Government, Identity and Foreign Policy in the Curent Iran (1925-2011)

The authors of this paper try to explore the black box in the contemporary domestic issues, the nature of the state, the identity and the impact of these issues on the foreign policy approaches. Based on an appropriate theoretical framework, using the principles of constructivism school with emphasis on environmental factors and cultural resources, values and norms, the authors explain how to plan the formation of identity in contemporary Iran’s foreign policy. The central idea of the paper is that Iran's foreign policy orientation has profoundly influenced by the identity of the approaches, however, the weakness or absence of civil society makes the government’s define identity through the political elite rather than logical interaction with the nation. Such a process has severe effects on Iran's foreign policy and caused losing national interests in some cases.