پژوهشنامه علوم سیاسی
سال دهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 39، تابستان 1394)

Relationship between China and the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a significant part of China's relations with the Persian Gulf countries. China is one of powers enhancing its position in the international politics with an amazing speed. Energy is the main industry of GCC countries and China needs a stable energy market for its economic development. China's cooperation with the GCC countries in the energy filed is the cornerstone of their bilateral economic-political cooperation that is demonstrated in commerce, investment and building projects. Given the expansion of China-GCC relations in recent years, this question is raised: What fields are expectable for expanding China-GCC relations? The research emphasizes this hypothesis that China, as an emerging political and economic power, seeks to expand its bilateral relations with the GCC in order to stabilize its position and role-playing in all fields of the region. As one of main super-regional powers, China will be able to continue its positive political and economic activities in future. Therefore China's political-economic ties with the GCC will be flourishing in future. This research tries to examine China-GCC economic and political relations and provide a transparent image of these relations.

Going through a moderate rout until 2005, I. R. Iran's foreign policy witnessed the return of a political current, named neo-conservatives, during 2005-2013 experienced a return to revolutionary radicalism. By presuming a relation between foreign policy and understanding and by emphasizing meaning structures, this research seeks to answer this basic question: What was the impact of neo-conservative's meaning structure on I. R. Iran's foreign policy in Ahmadinejad's Administration? In this direction, the author has extracted the fundamental elements of meaning structure of neo-conservatives in the international politics arena through analyzing Ahmadinejad's statements, and then has examined the relationship between macro directions of Iran's foreign policy in this period and neo-conservative's meaning structure. The findings indicate that the fundamental elements of neo-conservative's meaning structure (dualism, friend/enemy relation, divine responsibility, material destiny, eschatology, exaggeration, anachronism and reductionism) have been reflected in the macro directions of Ahmadinejad's Administration foreign policy. In other words, return to preliminary revolutionary principles, anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism, outlook to the east, outlook to the south, resistance and lack of reconciliation regarding nuclear issue have deep roots in neo-conservative's meaning structure; a structure that is constructed from combining political Islam and revolutionary left ideology in the Islamic Revolution, lived experience of Iran-Iraq War and identity threat during Reform Era, and it produces meaning in the inter-subjective context of neo-conservatives.

The article aims to study the impact of culture on the adaptability in foreign policy of I. R. Iran during the War and the Reform Eras. Eliciting adaptability practices in foreign policy, it is necessary to split humanist and anthropologist concepts of culture and combine them with Rosenau’s theory. Then, the elicited categories apply in two sample texts (i.e. Rajaei’s speech and Khatami’s one to the United Nations General Assembly). In this regard, an eclectic method has been used which is constituted of comparative and content analysis methods. The findings show that cultural anthropologism was followed during the War era and ‘intractable’ practice has governed on adaptability in foreign policy. In contrast, cultural humanism was followed during the Reform era and ‘conservative’ practice has governed on adaptability in foreign policy.

As one of the important subfields of International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) has attracted less attention than other IR subfields, particularly in Iran. Yet in the 1950’s until the 1970’s this subfield was developing fast and it was supposed to be flourishing conceptually and theoretically. Together with the questions raised against behaviorism and positivism in IR, FPA theoretical achievements were challenged and it experienced a degree of decline. However, it has become more popular amongst IR scholars since the 1990’s. This article seeks to explain FPA revival on the basis of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of academic articles dealing with foreign policy published before and after the 1990’s. It suggests that the end of the Cold War and its aftermaths which could not be satisfactorily explained by IR systemic theories, the emergence of new analytical and theoretical frameworks in IR that could in principle deal with domestic as well as international phenomena, and new analytical facilities that could be used within the existing quantitative approaches in the FPA contributed to the re-emergence of FPA.

The international political economy of oil is influenced by social, economic and strategic factors. Due to enjoying this natural resource, countries like Iran have been confronted with this rule. During the post-Cold War years, the world experienced an evolution in the structure and processes of the global economy. In the years after the collapse of bipolar structure when the capitalist system gained a more effective stature in the global politics and economics, new forces emerged among the factors affecting the international politics and economics. The political economy of oil can be considered as dependence or isolation of countries as player in global economy system. Thus, countries with oil-oriented economy tend to adopt their strategic policies based on economic requirements and public needs of the global economy. In this regard, Iran situation seems to be completely different. The approval of various bills concerning the economic sanctions against Iran and their enforcement is influenced by a variety of factors such as policy-making on the political economy of oil. There have been different approaches taken by the US, the EU and several industrial nations so as to mitigate the Iranian strategic capabilities. In such circumstances, the US strategic constraints against the Middle Eastern countries and the international system have generally concentrated on the requirements of the global economy. Such requirements have constantly been regarded as the major factor in decision-making on policy-making on oil political economy whenever it came to how the industrial countries should deal with the Middle-east actors including Iran. This paper is a descriptive research in which policy of political economy of oil is independent variable and volatile oil prices and the economic sanctions of the Islamic Republic has been considered as the dependent variable. It also revolves mainly around how the Geneva talks, the negotiations in Vienna as well as the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 known as the Joint Action Plan are subject to policy-making on political economy of oil. In fact, all the international negotiations and cooperative models are affected by the political economy of policies made by the countries and the international system.

Although popular uprisings of 2011 in the Arab world started from Tunisia, Egypt was affected most. This issue is rooted in the Arab World and the Middle East on the one hand, and different gaps affecting Egypt's political structures, on the other. Political conflicts and street fights in Egypt did not end even after the collapse of Mobarak's regime and 2011, January 25th revolution, and the political scene of Egypt is full of conflict and violence. Notwithstanding the matter that was paid attention to was the presence of Islamists in power structures. Although in Egypt, political Islam had found the opportunity for political action in Mobarak's government but presence in power in a way that includes executive power was a different problem which could pave the way for political Islam to impact on Egyptian people destiny so that it would penetrate in all aspects of their life. The main question of this article is: What is the main feature of Egyptian Islamist's political action after January 25th revolution? The hypothesis is that political Islam in Egypt is affected by the country's political developments and processes, and the necessity for stabilizing political power which is moving towards "Islamic pragmatism" in relationship with political freedoms, individualism, parliamentarism, pluralism and democracy. In this research, the author tried to illustrate the interaction of political Islam with political text and context.

Iran's strategy in the war, particularly after liberating Khoramshahr, apparently justified war measures to the degree that complete and aid efficient diplomacy for terminating war in a victorious way. But in practice, the trend of stances and measures of Iranian foreign policy did not indicate explicit inclination towards launching the foreign policy process or terminating the war. In this article, we have examined the subject by providing a combined analytical framework which we call it "strategic discourse". The reason for choosing this framework related to the dual nature of war and its decisions. On the one hand, the war had a tie with revolutionary discourse and on the other hand, it was influenced by the logic of political strategy. The main argument of this article is that the balance between these two logics culminated in crisis in war strategy. The significant sign of this crisis was the deadlock of decision-making about suitable method and time of terminating the war.