فصلنامه دولت پژوهی
پیاپی 18 (تابستان 1398)

Civil disobedience in John Rawls’ theory of justice is protesting actions of citizens against some unjust laws and policy making in a democratic governments. The objective of such actions is reform and change on the basis of a constitution through rational and peaceful manners. Rawls relied on civil disobedience on the philosophical and moral foundation and, while justifying it on the basis of two principles of justice, discusses the role of this non-violent civil action. In his assessment, civil disobedience is justifiable as a legal and moral action, for this treatment confronts unjust, no efficient other lawful acts, and acceptance of some inevitable limitations. It is forming on the basis of expansion of liberties, rationality, and overlapping consensus. Hence Civil disobedience is a democratic movement and its objective is reform of some laws and structures; therefore it cannot be considered as militant actions. This research uses conceptual analysis and critical evaluation based upon analytic philosophy to explain and criticize the issue of civil disobedience in Rawls political philosophy. The outcome of this study is that Rawls’ thoughts as a means of defining and explaining the philosophical and ethical principles, as well as the precise drawing of civil disobedience boundaries from militant practices have the rational consistency and theoretical strength. Against this observation, his objective guidance and action in this regard are in some cases subject to ambiguities and shortcomings. Rawls does not follow a same method regarding such guidance.

Characteristics of state in Iran has attracted some of political scientists’ attraction since past times; therefore, various theories, including Patrimonial, Neo-Patrimonial, Sultanism, Absolutism, Rentier, Quasi-Modernity, Eastern Despotism, etc., have been proposed to examine the characteristics and features of contemporary states in Iran. Most of the theories about the features of the state in contemporary Iran are mainly general, theoretical and qualitative, each dealing with the characteristics of the state in contemporary Iran from a particular angle or point of view. Contrary to other theories and works, which are largely general and based on the levels of theoretical analysis, the present paper seeks to begin with the question of what constituted the structural features of government after the Islamic Revolution (until the early 1990s). In this regard, this paper attempts to respond to this by proposing a case study of the relationship between the growth of the new middle class and the process of democracy development in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, on one hand, and the role of the state in influencing this relationship on the other hand. The process and findings of this survey, which are mainly exploratory and structured, show that the government in Iran after the Islamic Revolution has both rentier and ideological features.

This article, using the method of historical sociology and the sociology of knowledge, attempts to address the power relations between society and government in Iran before the emergence of the Pahlavi state. Powerful social masters such as the royal family and their relatives, clergies, landowners, merchants and marketers, and ultimately local rulers and head of tribes who had a high degree of control and regulation in society, made the Iranian society to be web like. The power of the leaders of the society prevented the government from fulfilling its reformative demands and policies. The constant struggle between the state and society led to ways of achieving "compromise" by the state. "Encouraging strife" in networked society has been another way for the government to overcome this inability. This paper analyzes the structure of Iranian society and the power of the pre-modern state from the Safavid era to the beginning of the Constitutional era based on Migdal's theoretical model and seeks to answer the question: “What pattern of power relations between the state and society in pre-modern Iran did it follow?” The purpose of this study is to examine the sociological power relations of the governments with social forces from a historical perspective in order to understand the reason for the problem of the weakness of the political power of the modern state in Iran. In this article, the results suggest a kind of confrontation and contrast between governments and social forces in which government is disintegrated and the network community struggles to survive the government and social rivals.

The characteristic of classical public policy was the will to power by a government that authoritatively and centrally formulated its policies and implemented them in the society under its control. With the increase of emerging problems and challenges that are affecting other problems in a complicated and rhizome- like way, the complexity of the government's actions and their consequences has doubled as governments are forced to make changes in the nature of their public policy. This paradigm shift aimed at enhancing the capability and promoting government action in policy design and implementation implies a decentralized and network approach rather than a centralized and government-based one, an approach that focuses on a broad set of policy tools or technologies for public action, rather than the "institution" and "program", to solve public issues. More recent experiences are more inclined to the topic of 'policy baskets' or the arrangement of tools in 'policy blends' that form the content of a toolbox from which governments can choose and construct public policies. The present article, by adopting an epistemological approach, narrates the dimensions of this paradigm shift in identifying new public policy approaches; an attempt to understand the late logic of public policy knowledge based on the recreation of the role of government that has led to the emergence of new forms of network, multilevel and multipurpose governance.

The institution of the modern state, based on the liberal doctrine of social contract, has been questioned in the age of globalization by the formation of paradigmatic transformations of political thought from different think tanks. This kind of criticism of liberal discourse encompasses a range of critical thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida Giorgo Agamben, Jacques Rancière and others. But the critique of the state by contemporary thinkers is not confined to this category of thinkers, but communitarianism, with its thinkers such as Al-Sadir McIntyre, can be regarded as one of these critical schools of thought in the paradigm of contemporary political philosophy with a critical look at the most important liberal propositions of modern times such as individualism, state neutrality, universality of this kind of thinking and an emphasis on concepts such as communitarianism, virtue, state moral interventionism, and contextualization. The focus of this article will be to examine McIntyre's critical attitude towards the issue of "state neutrality." The question is, "What is Al-Sadir McIntyre's view of the institution of government? And what is his position on the neutrality of the state in liberal thought? "It is assumed that “First of all, McIntyre has no endorsing view of modern government and its grand narrative, and is in favor of communism. It also denies the impartiality of the state in liberal thought and advocates the rule-based interventionism of the state to moralize citizens ". Macintyre is a new Aristotelian thinker who emphasizes the restoration of virtue and prosperity in the modern age as it was in the classical Greek era.

Reducing corruption, promoting accountability and gaining public trust and satisfaction are among the top goals of any government. One of the key and controversial tools in achieving these goals, transparency is achieved relying on the issue of free access to information. Government ministries, as the highest executive bodies of the country, are also responsible for directing and implementing all affairs throughout the country, which the magnifying glass of transparency on the ministry will eliminate their operational ambiguities. Research method is quantitative and the research goal is evaluative. Also the field research environment and the research strategy are survey type. Given the levels of ministries in Iran's Civil Service Management Law and the ranking of their websites, the transparency of the 18 ministries' websites was assessed and evaluated by a three-dimensional survey of 40 questions. The findings of the study indicate that the websites of the ministries in the category of governance are less transparent; Moreover, websites that rank better in Iran are more transparent

The outbreak of World War II and the occupation of Iran on the pretext of the presence of German troops in this country had unfortunate consequences. The end of Reza Shah Administration meant the beginning of a new era in which absolute authority did not exist anymore. The deterioration of conditions in the country prompted Iranian thinkers to speculate about Iran for the post-Shah era. One of these thinkers was Ahmad Kasravi. According to his many years of experience in the Iranian politics and his life experiences, Kasravi achieved to reconstruct the theory of government in post-Reza Shah Period. Hence; this article will examine the nature and specifics of post-Reza Shah Administration in Ahmad Kasravi’ thought. In order to answer this question using qualitative content analysis method, Kasravi's writings have been investigated from 1942 to 1945. The findings indicate that Kasravi, considering the existing conditions and pursuing a realistic approach, selected an elitist government and recalling what occurred during Iran’s Constitutional period and Reza Shah reign, he believes that neutrality in foreign relations, formation of an independent army, trying to inform people and considering Iran’s cultural conditions in legislation are this elitist government’ duties.