decision

One of the vital issues in the establishment and stabilization of the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the sensitive and significant decisions of Imam Khomeini (RA) in various events in the country. The purpose of this research is to investigate the logic of their decisions in the internal issues of the country. The current research is based on the statements and decisions of the Imam (RA) using the "descriptive-analytical" method. The findings of the research are: the decision-making logic of the Great Leader of the Islamic Revolution in the internal issues of the country, which includes the following: the formation of an Islamic government, practice and adherence to the law, expediency, using collective reason and consultation, reconciling politics and Sharia, dealing with opponents and hypocrites and finally, revision of the constitution. The results show that in the view of Imam Khomeini (RA), adherence to the implementation of these factors in important national decisions is very important. Therefore, identifying these factors will help us to have a suitable strategy for rational and constructive decisions for the future of the country.

The aim of this article is to show that theorizing in the discipline of public policy has distinctive characteristics. Like other multidisciplinary (or interdisciplinary) fields, it has various theoretical sources and feeds from other fields in social sciences. Social science disciplines are all theoretically intermingled because they all focus on human behavior, so they can have common theoretical roots. But in any case, the question is, what is the distinctive feature of theories of public policy from other disciplines of social science. In other words, what is the special field of expertise in terms of theorizing? If public policy cannot find its distinctive feature, it will suffer from identity disorder. To overcome this difficulty, we introduce three levels of theories in public policy. The first level includes two main theories, namely policy cycle theory and typology theory, which, in a sense, bring structural theories to the field of policy making. The second level of public policy theories is usually focused on the phenomenon of decision-making in the public sector such as Multiple Stream Framework, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, Narrative Theory, Coalition Theory, Institutionalism Development Theory etc., Even though these theories cannot be considered as exclusive theories of public policy, but they are frequently used in this discipline. The third level is policy theory, or program theory, which includes a set of underlying assumptions of a program, and explains why and how planned activities should lead to predefined goals and objectives through specific variables. Policy theories provide models of intervention in different sector of government. They are indirectly and tacitly extracted from second level of theories. For example, trilaterals model of policy making in labor policy could be referred to Institutionalism Development Theory. In real world policy making in government, what is mostly used is this third level of theory.

In the field of Iran's foreign policy, many books and articles have been written by foreign and domestic thinkers. Studying each of them provides readers with a new understanding. Mohammadreza Tajik in the book "Foreign Policy : The Terrain of non-decision and non_ Management?!" has tried to investigate Iran's foreign policy in the form of radical displacement of discourses and the game of discourses. In other words, in addition to the description, he has also criticized the foreign policy. Although he has been successful in this matter, but due to the changing discourses, he has not provided a solution to solve the harms and issues of foreign policy. Also, in this book, he has focused more on the description of the propositions of the discourse. Idealism, economic pragmatism, and political-cultural pragmatism have been discussed, and the reasons and methods of formation and different institutions and organizations in their creation have been less discussed. Domestic and foreign policy during the reform period has made this book one of the important sources for understanding Iran's foreign policy.

The superiority of modern warfare depends to a large extent on using advanced and emerging technologies in battlefield control systems along with weapons systems, and in this regard, the role of effective command and control system has been proven as one of the leading factors in recent wars. The war gamming has been proposed as a modern method of decision making based on cross-examination of events as well as solving military problems, which will also realize decision making based on operation research and intelligence superiority in command and control.Accepting the fact that war is inherently unpredictable leads us to no relay to any factor as sole factor of success and try to maximize the versatility of our forces, conduct military operations with the conditions and requirements of each conflict. Nowadays commanders of battlefields to meet unorganized (non-pre-defined) growing needs, use a variety of systems such as war gamming to predict what they may encounter on the battlefield, and make the best decision in the face of different battel situations

Discovering the relationship between the two essences of cognition the brain and mind are essential for understanding how humans make decisions. Of course, it is a difficult path related to analytical philosophy and cellular and molecular sciences. This article is trying to create a clear picture of these interdisciplinary relationships to understand better the policy maker's brain and mind in making the public policy agenda. The present study considers Kahenman's distinguishing human brain decisions into intuitive and logical systems. The allocation of 95% share to the intuitive system is a design bias and needs to be redefined and an optimal model based on interdisciplinary studies suggested in this article.  Scientific findings from different studies in the field of cognitive neuroscience confirmed that the decision process is influenced by determinants such as health and cellular efficiency of the decision maker's brain and their consciousness as well as the functionality of neurosensory receptors and their interconnectivity.  The decision can be formed under the influence of distorted external information from the environment or false internal information of the central nervous system and the resulting illusion. Receiving misinformation can be due to sensory receptors defect, brain injuries, pharmaceutical product or drug abuse. On the other hand, old age and brain damage can lead to diminished or heterogeneous brain neurons, dementia, and loss of identity memories. This type of brain tissue abnormality reduces the brain-mind decision-making capacity, causes cognitive biases, reduces the ability to make correct and timely decisions, or leads to abnormal decision-making. The scope of decision-making disorder can go beyond the individual sphere. In terms of the influence on the policymaker, social and national decisions and policies could be affected and as a result, causing misdirection of the ruling system and development in the country and the world. Testing this hypothesis will require conducting experimental cognitive neuroscience research on the target population of policymakers.

Ernesto Laclau, the Post-Marxist theorist strives to re-examine problems of Marxism by implementing a Poststructuralist approach and developing discourse theory. Political subject is one of the issues which classic Marxism has always faced with and considering the social and political changes today it has become further complicated. Laclau uses discourse theory for defining and reviving political subject and identifies subject in discourse as “Subject Positions”. With antagonism among discourses and their dislocation the subject goes through an identity crisis and has no choice but to re-identify, and by doing so, the subject is reintroduced as “subject as the distance from undecidability to decision”. In the last step, Laclau’s Populism theory indicates formation of collective and truly political subject which is considered his most important theory. According to the results of this study, Laclau’s theory about subject as the distance from undecidability to decision is the most philosophical part of his theory which engages him in a dialogue with the prominent philosophers of the history and recreates the possibility of talking about subject.

The decision making trend in foreign policy answers how and why a decision is made. Drawing this trend requires the use of an appropriate research method to explain available information and interpret the roles. Despite the limited access to some information on the achievement (Comprehensive Joint Plan of action between Iran with Six World Power), how can we draw the trend of Iran's foreign policy decision-making in this historical event? (Research question and question) This paper aims to introduce the method for the initial drawing of Iran's foreign policy decision making trend by introducing the position of quantitative and qualitative combination of methodology and showing its function and its research merits (research method). The structure of eclectic method in the first phase explains the factors affecting admittance and, in the second stage, provides an understanding of the perception of senior foreign policy decision makers. (The research hypothesis) The author believes that the process of identifying the factors influencing decision making and the way in which those factors are interpreted in the cognitive system of foreign policy decision makers, is the most appropriate method for initiating research on Iran's foreign policy decision making trend. (Results)

An in depth review of US policies on Iran reveals that Congress, the Israeli lobbies, the White House, think tanks and the media are the key players in the country''s foreign policy and a kind of intellectual alignment - there are procedural and interaction. So that the concept of think tanks and processing scenarios justify public functions and role of architects’ sanctions are responsible for the implementation and operation of the sanctions and give them feedback or expert advice about draft bills. In this article we''re going to role of think tanks in America to impose nuclear sanctions against Iran.

In the absence of effective political parties in the Iranian society from the Constitutional Revolution up to the Islamic Revolution, due to its religious origin and social base in society, the religious authority was able to fulfill some functions of the political parties in the society. Although the political functions of the religious authority in Iran have been raised from its religious origin, they are a prominent aspect from activities of this institution. The techniques of exercising power in the religious authority institution are different from those of the active political institutions in the west; however, in a period of political history of Iran, this institution has been able to perform the functions being performed by political parties in western societies. Although it is not the aim of this paper to reduce the role of religious authority institution to the functions of the parties as well as the functions of this institution are far beyond the political parties, the functions of religious authority institution can be investigated by designing a framework about the parties’ activities in western societies.

One of the main objectives of the companies is to attend international markets and expand their activities abroad. In case that selection of the destination country for investment be along with expertise studies, it will be a profitable source for companies. Due to the importance of this topic, numerous institutions are active in the field of risk ranking and risk assessment of different countries that each one focuses on a particular aspect. In this study, affecting factors for investment in foreign countries are formulated according to local experts’ opinions and based on that, the optimized countries for investment have been determined.In the first place, quantitative indices are extracted from library studies and reports issued by international institutions, and qualitative indices affecting the choice of target countries have been determined based on expertise interviews. In the second place, based on 16 indicators derived from the previous step, and by means of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) decision making techniques, 47 selected countries have been compared and ranked. It is worth noting that the 16 indicators are classified into 3 main factors: The ease of action in business, macro economy‘s status and the capital market of the country’ status.

In the twenty-first century man is stepping into the growing transformations’ century and will face more complex and difficult issues. To meet the new century, there is need for new and complex policy decisions and if the policy-making system fails to coordinate with the complex issues and changes of the time, the loss will be inevitable. Accordingly, the overall goal of this research is to provide an optimal decision-making model based on the social decision-making model in governmental agencies. This research wants to indicate the impacts of the participation of stakeholders in decision-making, governing value framework, considering the effects and causes of the problem creation, passing the entire decision-making process based on the social model on decision-making of governmental managers.

One of the most important responsibilities of political leaders is decision-making; decisions that specify the fate and course of political order and maybe can change its essence. With interpretative survey of books and political behavior of Imam Khomeini، it seems that the Theory of Sublimation-driven Rationality in the basis of indicators of protection of religious principles and values، realism، use of collective wisdom and heed of goodwill can present better understanding of the nature of logic of decision-making of Imam Khomeini. Moreover، the type of macro management that Ayatollah Khamenei has as the supreme leader of political order in the basis of Constitution and the related authorities at managing the Nuclear Subject indicates that ideas and results of his general politics is not in the basis of individual profit and loss، but the macro review and non-tactically looking at the Nuclear Subject and at the same time efforts to trust-making by many methods such as international laws and presenting of the Islamic order that reaching to the nuclear bombs is illegal (haram)، is accorded with the theory of Sublimation-driven Rationality Management.

Along with the victory of Islamic Revolution, a fundamental change has occurred in Iran's foreign policy. But neglecting the domain of foreign policy and international relations in the study of the role of political system domain, confront the foreign policy study domain of Islamic Republic Of Iran with special difficulties that in fact leads to the weakness in conceptualization in this domain. With regard to the area of foreign policy analysis and the achievements of this sub-domain, this article aims to answer these basic questions that: what is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s foreign policy decision-making model? Answering this question requires considering different effective levels in the analysis of foreign policy that the present study, examines this subject in three levels of decision-maker, decisionmaking structure and decision-making orientation of foreign policy as main effective elements in foreign policy decision-making and their role in foreign policy decision-making, hoping that it can illustrate the action and decision-making logic and also effective structural and organizational factors affecting on the Islamic republic of iran’s foreign policy.

In recent years, Iran’s nuclear policy has become one of the most important and controversial issues in international relations so that it is being discussed in most international meetings despite the absence of Iran. Some believe that Iran’s nuclear policy and way of decision making about the alternative choices cannot be explained on the basis of existing theories of decision making or analytical paradigm; therefore, there is the need for a new theory and different decision making approach. The present article initially introduces and explains principles and assumption of “cybernetic theory of decision” then it concludes that this theoretical framework has a better explanative ability for examining the nuclear policy of Iran. The authors are of the view that within the framework of cybernetic theory focusing on vital variable of “obtaining nuclear fuel cycle” has been the pivot of Iran’s nuclear policy.

This book makes abundantly clear the sustained freshness of Snyder path-breaking and dauntingly original work, which has long set the agenda for the systematic explanation of foreign policy decisions. Thevery thoughtful essays prepared for the present volume demonstrate dramatically the continued centrality of the issues Snyder and his associates raised more than 40 years ago. Prescient in its focus on the effects on foreign policy of individuals and their preconceptions, organizations and their procedures, and cultures and their values, Foreign Policy Decision-Making is of continued relevance for anyone seeking to understand the ways foreign policy is made. in the end, addresses the evaluation and general explanation of the book and defense of essays in the area of Decision Making.

Foreign policy making should possess proper rationality and intellectualism needed for the foreign relations in the world today because foreign policy making is an important branch of the general policy making for the related decision makers. The importance of decision-making in foreign policy and the role of rationality in decision making are closely related to the principle of proportionality between purposes and the related methods in this respect. Proportionment as one of the conditions for achieving rationality، leads the political elite to choose the best relational choices for the Islamic Republic of Iran in its attempt to make relations with other countries in the world on the basis of the capacities of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Considering that politics is not anything more than a set of decision-making, foreign policy and international politics can be viewed as crystallization of decision-making by the actors of the international system. At this level, decision-making theories evaluate foreign policy by examining the general milieu and parameters of decision-making. This paper draws upon Rosenau's pre-theory model for analyzing the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, for it is a combination of micro- and macro-levels in studying foreign policy. Through this study, it became clear that in four significant decisions made in Iran's foreign policy the variable of international system has consistently played the major role in making of decisions and before the amendment of the constitution in 1989, the individual variable has been the second determining variable. After the constitution was amended, this variable was replaced with the variable of role. Furthermore, bureaucratic and community variables have been at next places.

Decisions made at the international level by states, international organizations or even multinational companies, influencing international community and eventually citizens, are of an undemocratic nature. Because, these institutions are not representative of people. One of the solutions for redressing this democratic deficit, is the participation of citizens and civil society institutions, especially NGOs in the process of international decision-making which is not surely possible without factors such as awareness, information and knowledge. Participation and awareness are mutually influential, constituting the key concept of environmental democracy. Also, the participation of all interested groups on international decision-making enhances the efficiency of the decisions. Given the unconcentrated structure of international law, the legitimacy of international regulations is vital for their effective implementation. Among the ways of the participation of NGOs in international decision-making, we can mention: holding conferences for having access to public views, using the potentials of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), establishing a set of regional consultative processes or roundtables and etc.

The role of intelligence in decision-making refers back to several thousands ago given the importance of the issue. The relationship between intelligence and command in battle fields has at least been recorded five centuries before Christ in the literature on war and strategy; however strategic intelligence and decision-making on national security areas refers to around four to five decades ago. The significance of the issue in strategic circles is now clear and undeniable. The author has tried in this paper to describe the concept of intelligence, strategic intelligence and the process of decision-making in national security arena, and to explain the role of strategic intelligence and its interaction with such a process. Since these discussions are almost unprecedented in Iran, the author tries to reconsider and redefine the firm and close relationship between these elements and to explore their mutual impact on each other as well. By explaining these discussions, the author shows how open and secret intelligence systems in countries influence political and strategic decision-making and by which methods they may be overshadowed by strategic intelligence.

To specify the goals and agenda-setting are among the most important stages and aspects of strategic and national planning. Due to this importance, this article seeks to methodologically and systematically analyze national goals using a conceptual approach. To do this, it initially considers the components of planning at various international, national and supranational levels as a whole or a system. Admitting the presence of different patterns in the location and seniority or inferiority of these components, the author specifies the nature and place of national goals in relation to other components like ideals, values, interests, strategies and so on. Then he tries to classify national ends according to such criteria as timing, division of areas, and resources. The author is of the belief that national goals should be formulated and declared in a general, scheduled, quantitative, transparent, calculable, and logical way consistent with the population’s aspirations and beliefs so that they serve as a connecting bridge between micro demands and objectives, and ultimate ideals and ends.The last part of the article seeks to explain the relationship between the Islamic Republic’s 20-year view and national ends, and clarifies its status among the political system’s overall policies and 5-year development plans. Finally, the author proposes certain directives for the further adaptation of 20-year view’s instrument with the characteristics of national goals.