Pathology of cultural and media diplomatic capacities in Iran's economic and commercial relations with neighboring Countries

Despite having common cultural values and ideas with other neighboring countries, Iran faces a serious challenge in using cultural and media diplomacy in economic relations. These weaknesses have caused the merchants to find new export routes; to face challenges. The investigations of this research from official sources based on the statistics of 2019 show that Iran's exports to neighboring countries are unbalanced and less than its capacities. These studies show that Iran provides only1.76percent (one and seventy-two hundred percent) of the import needs of 15 neighboring countries. This trade share shows a great distance from the principles of global trade with neighbors. It seems that by strengthening media and cultural diplomacy along with other economic components, Iran's commercial share in neighboring countries has increased. For the pathology of cultural and media diplomatic capacities in Iran's economic and commercial relations with neighboring countries, in this article, relying on the theoretical foundations of neoliberal institutionalism, the issue has been investigated. It is assumed that the adoption of a model of modern economic diplomacy that simultaneously pays attention to cultural exchange with the components of cultural diplomacy, peace-oriented communication with the components of media diplomacy, and economic-oriented foreign policy with the components of economic diplomacy will lead to the expansion of Iran's economic and commercial relations in neighboring countries.The present research is "applied" in terms of its purpose and "descriptive-correlation" and "causal-communicative" in terms of method.