درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Since the advent of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the country has been continuously subject to severe sanctions by the Western countries, especially the United States. In all these years, the U.S. sanctions did not affect Iran’s economy much, due to the fact that the two countries have no formal relations and as a result, their economies are not, by any means, interdependent. However, Iran’s economy has been reliant on extensive interactions with the European countries; the EU sanctions against Iran since 2011, therefore, have harshly affected Iran’s economy and caused adverse social impacts on Iranian lives. In the shadow of Iran’s dark image in the eyes of the world, one issue that has remained overshadowed by the discussions on the impact and effectiveness of the sanctions, is the severe human rights crises left by the EU sanctions. The key question is what have been the human rights and humanitarian consequences of the EU sanctions for Iran, and how serious have these consequences been for the country? As the author argues in this paper, EU economic sanctions against Iran are considered violations of the three main generations of human rights and are therefore unwarranted. Given this, the resumption of sanctions since 2018 would lead to a human rights disaster in Iran. The effect of these sanctions will not affect the Iranian government, but the Iranian civilians, especially the vulnerable, which will undermine their human dignity.

The UK’s departure from the EU is a pivotal moment in the history of Europe. The United Kingdom and the European Union has a longstanding relationship going back to 1973; however, against all expectations, in a referendum on June 23, 2016, the British people voted to leave the EU. According to the referendum result, more than 51.9% of the voters voted to leave. There is a hypothesis that British national identity can be the source of UK hostility to European integration. The main question to be posed here is that, how the unique formation of British identity drove the majority of people to vote in favour of leaving the EU in the 2016 referendum. In order to achieve this objective, Social Identity Theory has been applied as the main theoretical framework. Moreover, this study employed a qualitative methodology, and data was gathered from the existing survey polls such as Ipsos MORI, Eurobarometer and British Social Attitudes (BSA) surveys. The findings of this paper indicated that British identity has not been Europeanised as much as other European countries yet, and Britain’s weak sense of European identity was a key contributor to the Brexit vote.

By withdrawing from Afghanistan, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended in the 1990s. Throughout that decade, western governments forgot the people of Afghanistan. But the 1998 attack on the U.S. interests in Africa and al-Qaeda attacks of the September 11, 2001 reintroduced the foreign aggression of the Western governments’ coalition against Afghanistan. In the late 2001, NATO countries led by the United States brought down the Taliban regime. Concomitantly, the UN conducted a conference in Bonn, Germany in which political and paramilitary groups agreed to form an inclusive government without presence of the Taliban. The Bonn Agreement contents show that most of its principles are based on the doctrine of Liberal Democracy. Accordingly, in most of the ratified articles of the Eighth Constitution of Afghanistan the doctrine of liberal democracy is reflected. In a country where many political regimes and systems were experienced, the effectiveness of Liberal Democracy doctrine was expected. Meanwhile, Liberal Democracy faced challenges and nation-state building development process witnessed deficiencies. The present paper uses systemic analysis of the liberal nation-state (system input, policy design, policy implementation, evaluation and outcome) to respond the research question. The question is, how have the nation-state building process and political development in Afghanistan been affected by the Bonn Agreement and liberal democracy doctrine? And has that led to the deficiencies in nation-state building and political development in the country? Hypothetically, nation-state building and political development in Afghanistan based on the Bonn Agreement suffered from deficiencies due to the following reasons: disregarding the historical-traditional contexts of Afghanistan, the weak presence of liberal democrats in power, disregard for the demands of the fragmented society, the continuation of nationalist policies, and the incorrect public-private divide in the liberal structure of democracy.

The present study was conducted to investigate how Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from Iran’s nuclear deal on May 8, 2018 has been framed in political cartoons published in French and Iranian media. In this paper, a thematic analysis of published cartoons available on Google images from May 8, 2018 to June 8, 2018 was conducted in both French and Farsi. Five categories of news frames identified by Semetko and Valkenburg (2002) were applied on selected cartoons to observe how these frames are used on political cartoons in French and Iranian news outlets. Findings of the study showed that withdrawal of Trump from Iran’s nuclear deal has been framed mostly as a threat for France and has been considered in a bilateral perspective between USA and France. For the Iranian press the withdrawal is mostly considered as a result of Trump’s mental instability and P5+1 inaction.

The purpose of this article is to describe the extensive military buildup of the United States in these regions during George W. Bush presidency (Jan 20, 2001 to Jan 20, 2009) and suggest the reasons for it. Since there were also U.S. bases in the two Caucasian states of Azerbaijan and Georgia, they are included in this study as well. The countries of these strategically important regions are not only significant for their vast oil and gas reserves but also they are seen as actual markets for American goods and services. Moreover security issue seems to be important as well. Similar to the threats posed to the security of Iran from the US presence in these regions.

In view of the EU’s position in international policy arena and its evolving foreign relations with I.R.I, this research first attempts to elucidate the background of EU-I.R.I foreign relations as well as the EU foreign policy towards Iran and then proceeds to address the importance of Iran for the EU. Efforts have also been put into giving an account of the US role in convergence and divergence of such relations followed by examination of the EU and the Middle East, Iran and WMD as well as issues of human rights and democracy in Iran-EU relations. However, due to interruptions in discourse making in all fields of Iran-EU foreign relations, it seems that these two important actors have not utilized the available opportunities in political terms with significant impacts on their bilateral commercial and economic ties.

Russia's foreign policy has undergone many changes in the last decade. Putin's policies have continued until 2021 and he has changed toward a pragmatic approach to dynamism and initiative in regional and international developments. The Various factors have been influential in this direction. The Regional convergence in the near abroad has always been a priority for Moscow. Russia has tried to use the political, security and economic potential of the Eurasian region in geopolitical rivalries. One of the developments in recent years is the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union, which can play an important and effective role in advancing Russia's foreign policy goals. This study seeks to answer the question of how effective the Eurasian Economic Union will be in achieving Russia's foreign policy goals. What are its prospects and challenges? And what opportunities can be imagined for the cooperation of the Islamic Republic of Iran with this economic union? The theoretical framework of the research is based on the theory of neoclassical realism. This theory considers the factors of domestic, regional level and the structure of the international system in evaluating foreign policy. The research method is descriptive-analytical and uses documentary and library information and data.