مجله رهیافت های سیاسی و بین المللی
سال دوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 23، پاییز 1389)

Category of development considered as one of the most important mental and practical preoccupations in the developing countries. Goals or plans of development have indented to create a better life for the members of thirdworld society under the title of plans and samples of development. In the years after the second world war of 1960s Development imagined as the biggest and greatest goal of modernization for non-westerners. After a while and with the negative results of its application, development faced with criticisms theoretically and practically. In years after 1990, critics attacked the “goals” of development from the philosophical and theoretical learnings of post-moderns. In this essay authors also tried to analyze the change of conceptional "Development" to consider it within the post-modern discourse and to study the epistemology of development in the theoretical field of postmodernism.

Surveying the relationship between political philosophy and philosophy as a whole is one of important issues in theoretical system of any philosopher as well as Aristotle. He as an ancient philosopher has a controversial linkages with Platonic metaphysics and politics. Here the author first emphasizes on the role of Aristotle`s social environment in his system of thought, and tries to make a connection between Aristotle`s philosophy and its socio-historical background. Then apart from judging about and criticizing Aristotle`s philosophy, the author tries to make an outline of the roots of Aristotelian political theory. What are the constitutive and normative foundations of individual behavior in Aristotelian view? What are the main elements of Aristotelian system of political theory and its connection with metaphysics or general philosophy? These are the main questions of this article.

This paper wants to survey the cause of collapse of Mohammad Reza Shah in bahman 1357, considering the influence of Prime Minister Amir Abbas Howeyda as a main cause among the various factors such as the role of political culture of sovereign elites The lack of proper political culture among the sovereign political elites has been an obstacle for political development and efficiency of the mechanisms of legal political participation. Political elites didn’t pay attention to the people`s political demands and had a perpetuated competition to seduce Mohammad Reza Shah. So they intensified the king`s pride and sycophantic ethos and drew him to an authoritarian conduct. This resulted in participation crisis and increasing legitimacy crisis. In result of the closure of legitimate and peaceful channels, informal elites tried in violent dismissal of sovereign elites, especially Mohammad Reza Shah.

Imam Khomeini’s political thoughts are increasingly drawing attentions from throughout Iran and the world not only because of his high scholarly status, but because of his political significance and outstanding influence he has had on modern global developments. However, valid methodologies for interpreting his thoughts have not received due attention and this has led to some misunderstandings. This paper introduces some of the methodologies for interpreting and presenting his political thoughts, such as knowledgebased approach, systemic analysis, crisis analysis, interdisciplinary approach, conceptual method, strategic method, and discourse analysis.

As a current immediately formed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Shiite Islam has a political identity. The Shiites claim that the right to be Caliph and the succession of the Prophet has been formed on the basis of sacred texts and the explicit emphasize made by the Prophet himself in the Ghadir Event. But the events that happened after the death of the Prophet were not according to their will. They became the most serious internal opposition within the Islamic Caliphate in terms of theory and practice. The Shiites regarded Omavid and Abbasid Caliphates as an obstacle on realizing their political ideas. Therefore when the Middle East faced the Mongol invasion in the 7th century, they did not attempt to preserve the Caliphate institution. The intersection of Iranians and Shiite's interests in this period of time made them to control the savage nature of Mongols and steer them for their own desires. One of prominent thinkers in this era is Khajeh Nasiradin Toosi. As a symbol of blending two cultures of Iran and Shiism, he played a considerable role in this historical period. Our main aim in this writing is to examine Toosi's political thought and deal with the impact of Baghdad's Fall on forming Toosi's thoughts. Thereby, we will explore the theoretical strength of this prominent thinker of 7th century and examine the historical opportunity gained by Shiites.

As the political thought of Abulghasim Firdausi is mostly concentrated on explanation of Kingdom system of Ancient Iran, the main question of this article is: What is the main aspect of the Kingdom system of Ancient Iran based on Firdausi`s Shahnameh? My hypothesis is that Firdausi has a hierarchical viewpoint about power structure. He believes that the monarch is the most important figure of the politics. He believes, however, that reason, charisma and popular legitimacy are the main foundations of the monarchical system of Ancient Iran. The theoretical system of Firdausi is so important in several dimensions: First, his power logic can find answers for some of the perennial questions of political thought; second, He combined two different ages i.e. Ancient Iran and Islamic Iran; Third, He paid serious attention to the role of reason in statecraft; Forth, His Shahnameh was the product of the conflict between Iranians and the political hegemony of the caliphate; Fifth, He showed the fundamental contradiction between Persian and Arabic languages. In this article we will try to have a glance on these issues based on our question and hypothesis.

Futures Studies as a multidisciplinary study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and tries to determine the likelihood of events and trends which shape the future political changes and make it possible to achieve the preferable image of the future. In this paper the author tried to explain the necessities of applying futures studies in political science, specifically by using Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) method. CLA facilitates for political science researches to apply integral epistemology based on empirical, interpretive and critical paradigms. At the end it has been tried to show how CLA can be used in political science, analyzing the Islamic Revolution of Iran as a case study.

The Security Council is the most important international organization that is responsible to international peace and security, according to article 24 of UN Charter. Now, Current combination of Security Council refers to balance of power in the year after the Second World War. The combination doesn’t cope with Current situation of the world and the situation of international relations. In this paper, the author tries to study restrictions in this field. According to the result, the reform of UN Security Council is not so easy because of political realities. Although, due to some factors, Security Council is very important as an international organization with large duties in the field of international peace and security.