Pathology of Political Science in Iran

Political science since its introduction in Iran in 1277/1888 has undergone lots of ups and downs. This course became a sub-division of law course at Tehran University in 1313/1934 and because of being influenced by law, took a French flavor. In later stages, this domination disappeared and was replaced by positivistic and Anglo-Saxon trends. Based on a classification, the shortcomings of this discipline could be classified in politico-social problems (including lack of comprehensive strategy, its relation to dominant discourse, insufficient development of civil and scientific institutions, illusion of irrelevance of political science, improper relation with executive system, ambiguity of unity of university and Hawzeh, insufficient criteria, second-orderness of political science and brain drain); shortcoming in part of scholars (such as reduction of political science to other sciences, ambiguity of the relation between tradition and modernity, unsatisfactory level of Islamic political knowledge, vagueness of indigenization, vagueness of Islamization, insufficient interdisciplinary studies, method crisis, confusion of concepts, self- censorship, absence of popular language and politicization and ideologicization of political science)and shortcomings in part of students (including disproportion with students’ level and employment crisis).