مجله رهیافت های سیاسی و بین المللی
سال پنجم شماره 2 (پیاپی 36، زمستان 1392)

Multilateralism and decision making collective processes in international and regional organizations are among the management strategies that the great powers utilize to gain greater share of control during global and regional conflicts. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are two important multilateral organizations that sought to control violence and divergent processes at regional and global levels. In this context, NATO in comparison to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, has presented formation of a more successful and efficient use of multilateralism in the processes leading to collective decision making and action particularly in the Middle East. In the recent popular and Islamic events in the Middle East and Iran’s nuclear case, NATO is an example of a state-driven initiative towards multilateralism. But the main weight of interactions within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are influenced mostly by Russia and China and has had a small inter-institution influence of multilateralism in comparison to NATO on the two above-mentioned process

Indo-Pakistani conflict is among the most durable and important issues of international system after the World War II. The main question that this article seeks to address is how the conflict has been managed in the fragile situation after their 1998 nuclear tests. This is a key question regarding severity of conflict in the period, particularly in the crises; which have been unprecedented since early 1970s. The article aims to answer the above question in some steps. First, it is tried to provide a theoretical frame based on conflict management theory and methods of conflict settlement. Then, management of the Indo-Pak conflict is studied during three crises: Kargil limit war 1999, great standoff 2001-2, and unfinished confrontation 2008. Lastly, the notes will be summarized.

Energy, as a geopolitical and geo-economic variable, has found a specific status in relations among players, especially the superpowers, in the arena of international post-cold-war system. Moreover, strategic importance has been attached to gain access to energy resources for all hierarchical levels of world powers. Therefore, each of the players is seeking to find an acceptable definition for their energy security position in the world. The energy security geopolitics and future developments in the oil markets and status of governments as one of the most important challenges of international order enjoy a growing importance in economic and political equations. To this end the present paper, under the intellectual positivist atmosphere and by taking advantage of the existing quantitative statistics, is seeking to achieve the process of explaining the position of energy (oil) in strategic relations between the United States and China within the framework of concurrent cooperation and competition pattern.

Mirza Abdulrahim Talibov Tabrizi (1250-1329 A.H) is one of the most prominent thinkers in the era of Iranian constitutional revolution. His political thoughts are described and explained by different approaches, including the historiography of Iranian contemporary thought. In this paper, Talibov’s thought is typologized and analyzed by applying “signifying approach” and “critical realism”. This could give a better understanding of Iranian contemporary political and social thought if two questions are answered, first the kind of conception of “the political”, and then the answer to the question of “What should be done?” in politics, economic, scientific, and cultural domains. The conclusion of this article displays new aspect of Talibov’s thought. At the same time, it shows the effect of gap between practice and theory in his deliberation. Voice reflection, authoritarian, modernization and enlightenment from above, have been heard in the thought of this thinker who can be called “liberty theorist” in the day after Iranian constitutional revolution.

New controversial interpretations of Spinoza`s Opera Quae Supersunt Omnia flourished in post second World War years. During the nineteen century and beginning years of the Twentieth Spinoza`s metaphysics, ethics and politics were dominated by a Hobbesian-Hegelian interpretation. Gradually a critical philosophico-political thought toward Hegel were created in the twentieth-century French philosophy. A group of French anti-Hegelian philosophers introduced an alternative interpretation of Spinozian works, generating a new tradition in Spinozist readings. Spinozist philosophy faced new dimensions. This discursive change contradicted with dominant traditions of French political philosophy. In this article, the author tries to analyze some faces of transformation of Spinozian reading and periods of Spinozian interpretation in twentieth-century French philosophy.

The communicative role of letters in travel writings, especially the travel diaries through the cultural-political discourse of foreign relationship was already used by the historians and politicians. Back from the Qajars’ political-literary discourses, we find diary and travel writing as a chief genre. Although writing of Nasir al-Din shah of Persia (1831-1896) for the first time seems that the published and translated diaries relating to his tours in Europe was simultaneously a way to get familiar and influence power by the foreigners; particularly his diaries of the two visits of England in the colonial time of Queen Victoria (1819-1901) and their economic relations to the Persia, but Nasir al-Din shah wrote nothing about political consequences and economic aspects of his tours. In this paper, by a Foucauldian historic scanning through the Anglo-Persian political, economic and cultural relations, we want to be aware of the untold facts. We also need some parallel references such as other diary from shah’s retinues, histories, documents, and its reflections in the press. So we can solve the inconsistent problems by using both textual and contextual discourse analysis in order to overcome the contradictionsbetween. Now, through reading of such a shocked narration, it is easy to know narrator’s characteristics, interests, suppositions, attitudes, and worries which is made up from exercised power in shah’s political behavior and utterance. Totally the relationships never restricted to the Iranian progressive living style, but it formed the English identity in time of civilization and scientific promotion as well.