نشریه مطالعات بین المللی
سال هجدهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 71، زمستان 1400)

The power transition theory focuses on the dynamics of the international system and the evolution of power in the international system, and it believes that the international system is hierarchical, and that conflict and struggle for dominance are always possible. As one of the most prominent power transition theorists, Organski sees China's rise as one of the international system's realities, emphasizing that the power cycle is based on technological growth and power maturity, and at this stage, states use their various resources to transfer power, and China will be in a similar situation in the future. This study focused on this topic and attempted to explain China's rise using the power transition view during Xi Jinping's era and the country's three economic strategies. As a result, the central question of this research is what role Xi Jinping's economic strategies, such as "One Belt, One Road," "Made in China 2025," and "Launching China's Crude Oil Exchange Market based on Yuan," play in China's power transition? According to the findings of this study, while these three strategies are primarily economic in nature, they have significant political and security implications for China. Moreover, China's new leader has sought to advance China's grand hegemonic goals and power transition through these strategies. The analytical-descriptive methodology will be used to answer this question.

AK Party taking power in Turkey and Falling of Saddam and vacuum of power in Iraq took place almost at same time; after that political and security developments, we have witnessed a deep and multilayer campaign orchestrated by Turkey in Northern Iraq. In this regard Erdogan has cited to P.K.K. threat (as the military justification), Misak Ahdi Milli (as historic one), Baghdad-Ankara in 1980s (as the legal one) and dispatched Turkish land forces to 15 KM to Mosul; also Turkey has targeted many time by 200 KM within Iraqi territories by airstrike and Drones. This article is trying to answer the main question: “Why after Saddam falling and arousing of ISIS, Turkey has increased its military-political activities in Northen Iraq?”. To this end we have researched dozens of English, Persian, Arabic and Turkish sources and have come to this conclusion Turkey by historic & identical motivations (emanating from Neo-Ottomanism Ideology), combined with Power-seeking preferences, has sought to expand its influence in Ninawa”. In other word, by using a descriptive-explanative method and utilizing Bayesian Realism as the theoretical framework, we have tried to illustrate whether Ankara is a greedy Actor or a Security Seeker in Ninawa.

Some powerful countries, especially the United States, impose unilateral sanctions on other countries, which has nowadays become commonplace in their foreign policy. However, the problem is that although these sanctions are claimed to essentially have certain reasons and justifications, they sometimes face objections and their legality is questioned, contrary to many collective sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council. Hence the main question is, what is the rationale behind the U.S.'s unilateral sanctions, and what is the place of these sanctions in international law? This study is an attempt to analyze the reasons for and legality of unilateral sanctions from the perspective of international law based on the principles of the scientific-experimental method. The results show that despite the various claims as to the need to maintain national security and enact domestic rules in this regard, these sanctions do not have a clear legal basis in international law, and their imposition on other countries, except in special rare cases, is subject to approval by the United Nations, its subsidiaries, and the Security Council as the main international body responsible for international peace and security.

After the Iranian Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Revolution Discourse and the resulting system transformed the Iranian domestic and foreign policies under the influence of cultural and normative elements, values, and identity. Based on an Islamic-revolutionary identity, the Islamic Revolution Discourse opposes the West-oriented discourse of Liberalism-Secularism. The West and European powers have always had eyes on Iran because of its geo-strategic and geo-political position. The Iran-European Union (EU) relations have gone through ups and downs because of their differing identities and outlooks on issues; identity gaps and contradictions have damaged the relations and posed a number of threats to the bilateral ties. In different periods, the Islamic Revolution Discourse has made the Iran-EU relations to diverge. This study intends to answer the question that how identity has affected the Iran-EU ties. The results showed that the ideology of the Islamic Revolution Discourse, which is based on religious values and the Islamic Civilization revival, is at odds with EU’s Liberalistic-Secularistic identity breeding different attitudes toward issues such as human rights, terrorism, etc. Therefore, this study sought to analyze the identity of Iran and EU within the framework of Laclau and Mouffe’s Theory of Discourse and Hegemony using discourse analysis research method.

Many defendants and convicts might be ill before entering a prison or might became ill during a sentence. Some environmental conditions of prisons may also affect the health of inmates; therefore, special attention must be paid to the matter. In addition to the need to observe justice, it is essential to formulate an appropriate strategy for reducing the criminal population of inmates. Therefore, this study aims to address the status of health-oriented deprivation of liberty in Iran’s legal system and international human rights instruments. Analyzing the health-oriented imprisonment approach in Iran’s legal system and international human rights instruments, this study seeks to determine what effects health-oriented imprisonment has on the criminal justice process. In fact, this descriptive analytical study concludes that a manifestation of health-oriented deprivation of liberty is the review and adjustment of policies governing imprisonment and prison management. Hence, criminal policies should result from the link between health and justice. Moreover, analysis of health-oriented deprivation of liberty and attention to the health of inmates can strengthen the trend in community-based punishments.

With the 9/11 attacks, the rise of the Islamic State group, the Taliban, and the events in Myanmar, the issue of religious extremism has come to the fore as a threat to international peace and security as well as human rights. At the international level, measures have been taken to counter and control extremism, but the desired result does not seem to have been achieved. After 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan, the Taliban have regained power, the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq has stepped up its activities, and we are facing new manifestations of religious extremism. In the present study, the main question is whether the structures and norms of contemporary international law can counter religious extremism? In the present article, which has been written by descriptive-analytical method and using library sources, by examining the concept of extremism and religion, three different readings of the foundations of international law and their conflict with extremist religion arising from the foundations of laws and differences arising from It aims, analyzes and concludes that due to fundamental flaws in the structures and norms of international law, this legal system is incapable of confronting religious extremism and is unable to reach a decisive decision against religious extremism.

The non-intervention rule is one of the established principles of international law, particularly the United Nations Charter, Although that has endured Until the early years of the twenty-first century, However given the rapid evolution of human rights in the modern era, it appears that such a principle faces numerous challenges and constraints. Instead of resorting to sovereignty mechanisms of human rights, such changes, in an unprecedented movement and a turning point in the development of human rights, have targeted its fundamental principles and pushed them to the margins by circumventing national sovereignty. In fact, the main question that arises is, within the context of expanding contemporary human rights norms, what normative and structural developments has the non-intervention rule seen, and what challenges have these changes faced? This descriptive-analytical study examined such changes and how they affect the nature and score of the non-intervention rule from a different perspective. The finding showed that transforming sovereignty into responsibility, as well as the establishment of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), purposive sanctions, and military intervention under the guise of fighting terrorism, are examples that not only have theoretical contradictions with the non-intervention rule's absolutism, but have also significantly weakened states' undisputed power in terms of human rights.

Terrorism has taken different forms over time; however, the international legal community fails to keep up with these modern forms of terrorism and always falls a few steps behind. Since the critical infrastructure includes the most essential services for life in a country, attacks on this infrastructure cause widespread and sometimes irreversible damage so that the targeted state will have to comply with the demands of terrorist groups. Although there are important documents regarding counterterrorism in airlines, marine navigation, nuclear power, and hostage holding in the international law, the literature evidently lacks a fundamental document regarding countermeasures to terrorist attacks on the critical infrastructure of a country to cover both cyberattacks and physical attacks. Hence, in addition to addressing the problem of critical infrastructure and counterterrorism documents, this paper seeks to answer the main question: what international law rules over countermeasures to physical terrorist attacks on the critical infrastructure of a country? For this purpose, a descriptive-analytical technique was employed with the desk method. According to the results, there is a legal gap in the international law in response to physical terrorist attacks on the critical infrastructure of countries. Finally, it is recommended that an international convention be formulated and approved to counter such terrorist attacks.

The Internet and social media have altered the nature of communication between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the US, introducing new modes of action and reaction in their conflict. This study aims to find an answer to this question: What new strategies do Iran and the United States use to confront one another in cyberspace? To answer this question, we used a descriptive-analytical method to test the hypothesis and collected our data through a desk research and note-taking method, and then analyzed statements from the theory of authoritarian power. The findings revealed that the US and Iran disagreement about regional issues, the unresolved political conflicts between the two countries, the escalation of international sanctions against Iran, and, most significantly, the US withdrawal from BARJAM (Iran nuclear deal) and assassination of the commander of IRGC- Quds has increased the prominence of cyberspace as a stage for hostility between the two states. As a result, the US and Iran have used the potential of cyberspace as a tool to exert power and have tried to impose their demands, based on their level of competence and expertise in the field of cyber technologies, and through the use of a variety of tactics. Their goal in taking such actions is clearly to force each other to accept their will or change their behavior and ideologies.

Foreign policies are the extension of domestic policies to the international arena and constitute a major part of the public policymaking process. To better understand the factors affecting the international decision-making process, it is essential to identify the role of domestic policies and the extent to which they affect foreign policies. Inspired by institutionalism, most European countries have entrusted a great number of their governance affairs to the European Union (EU). Foreign policies make a major part of these governance affairs. Different public factors and variables affect the foreign policymaking process in EU. These factors influence the policymaking authority in the ratification and enforcement of decisions and policies. This paper introduces and identifies major public non-governmental variables that affect the decision-making process in EU, and answers the question, how important are public variables in the foreign policymaking process and what role do they play? Adopting a desk research methodology, this analytical study investigates the cycle of foreign policymaking with an emphasis on the role NGOs, multinational corporations, media, unions and guilds, think tanks, polling agencies, councils, and parties play in passing and enforcing foreign policies. As powerful democracies, all EU member states possess various active groups of stakeholders/beneficiaries that try different avenues to affect governmental decisions in a multitude of issues. When policies used to be adopted locally or nationally, these groups paid greater attention to the local and national decision-making process; however, they have been focused on international and European scales, especially since the time the decisions and policies started to be adopted across Europe. These groups, which are made up of members from European communities, endeavor to enter major institutions such as the European Commission and the European Parliament, and affect the decisions made by them. In other words, these groups grow and adapt themselves to the new/present state of affairs in keeping with the Europeanization process in the political sphere, which was once reserved for national governments. In conclusion, the paper delves into the current foreign policy issues and problems/crises in EU and shows that public variables number among the most important factors affecting the foreign policymaking process in EU and continue to gain momentum.

Conceptualizing soft power in behavioral patterns of foreign policy of the US is an efficient tool for implementing the foreign policy of this country. Soft power is essentially an abstract concept which includes a variety of tools in dissemination approaches. The US is one of the countries which makes use of the most various soft power tools to implement behavioral patterns of its foreign policy. In this context, Hollywood cinema as a cultural industry, has significantly helped the governing system of the US to achieve international interests. Accordingly, Hollywood cinema in post-crisis (coronavirus epidemic) will apply an emerging pattern of the soft power in the post-pandemic era by emphasizing on selectivist activism while narrating. The question posed in this study is that what will the selectivist pattern be like in emergence of soft power in foreign policy of the US considering the Hollywood association in the post-pandemic era? The purpose of the current study is comprehending the pattern of reviving soft power of the US in post-pandemic era through emphasizing on Hollywood cinema. The general conclusion of the paper indicates that Hollywood cinema as a media tool in disseminating the soft power of the US, will apply an emerging pattern of soft power in the post-Corona era on the basis of selectivist activism while narrating. This paper will try to answer the main question through a descriptive-analytical method.

Far-right or radical right political parties are on the rise across Europe. The popularity of these parties can be attributed to the socio-economic issues and the increased social discontent. The rise of these parties in Europe has manifested itself in various areas, posing fundamental challenges to the maintenance of peace and stability in this continent. Far right was already identified as the National Front in France, the heart of Western Europe. Its discourse is very popular in France because of the European debt crisis, the large number of asylum seekers in this country, and the phenomenon of Euroscepticism. This study aimed to identify the features of the far right and why these extremist ideologies have been increasingly posing a serious challenge to peace and stability in France. Accordingly, the main research question is: "How will the rise of the far right affect the political climate of France?" A descriptive-analytical research method was used in this study, and the required data were collected by using the desk method and analyzing the documents, consultative and interpretive views, books, articles, doctrines, and regulations.  Findings suggest that strengthening the role and position of the far right in the future political and decision-making system of France could mean this country's distancing from the EU, its independence from other international organizations, and the undermined integration process in the EU.