Sociological Analysis of Unbalanced Regional Development and the Social Mentality of People in Kurdistan’s Border Regions (Emphasis Placed on Development Plans Following the Revolution)

This research examines the policies and development plans for peripheral regions and measures the social mentality of the people of Kurdistan in relation to the practical policies centered on the 5-year development plans after the revolution.Utilized are the qualitative method of critical discourse analysis and the combined approach of Fairclough-Laclau-Mouffe based on a post-structural approach. In-depth interviews were conducted with government agents, civil activists, and members of the private sector in order to assess the social attitude of the people of the border region of Kurdistan towards policies and development programs.According to the research’s findings, the word “border” in the development plans is more dominated by the duality of “border and security” than by the duality of “border and development,” and the development plans after the revolution are influenced by many discourses that interact with each other in the form of a circle in different layers, so that in the upper layer is the fixed meta-discourse of the Islamic Revolution, and in the middle layer, the variable governmental discourses (construction, reforms, justice-oriented and moderate-oriented) and in the inner layer. There are developmental approaches (development-oriented, government-oriented, security-oriented, and distribution-oriented) that articulate floating signals around their node and create a discourse order that inhibits the development of border regions.Instead of a confrontational and antagonistic approach, an evolutionary approach based on procedural-distributive justice should be adopted for the development of border areas with a focus on regional spatial justice, and for balance and freedom from the deprivation of the border areas, the “center-periphery” structural model must be deconstructed.