Agency Practices in Cultural Policies; Analyzing Presidential Discourses of IRAN (1989-2007)

Political actors are one of the main drivers of public policies. They direct the policies due to their beliefs. Studying their action has a long tradition in policy studies but recent changes known as “ideational turn” gave a new aim to the research. Following this changes this article tries to uncover the images undelaying in the discourses that political actor have presented to public and also identify their ideas, used to gain audience and improve policies. The data are collected from the political discourses of 8 different Presidential Honeymoon Periods from 1989 to 2017. The Framework used to conduct this research is argumentation theory of Isabela and Norman Fairclough’s (political discourse analysis framework). The findings highlight a specific image advocated by the political actors in each Presidential Honeymoon Periods for the cultural problems and also indicates a selective use of constant key ideas in addition to changing ideas based on society’s conditions.