Public Diplomacy Strategies for the Development of the Civilization Thought of the Islamic Revolution in the Second Step of the Islamic Revolution

Public diplomacy has a fundamental role and effect on achieving national interests and gaining international power and credibility. Comparing to other traditional resourced of power, public diplomacy has a special place in foreign policy due to its low cost and sustainable effectiveness. In the second Phase of the Revolution and the beginning of the Islamic government, the Islamic Republic of Iran requires reproduction and reinforcement of its components of sift power to gain credibility and influence the international arena relying on human, religious, cultural, and historical elements in its strategic setting in the form of public diplomacy. This study aimed to codify the strategies of public diplomacy in Iran to expand the civilizational thinking of the Islamic Revolution. In this study, external analysis and SWOT analysis were utilized. In this method, weaknesses and strengths of the internal environment and threats of the external environment were identified. The external environment includes opportunities and threats that are out of managers’ continuous control. The internal environment includes weaknesses and strengths that exist in a group or organization and are controlled by managers continuously. By combining opportunities, threats, weaknesses, and strengths, conservative or inactive strategies (WO), competitive or interactive strategies (ST), defensive or passive strategies (WT), and aggressive or active strategies can be pictured. After that, prioritizing and scoring were done and appropriate strategies in the form of SWOT were described. Accordingly, a list of diverse strategies in four different groups was obtained using a SWOT matrix. Strategies of public diplomacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran were described in four axes including strength-opportunity strategies, weakness-opportunity strategies, strength-threat strategies, and weakness-threat strategies were described. Strength-Opportunity (SO) strategies- Utilizing common cultural and civilizational points to affect institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran in other countries.- Communication between institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Muslim thinkers and utilize their abilities.- Promoting and diversifying tourism via institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran in other countries.- Maximum use of social media and virtual space by scientific institutions, organizations, and communities in Iran.- Communication between Iranians and people in the target countries relies on common cultural and civilizational properties.- Holding interstate and international events and seminars concentrating on common cultural and civilizational properties. Weakness-Opportunity (WO) strategy:- Codifying grand public diplomacy concentrating on new tools, especially virtual space.- Policy-making related to each country concentrates on common cultural and civilizational properties.- Expanding public diplomacy instruction and producing related productions.- Codifying grand public diplomacy using Muslim thinkers and policies integration of governments (when the government changes (executive power) public diplomacy should not change).- Recognizing cultural and value systems of different states by holding seminars in the presence of thinkers.- Adopting an appropriate approach for each country based on the grand strategy of public diplomacy. Strength-Threat (ST) strategies:- Presenting an exact image of civilizational thinking of the Islamic revolution by Iranian institutions and communities in other countries.-An accurate explanation of Islamic Revolution discourse by Iranian institutions, organizations, and communities and preventing deviance.- Utilizing the capacity of Iranian presence in other countries and vice versa to picture the real face of discourse and civilizational thinking of the Islamic Revolution.- Reducing involvement of governmental centers and playing the role of a facilitator for public participation and the middle circles movement. Weakness-Threat (WT) strategy- Adopting policies proportional to the country derived from the grand public diplomacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran to deal with propaganda and activities against Islamic Revolution discourse.- The synergy of agencies and prevention parallel works to more effectiveness and efficiency to expand civilizational thinking. Generally, grand strategies include codification of grand strategy of public diplomacy with an accurate explanation of civilizational thinking of the Islamic Revolution, expanding public diplomacy instruction, and maximum use of thinkers’ thoughts and capacity, public participation in the form of the middle circles movement, recognition of the value and cultural systems of other countries, and diversification of strategies that are compatible with the target society, synergy of public and governmental centers along grand strategy in diplomacy to expand civilizational thinking of Islamic Revolution.