The Impact of Political Elite's Strategic Culture on Foreign Policy Behavior of the Islamic Republic of Iran; The Development of the Role of the Mission-oriented Government

Political elites of different strategic cultures, in similar situations in the international arena, practice different foreign policy behavior. In fact, different norms in the strategic culture of governments cause different perceptions of similar realities. Accordingly, the norms that shape the strategic culture of the Iranian political elite influence the foreign policy behavior of the country. The question, however, is how the foreign policy behavior of the Islamic Republic of Iran is affected by strategic culture. The main question of this article is how has the political culture of the political elite influenced the foreign policy of Iran? The researchers hypothesize that the specific norms of the political elite's strategic culture have shaped the national role of the mission-oriented state for the IR, and accordingly, have followed the behavioral indices of independence, transnationalism and revisionism in Iranian foreign policy. The theoretical framework of this paper is a combination of constructivism theory and strategic culture approach and has used qualitative deductive content analysis to understand the strategic culture of the IRI political elite.