فصلنامه مطالعات راهبردی
سال ششم شماره 4 (پیاپی 22، زمستان 1382)

This article seeks to answer the question that what the factual understanding is and how it is possible. The author’s hypothesis is that in the realist understanding, ‘causal explanation’ takes precedence over the ‘description’ (as is common in the hermeneutic outlook) and over the ‘prescription’ (as is prevalent in logical positivism). This article has chosen Hobbes’ Leviathan as the classical example of realist analysis and has founded its arguments on that everlasting work and explained them. On this ground, initially the key teachings of the realist school are described in the context of four categories, namely the conviction and truth, definition of positions based on power, according priority to political morality, and granting independence to the sphere of political action, and then methodological requirements of realism are offered. The author, in this section, refers to materialism, analysis and synthesis of statements, nominalist semiotics of concepts and finally the definition of conditions according to their antitheses, and concludes that Leviathan is though the most important reference in the modern political science, the book fails to deal with such issues as how such facts like national interests and the Leviathan’s interests are distinguished and separated. Other facts include how savage and wild human beings conclude and enforce a contract, and more importantly, whether the rationalist reason is reliable in justifying all human behaviors.

In his relative deprivation theory, Ted Robert Gurr is on the belief that if any obstacle is created to the way of the people’s achievement of their objectives and demands, they will become subject to relative deprivation and the natural and biological outcome of such a situation is to harm the source of the deprivation. Thus, relative deprivation is the result of the interval understood by the people as existing between their value expectations (demands) and value capabilities (belongings). But how can we achieve the psychological variable in relative deprivation? To answer this question and to assess the relative deprivation theory, Gurr describes this variable as mental in the cases he presents, and furthermore, he refers to the grand and structural variables. Noting this paradox, this article tries to demonstrate that in order to scrutinize relative deprivation, one should explore the people’s mentalities. It should also be mentioned that the study of value capabilities, which is supposed to be conducted in an objective situation, is possible by referring to the mentalities of the actors of collective violence, considering the theory’s focus and subsequent problems arising from its structural outlook. On this basis, it is stressed that in order to evaluate relative deprivation, both the people’s value expectations (demands and oughts to) and their value capabilities (belongings and beings) have to be sought in their mentalities.

The Islamic Republic of Iran's policies in Afghanistan and their outcomes affect considerably other areas of foreign policy at the regional and international levels and as such are of strategic significance. On this basis, this article assesses the Islamic Republic of Iran's foreign policy toward Afghanistan during the 1990s from a strategic viewpoint and studies pathologically the factors influencing the Islamic Republic of Iran's decision-making in Afghanistan including the issues at hand for decision-making, those involved in decision-making, the process of decision-making, implementation of decisions and the outcomes of decisions. In this respect, the author replies to the substantial question that what positive or adverse consequences the Islamic Republic of Iran's polices in Afghanistan have had and what relationship exists between such consequences and decision-making methods in this area. The author continues to describe general outlooks found in the Islamic Republic of Iran's decision-making apparatus toward Afghanistan and re-examines the existing viewpoints regarding the developments occurred following the May 1997 Presidential elections in Iran in this area of decision-making.

The study of the rights of minorities and ethnic groups in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution indicates that despite the absence of a specific and coherent pattern and the failure to make use of mainstream models for the attraction and confirmation of the minorities’ participation in this legal instrument, the rights of the groups in question are referred to and reserved in various ways. In the Islamic Republic’s Constitution, three categories of ethnic group, religious minority and denominational minority have been distinguished, and while the religious minority may be combined with the two other groups, separate rights have been provided for each of them which themselves can be amalgamated. Undoubtedly, the rights of minorities are discussed when there is kind of difference, and most of Iranians and the religious government arising from the Constitution are largely different from the religious minorities. Hence, the designers of the Constitution have paid much attention to the religious minorities whereas the mere ethnic minorities have not been subject to much attention. Apart from the seats reserved for the religious minorities in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, there is a one-article act providing for the respect for their religious rights and performance of their religious rituals. However, religious and ethnic minorities, due to their commonalties in religion, have been regarded as part of the majority Iranian society in terms of social and political rights. Therefore, in cultural domain, their rights for continuing their cultural existence have been sanctioned and the freedom of religious rituals for the Muslim denominational minorities has been respected according to the act in question.

Following the fundamental changes in the structure of the international system because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, many analysts will pay attention to the question of the essential trends that will be included in the agenda for world security. This writing is intended to offer an answer to this question in which the author has proposed the following hypothesis: The world security plan involves two agendas. The first agenda corresponds to the contents of world hegemony and refers to the positive rivalry between the United States and European Union. The second agenda relates to the grounds for the rise of conflicts, and ushers in the entry of the Middle East to the context of security developments in the 21st Century. In order to explain the subject, the author has initially presented two main scenarios which are pursued by the great actors in the stage of international politics (namely the American and European scenarios for the world order) and according to them the lines of conflict have been derived and described. According to this hypothesis, the tendency of the world system to hegemonic structure and heightened political-security tensions in the Middle East form two general phenomena of the 21st Century.

Globalization has brought about significant positive and negative consequences for the human security including military, ecological, economic, cultural and psychological security. This article argues that the negative consequences mainly arise from the neo-liberal interpretations and accounts of the phenomenon rather than from the nature of globalization process. Globalization on the one hand, has resulted in the reduction of wars and military hostilities, increased material advancements, heightened relative welfare and employment, and the growth of diverse convergences, and on the other has caused the proliferation of destructive military technology, growing depletion of the environment, financial instability, cultural degeneration, and diluted social cohesion. In other words, as a result of the process in question, there has been an increase in the non-state supervision over and ensuring the protection of the environment, but the globalized economic mechanisms are highly polluting the environment. As the world capitalism has contributed to the more rapid improvement of welfare in the industrialized countries, but just a few countries enjoy a condition like that of the said countries, and world trade regimes have inflicted much harm on the poor countries. On the other side, worldwide companies and industries have created millions of job opportunities, but the mass transfer of workforce has led to the loss of jobs and fear of occupational insecurity. Therefore, it can be overall suggested that the neo-liberal and new right versions of the globalization phenomenon have affected its security-building aspects and have exacerbated the insecurities stemming from this process.