فصلنامه مطالعات راهبردی
سال هشتم شماره 3 (پیاپی 29، پاییز 1384)

The fact that theories find different positions when they are linked with power turning them into strategy leads us to make a distinction between the status of practice and the status of theory. On this basis, in this article the author examines the strategic aspect of Imam Ali's (Peace be upon him) security theory after he assumed responsibility of administering the affairs of the Islamic society. In so doing, he proposes an analytical framework based on distinction between the idea of security and the organization of security. On this ground, he views "the power-oriented nature of security" and "secularization of security" as two serious harms inflicting the security strategy in the Islamic society. This is the reason why the Alavi government's security strategy becomes institutionalized in response to these two harms and refers to the "eradication of power from security" and "making security religious” so that security finds its deserved meaning and status.In an article series on the Islamic theory of security, the author tries in this article to present certain evidence that indicate the determination of Imam Ali to restrict the sphere of the presence of power in the definition of security and liberate the capacities of the Sharia for the establishment of security in the Islamic society

The issue of organized crimes has recently gained the attention of those interested in new strategic analyses as one of the security threats. Nevertheless, in most cases, no reference is mainly made to the major records and the place of this issue in social sciences as well as law, and most of these studies lack depth failing to delve into the technical discussions. This shows that the researchers on security studies gradually learn the necessity of paying attention to this topic. In this article, the author seeks to precisely and comprehensively analyze the concept, dimensions and theoretical models of organized crimes drawing on the existing approaches and literature. Finally, the relationship between these crimes and political stability, social order and national security are explored. First, organized crimes are classified according to their area of activity (domestic or transnational), type of activity (trafficking, organizational and political corruption, and money-laundry), and type of the organization (Mafia-like, criminal, and terrorist), and then theoretical frameworks for the analysis of such crimes are scrutinized. These frameworks include hierarchical model, patron-client model, and economic model. The final section of the article deals with the criminal policy towards such crimes and offering a framework for evaluating them at the political unit level.

This article mainly seeks to provide a framework to help us reach a better understanding of the nature, causes and grounds of the rise of administrative (economic) corruption in a political-economic system. Administrative corruption refers to the misuse by a person of public powers for self-interests of a party, faction, friends, relatives and so on. It indeed appears when the public civil servants fail to make a distinction between personal and public interests in executing their public powers. On this basis, the author identifies six approaches to administrative corruption and examines the causes and grounds for the rise of corruption within these contexts. These approaches include: cost-benefit, relative deprivation, rent-seeking, employer, non-agent, patron-client and moral approaches. Each of these approaches is able to explain part of administrative corruption. The former five approaches take political and institutional grounds into their analytical agenda, which consolidate and underpin the capacity of public sector’s employee in taking personal advantage of public power – i.e. the essence of corruption. According to the author, administrative corruption is a kind of institutional dysfunction related to the institutional arrangements and political structures of a society rather than the bureaucrats’ immorality. In conclusion, the author has counted the characteristics of an effective strategy to battle corruption, which contains the policy recommendations of the five aforementioned approaches.

From among the possible types of social transformations, revolution occurs in some societies, while social changes are made in certain other societies without resort to revolutionary violence in line with national goals. Revolutionary change usually ensues the failure of non-revolutionary changes and is often characterized by deep dissatisfaction with the existing conditions, the expansion of new ideologies, intensified revolutionary fever, mobilizing political-social structures, popular participation, violent struggle and the replacement of the previous order with a new system. Iran has experienced a variety of revolutionary and evolutionary changes the latest of which is the Islamic Revolution. If one can offer a theoretical pattern for revolutionary changes in the Iranian society, then this pattern might be used in practice for strategic purposes thus while avoiding violent consequences of revolutionary changes, national goals may be achieved. In the Iranian society, revolutionary potential is always found. Change in the objective and institutional conditions of a society is a starting point for revolutionary change which in the case of availability of sufficient requirements (leadership, organization, and ideology) leads the revolutionary transformation into its ultimate end. This author tries to draw a theoretical pattern of revolutionary change in the Iranian society, while explaining revolution and revolutionary change.

This article addresses Iran’s socioeconomic situation and the Islamic Republic’s relations with the West and the European Union and criticizes US present policies towards Iran. Noting that many hold that the treatment of nuclear program should be conducted according to US policies towards Iran, the author argues that the failure of Europe and the United States to shape a consistent policy in this regard, the failure of the opposition to seriously struggle against the Iran’s regime and the adventurism by China, Russia, North Korea and Pakistan have placed Iran in a win-win-win situation. Therefore, the existing policy options including Washington’s consent with European negotiations with Iran, attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and a big deal between the United States and Iran will not possibly terminate Iran’s nuclear program. The author presumes democracy as the Achilles’ Ankle for Iran’s government and the West’s focus on this issue in order to deal with Iran’s nuclear program and he believes that the nuclear program is the only instance in the past 15 years for which the Islamic Republic has been able to garner public and national support. Thus, in the author’s opinion, the key to the resolution of Iran’s nuclear problem is the future of the country’s democratic movement. The author continues to criticize the US sanctions against Iran as a failed policy.

Efforts at preserving the identity are an important chapter in theorizting in international relations. Turning the preservation of identity into the agenda of foreign policy and strategic studies is largely derived from a wave whose extent of action is transnational and global. In the meantime, a new theory has been proposed by Barry Buzan and Ole Waever that regards the national and global analysis of national security as distorted and responsible for widespread insecurity which has entangled the today’s world. Criticizing the realist and globalist analyses, which stress on national and global roots of insecurity and instability, they have focused upon the regional complex of most of strategic equations. According to this theory, the countries of the world must be classified in six security complexes and then the problems of every region or system are theorized. This article mainly addresses the principles of the “theory of regional complex security” and its results in the strategic studies field. The most significant characteristic of this theory is that it holds theoretical relevance for regional powers (like Iran) because of their old identity, historical continuity and the capacity of producing patterns. It also views globalist and nationalist theories as minimalist.

At the world level and in general trends regarding attention to ethnic affairs, two general courses can be identified. The first is a course that pay attention to the cultural diversity and supports it and the second is a course to which the idea of a single state, a single nation and a single language is still attractive. Previous ideas and notions to the effect that diversities will fade out in the process of industrialization and modernization were refuted and even in some cases the demographic proportion of minority groups increased. The conjunction of the aforementioned trends along with postmodern thoughts that have questioned the foundations of the modern thinking and its meta-narratives such as nationhood led to the rise of the idea of cultural rights of minorities and ethnicities. However, in the Third World countries and such regions as Eastern Europe, certain factors have caused the negation of such rights and violent treatment of advocates of cultural diversity rights. These factors include the persistent attractiveness of a coherent and homogenous nation, the prevalence of conspiracy theory, regional problems, and a misperception of the globalization process.