فصلنامه تاریخ روابط خارجی
پیاپی 90 (بهار 1401)

 On the eve of the World War II, the Nazi Germany became a major political and economic power in Europe. This power sought to expand to the East, and this led to the expansion of the Iran - German ties. Germany’s presence in Iran during the Reza Shah reign (1934-1941) provided two major opportunities for Iran; first, Reza Shah used it as a means to reduce the Soviet and UK influence. Second, he employed this connection to develop the industrial schools and renovate and develop the country’s economy. The connection was not void of benefit for Germany, because Iran welcomed the German products. Based on this, so many light and heavy German factories were sold to Iran. The daily increasing industrial progress and its impact on people’s economic and political lives caused the creation of centers for teaching the new industries and techniques. With the German industries entering Iran, technical schools, taught by German engineers Started to Work, These Schools were influential in transferring technology. A prominent example of this type of schools was the Azerbaijan Industrial School, which was established in 1930 and took to service foreign teachers, mostly Germans, to nurture educated, skilled and technical persons. The present research  uses the descriptive-analytical method as well as the archived documents, books and the press from the period in question, to answer the question, What impact did the Germans, presence at the Azerbaijan Industrial School  during the Reza Shah era have on the growth and fostering of this school?

With the increase of communication with the West and after the Iranian defeats in the war with Russia, as a European state, during the Qajar era, the rulers became aware of their internal weaknesses and the country’s underdevelopment. At the time, a large part of the country's elite saw the reason of weakness in the scientific-industrial underdevelopment of the country, whose root cause later was deemed related to the domestic dictatorship and foreign colonization. They saw the way out of this retardation in achieving the new sciences and technologies in the west. Dispatching students for acquiring the new techniques, sciences and technologies, was the first step of the Iranians along this path. Thus, the main question of this paper is what impact has dispatching students to France and Germany had on the Iranian scientific level and creating change in the thinking and political, social and cultural structures? The main hypothesis is that dispatching students in the recent century to France and Germany has been one of the main bases of transfer of modern science and technology to Iran, creation of change in the thinking and political, social and cultural structures. The findings of the research show that sending students since the Qajar era up to now  has been a major factor in transfer of science and technology and shaping new scientific schools and institutes, constructing railways, entrance of new industries and western architecture and modern urban planning and new arts, entrance of modern concepts and formation of new institutes, emergence of the intelligentsia, improvement of political and social awareness, change in the culture, the administrative and Judicial system, and the legal and political institutes and structures in Iran. The method of research in this paper is descriptive-analytical, using library tools.

The present paper examines the historical relations between Iran and Malaysia on the various political, cultural and trade dimensions. To strengthen relations in the present time and to have a clear horizon on the future, understanding the past seems urgent. With a long historical precedent, the Iran/Malaysia relations are yet unknown in the research area, and the examinations show that the historical ties are indicative of points of weakness and strength which provide a vast capacity for strengthening the relations. About the historical relations of the two countries (especially in contemporary history), so far there has been conducted no comprehensive research, and there is scant sources in this regard. This paper tries to probe the Iran/Malaysia relations during the 2nd Pahlavi era, but it is necessary that we also study the cultural and trade ties before the political relations took shape with the Malay world. Given the status of Malaysia in Iran’s foreign policy , the strong presence of Iranian society in Malaysia in the last two decades as well as close political cooperation in various issues make the necessity of paying attention to the historical ties more visible.

 The Indian Parsis were a group of Iranian Zoroastrians who, at the time of the fall of the Sassanid rule and advent of Islam to Iran, decided to exit the Iranian political geography. Following an adventurous and dangerous journey, they finally resided in Surat and then Gujarat and Mumbai. Over centuries, they still kept the image of Iran as their homeland in theirs and their next generations’ minds and continuously kept in contact with Iran and the Iranians. This community first entered small businesses, and then gradually, especially after the entrance of the western colonialists, started a trade, scientific and industrial period among the small expatriate Parsi community. These steps brought progress and prosperity for the Indian society and consequently impacted on the lives of the Iranian Zoroastrians. Today, this expatriate group is a major, respectable and advanced minority of political clout and unique social status in that country, who, apart from their historical/cultural presence in India, can be influential for the Islamic Republic of Iran in the domestic policy-making area.

Examining the historical treaty between the governments is conducted mostly through exploring the events and interactions of the political forces involved in concluding them, which is in large part a result of the view that conclusion of these treaties is itself a historical event. But if we assume the conclusion of a treaty between one or several states within the framework of a legal-negotiating process, which has gone out of the domestic legal framework of each of the countries involved in it and in the context of a conventional legal system among the governments, in this case, we can distance from the mere historical examination of the events and have in a way an analysis, examination and pathology of the negotiating behavior of each of the governments for achieving their goals. The present paper tries to collect the negotiating records and the reports related to the meetings between the Iranian negotiators in the Qajar era and the Tsar Russian political representatives during the 1st Iran-Russia wars during the Fath-Ali Shah Qajar reign, and depict a plan of the negotiating behavior of the political representatives of the Qajar court during the conclusion of the Iran/Russia treaty, called the Gulestan Treaty.

 In this research, to explain the influential factors on decision-making in the foreign policy area of the 2nd Pahlavi reign, we study the official decision-makers during the era. This research, based on the James Rosenau model, separates and examines the five elements considered in this model, that is the Individual, Participatory, Governmental, Social and International elements. In doing so, the actors of the foreign policy arena in this period are recognized and their power, and amount of influencibility of each other are explored in the form of the Rosenau’s five variables. Tyranny in decision-making in this period reduced the role of other elements such as the bureaucratic decision-makers of the country’s foreign policy (the Judiciary, court, and the Parliament) and the activities of these institutes were merely summarized in approving the Shah’s orders. The decision-makers saw themselves responsible against the individual (Shah) according to the principles, policy line and organizational rules, and the criteria for promoting persons were not based on qualification, but based on loyalty to the Shah. To the author, in these decisions , the foreign policy sphere was influenced by cognitive elements and were mostly adopted by the Shah, and among the five variables involved , the variable of person and after that the international system had the most influence in adopting decisions of foreign policy.