Requirements of Iran’s Foreign Policy in ICT Development

The purpose of the present study is to review requirements of Iran’s foreign policy in ICT (Information Communication Technology) development. The research method is descriptive-analytic and the results show that ICT and cyber space development in Iran is not feasible merely relying on internal power. The nature and essence of ICT is in such a way that development in this field is almost impossible without international cooperation and collaboration with different countries and pioneer multinational corporations. In neoliberal institutionalists’ view, collaboration in international institutionalization in order to determine the standards of ICT is a very important issue because in the age of globalization, the governments which set the standards will also determine the agenda for other governments and in this way, they gradually dominate them. Moreover, the decision makers’ understanding of the issue that resources and power are immensely pluralistic in the international level is very vital. It means that it is globally effective on a country’s power and status in terms of military hard sources as well as economic, political, structural, consensual, diplomatic, scientific, technological, and innovative sources. Governments should reach their priorities to those of people and private sector in the development of ICT. Currently, there is a gap between these two aspects which is evident in the issue of filtering. The government should expand the country’s cyber space in the atmosphere of international competition.