International Journal of Political Science
Volume:2 Issue: 1, Winter-Spring 2012

Political novel is one of the kinds of Persian Literature with special factors, which are different from other contemporary story writing styles.  These types of stories are more accommodated with critical discourse analysis (CDA) among other methods of novel analyses compared to other types, because of their specificity and unique quality of and their close relations with society and political events. One of the approaches used in surveying these types of stories is the use of the framework of text and met text with the best and the most effective approach, i.e. that of Norman Fairclough who surveys a text in three levels of description, interpretation, and exploration. It has to be mentioned that the novel of “Unsecured Existence” written by Afshin-e Khorram is one of the political novels written after the Islamic Revolution.  The writer tries to survey, interpret, and criticize the main and influential political events of Iran with emphasis on the psychological issues of the characters on the basis of CDA and to present the projected elements like semiotics of the elements like, Subject, Pictures and Descriptions of the characters of the story, the Narration procedure, Plot, and the Theme of the story.

Covenant is a political Oath of Loyalty and agreement whose roots are found in tribal Pagan Arabs, and by the appearance of Islam especially in political tradition of the prophet(s) and Imam Ali (A) it was accepted as a legal- political institution. Rereading of this tradition shows that the formation of the prophet’s governance in Medina and the access of Imam Ali (A) to the political governance occurred through the public covenant with people and the tribe representatives.  This article intends to investigate the objective extension of the covenant in the political tradition of the prophet of Islam and that of Imam Ali, and concludes that first of all oath of loyalty was the crystallization of the idea of people’s presence in the political domain, and was considered as backbone of the acceptance of political system of Islam, and secondly, oath of loyalty without having a minimum role in the divine sainthood of the prophet and the Imam, was, practically and officially accepted.

Bill Clinton, the ex-president of the United States of America at the end of his two presidency period stated that one of his most important successes was the link between internal economy and the foreign policy of the country.  Some general conclusions can be derived from this statement, which include the following and which make the hypotheses of this article: 1- Economic relations are necessary conditions for the political relations, 2- The powerful economic relations have influenced political relations, 3- Economic relations can synchronize political and foreign relations and in one way or another process the policies related to production, exchange of goods, services, and investments, 4- Economic diplomacy uses the economic resources to organize relations and changes in the behavior of countries in a wide range.  These new economic performances in the domain of foreign policy are the outcomes of International and local developments during the last two decades which has prioritized economic policies over other diplomacies. Economic diplomacy is the observant of two fundamental developments related to mentioned basic developments.  First, these governments are no longer the only actors in the field of diplomacy, but rather other supra and super national and transnational organizations enter the global domain more powerfully and day by day. Second, changes in the traditional performances and constructs of governments are unavoidable for preserving physical and psychological security of the citizens and preservation of the independence and integrity of governments.  The questions raised by the researcher is that whether the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been able to make use of great economic capacities of the country along with preservation, empowering and expansion of national security and national interests of the country with updating the policies, guidelines, and operationalizing them, according to international changes and developments.

The interpretability of Machiavelli’s political thought relates, in the most part, to the concept of virtue and its dimensions. In Western thought, this concept has had continuity and has reached the Renaissance and Machiavelli’s times. In the Roman and Medieval tradition, philosophical, verbal, religious and even literary and historical approaches were dominant in the clarification and explanation of this concept. However, with Machiavelli, we witness a break in the sense and status of this concept. By confining the concept of virtue in the realm of politics and releasing it from the bounds of the ancient thought, Machiavelli could delineate a novel but supported view backed by historical evidence and kingship experiences, and provide the prince and government with new operational possibilities. The present paper investigates the process of transformation and formation of the concept of virtue by Machiavelli based on a conceptual framework taken from his and his commentators’ works. The results reveal that the new concept of virtue has a qualitative and a quantitative dimension each with certain aspects. Successful political act is actualized through simultaneous consideration of both dimensions of virtue.

The unity of two Atlantic sides from the birth date up to now passed too many ups and downs and now on it remains as one of the satiable and long life unity. After the 11 SEP, there were many tensions and challenges among the two Atlantic sides which face the future of this unity into the doubts and suspicions. From this point of view the existing and expansion of the NATO could be mention as a virtual challenge to the international relation Theory. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, two ways of thinking and ideology about NATO were raised. Neo - realist  perspective , dissolution of NATO, Neo - liberalist perspective, the continuation of NATO and the expansion of it to the East but with some new geographical and topical change. With this regard, this paper tries to look to the cause of this continuation and the existing philosophy of NATO. The two perspective of Neo-realism and Neo- liberalism with the strategy of the NATO expansion to the east will be explained and analyzed.

The “City of God” as the most prominent work of St. Augustine can be considered a good link between the Christian and Greek philosophical tradition.  He argues that the purpose of human Justice, surrendering to order, can be considered relatively a type of human justice.  St. Augustine, like many of the philosophers before him, stress that the ultimate goal of Peace for the human being is the universe, and hence, all the creatures’ natural instinct is to preserve the essence of life and interest in continuing to seek peace. Thus, the aim of every society is peace, and peace in society consists of people agreeing to have a relationship with each other, in regularity.

Internet has found an increasing role in the politics, during the last decade. Today, terms like digital democracy, Internet elections, Internet advertisements (propaganda, social- political Web logging in the internet has become common terms.  Internet is getting replaced for the traditional media in politics. The interactive characteristic of this media has changed it to an unrivaled instrument for political propaganda and spread of supporters.  One of the most important domains getting influenced by this media is the election.  Parties and candidates have inclined to use this instrument to succeed in the elections. Because of this importance, researchers in politics are also, increasingly investigating on the effect of this media in politics.  Presidential election of the 2008 of the America is considered as a turning point because of its use in propaganda and election preparation.  In this article an attempt is made to explore how Obama used this media, purposefully, to get over his republican competitor.