Comparative Study of Cultural Diplomacy and the Islamic Republic's Discourse

The purpose of the present research is to compare the relationship between the Islamic Revolution's discourse and cultural diplomacy based on the discourse analysis model. In this regard, the research aims to find an answer to this main question: How could the Islamic Revolution implement an active foreign policy in the regional and international sphere using its soft power and cultural diplomacy? The research relies on the hypothesis that the Islamic Revolution has implemented an active role in the foreign policy relying on globalism, community-centeredness, justice seeking, and opposition to secularism (as the tools of its soft power and cultural diplomacy). The results indicate that the Islamic Revolution's discourse by using its soft power and cultural diplomacy could follow active foreign policy in the regional and international realm. With the Islamic Revolution, we witness the emergence and manifestation of a cultural state that, due to the soft power criteria, seeks to extend its signs regionally and globally. With its essence of soft power, the Islamic Revolution's discourse transformed power relations from vertical to horizontal while they aimed to achieve cultural hegemony by the creation of otherness against international actors.