIB in the individuals’ final vote.

The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) television channels, with the largest audience across the country, plays a prominent role in cultivating people’s perceptions about ethnic groups and in defining intergroup relations in the country. Evidence from previous research indicates that there is notable dissatisfaction on the part of ethnic groups about images broadcasted of them on the television. To gain a deeper understanding of the perceptions of ethnic minorities themselves, a number of semi-structured interviews were conducted among an educated segment of minority groups currently residing in Tehran. As expected, they do not approve of the representations that are made of them in the television series and films. They are critical of the national networks on the grounds that ethnicities are generally neglected on the national television and, when they are indeed shown, they are often misrepresented. They also identify various kinds of stereotypical images that are often portrayed of various ethnic groups based on traits attributed to them in popular discourse. Most of those interviewed believed that films shown on the television hardly present members of ethnic groups as central characters and tend to cast them in marginal roles. The prevalence of such representations, according to the interviewees, stems from film producers’ lack of knowledge about ethnic subcultures and/or their prejudiced attitudes towards them. It may also reflect continuation of past practices that tend to downplay the ethnic groups’ presence in and contribution to the national culture.

When expounding on ethnic problems in Iran, the relations between the members of the ethnic groups and those of the larger community are often neglected and the role of processes and big structures and misuse of ethnic differences by foreign forces and elite groups are highlighted. The present study attempts to understand the ethnic relations from the point of view of people’s everyday experiences, and the mechanisms by which the social identities and ethnic boundarics are developed in the relations between “self” and “others” and in light of power relations.To achieve this, the writer overviews and criticizes the existing general perspectives and propounds an alternative perspective that combines the “relational” and “constructivist” approaches to ethnic relations. On the basis of this analysis, Iran will continue to have ethnic diversity, while ethnic differences can, under particular circumstances, lead to mobilization of group sentiments and construction of divergent identities. Awareness of such circumstances and factors that elicit tension in ethnic relations in Iran can help policymakers to come up with better and more effective policies.