فصلنامه مطالعات راهبردی
سال هفتم شماره 2 (پیاپی 24، تابستان 1383)

To specify the goals and agenda-setting are among the most important stages and aspects of strategic and national planning. Due to this importance, this article seeks to methodologically and systematically analyze national goals using a conceptual approach. To do this, it initially considers the components of planning at various international, national and supranational levels as a whole or a system. Admitting the presence of different patterns in the location and seniority or inferiority of these components, the author specifies the nature and place of national goals in relation to other components like ideals, values, interests, strategies and so on. Then he tries to classify national ends according to such criteria as timing, division of areas, and resources. The author is of the belief that national goals should be formulated and declared in a general, scheduled, quantitative, transparent, calculable, and logical way consistent with the population’s aspirations and beliefs so that they serve as a connecting bridge between micro demands and objectives, and ultimate ideals and ends.The last part of the article seeks to explain the relationship between the Islamic Republic’s 20-year view and national ends, and clarifies its status among the political system’s overall policies and 5-year development plans. Finally, the author proposes certain directives for the further adaptation of 20-year view’s instrument with the characteristics of national goals.

Religion has always been the strongest factor in the creation of order and stability in various dimensions of socio-political relations. Religious beliefs have ensured the continuity of communities through giving meaning to collective life and regulating group relations. Nonetheless, religion is prone to interpretation. Thus it is the historical root of the formation of different denominations, sects and groups which result in social schism and political instability. In such conditions, the split groups usually seek to create a smaller community from national society and disrupt the process of social integration. This article, while acknowledging the regulatory and integrative functions of religious cults, just examines and explains disruptive effects of religious sectarianism on the process of the establishment of political order and stability from a sociological perspective. This article tests the hypothesis that religious sectarianism is a soft threat to the political stability and constitutes groundwork for the rise of violence in the society.On this basis, sects as the social opposition of the political establishment, play a crucial role in the weakening of political unity and in undermining the foundations of government’s legitimacy. These groups may affect the foreign policy of the state and cause foreign provocation against the existing state.

Chantal Mouffe is among the thinkers who have formulated a political theory after the post-modern storm in which he considers the achievements of post-modernism and the criticisms made on modernity. To Mouffe, the modern reason has to accept its constraints and to regard human subject not as persistence, single, essential, and true but as a changing and fluid, forming creature, product of power relations and the interaction with the constructing other. So, there will not be any authentic identity which ought to be explored, developed and liberated. The product of power relations and interaction with human otherness will negate the adverse role of the other and demonstrate to the human subject that he is always affected by others and probably affect them, and not every thing is pre-existing before him. Therefore, mutual learning should be on the top of the socio-political activists’ agenda for deepened democracy and the establishment of a radical and pluralist democratic society. In this way, certain conditions should be provided so that various different minorities become able to criticize the society and the majority’s beliefs; this will contribute to mutual learning, decline in conflicts and change in the identities in a democratic space. To reach such a conception, we have to view the other as one with whom we do not feel enmity, but we oppose his viewpoints and beliefs, however we respect his right for having a different outlook and proposing it.

Following the domination of Caliphate current especially after its transformation into monarchy, we witnessed the deprivation of the Shii denomination from having a government. Consequently, the pattern of “spoiled government” was introduced as the dominant discourse for the analysis of the conditions and proposing solutions. Although the prevalence of this discourse lasted for a long time due to political circumstances, the rise of the Safavid dynasty provided the grounds for the appearance of a new discourse in the area of the Shii political thinking. The author has described this new discourse as making political power religious. This discourse is founded on three principles including: Principle one: circulation of power which implies the production of soft power and its reproduction within the framework of the Shii political jurisprudence organization. Principle two: circulation of method which indicates the transition of Shii jurisprudents from mere realism to committed idealism.Principle three: circulation in the ideational organization of power which implies the presence of Shii jurisprudents instead of political philosophers in the production of political theory creating or supporting the government.On this basis, the author addresses the reasons for and quality of the Shii jurisprudents’ attention to political power and support for it. Then, he traces and extrapolates the place of security in the new discourse drawing on the main thrusts of political thoughts of scholars such as Mohaghegh Karki, Moghaddas Ardabili, Feyz Kashani, Mohaghegh Sabzevari and Allameh Majlesi.

Constructivism is one of the recent approaches in social sciences and in the analysis of political trends which sits in the middle of rationalist and post-modern approaches. Those who believe in this approach, claim that constructivism can set off the deficiencies found in the two other approaches in the understanding and explanation of national and international policies. That is to say that constructivism links the capabilities of each of these two approaches and eliminates the theoretical conflict present between them. This article examines these capabilities and conflicts in detail and describes different branches of constructivism including the modern and post-modern ones. Moreover, it explains the critique made by constructivist thinkers like Alexander Vent and Kratochville on realism and post-structuralism. The author continues to analyze international politics and the foreign policies of nations from a constructivist perspective and scrutinizes the possibility of extracting a foreign policy theory only from the international politics theory in this approach. Finally, the author is of the belief that since constructivism replaces the instrumental rationality with the proportionality logic, takes advantage of both the neo-real and neo-liberal levels of analysis and considers the interests and objectives of the states subject to the states’ norms and identities and their changes. It is more objective, more scientific and more successful than post-modern and critical approaches in analyzing political events and developments, and can bring about political order and stability in practical realm as well.

This article tests two hypotheses, using the Canadian society as the case study, both of which view multiculturalism in contradiction with social trust. Emphasizing the conflictual nature of multiculturalism, the first hypothesis regards it as a set of political strategies which fragment the society. This hypothesis ignores the fact that multicultural policies have integrated the cultural minorities into the main current of the majority culture within the Canadian society. The second hypothesis is a normative critique of multiculturalism and maintains that the radical types of such policies give rise to the spread of political dissent in the society, thus they should not be evaluated as a factor creating trust. The first part of the article is allocated to the extrapolation of the causes of the tense relationship between trust and multiculturalism. In the second part of the article, it is indicated that multicultural policies in Canada have increased the chances for mutual relations and have helped the cultures to develop common understanding and allegiance. The third part of the article points to multicultural methods and the likelihood of the threat to social cohesion arising from them which results in the dissent of cultural activists. As the author argues, none of them even in their extreme cases justifies the rejection of multiculturalism.