The Impact of Iran's Strategic Overlapping Network on Its Regional Diplomacy

Developments in the international system and its boundaries and the increasing intensity of communications within it have led to the ineffectiveness of classic approaches to diplomacy. Hence, the discipline of diplomatic studies needs new approaches such as the network theory. In this paper, the authors try to investigate the impact of Iran’s overlapping network on its regional diplomacy, using the analytical model of overlapping network. They believe that Iran's overlapping network and its structural and internal features have affected its regional bargaining power as well as the logical and physical model of its diplomacy. Also, the environment of the overlapping network has provided Iran’s diplomacy with opportunities and restrictions in achieving national interest and goals. From this perspective, smart network diplomacy is one of the most important and conventional diplomatic systems in the new international system.