درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Tourist destinations are selected by tourists based on various factors. One of the most important factors is tourist destination security. The study aims to investigate the role of security in the development of rural tourism. The methodology is descriptive-analytical. The statistical population includes 194 tourists from eight villages of Torqabeh and Shandiz County, which selected through the Cochran formula. A survey containing Likert- type scales were used for data collection. The reliability of the questionnaire was measured through Cronbach Alpha, which is acceptable. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS and Pearson Correlation test, One Sample T-test and Linear Regression, and VIKOR model. The results indicate that the security variable has a strong direct relationship with the tourism development variable (Coefficient = 0.713). In other words, security positively influences rural tourism development. In addition, the results of VIKOR model reveals that there is a different level of security for tourists in 8 tourist villages of the region; Jaghargh, Kang, and Abardeh villages are in good condition, but Noqondar, Anbaran, and Zoshk villages are at lower level in terms of tourism security and Zoshk village is at the lowest level in terms of tourism security that for the development of tourism in these villages should be considered by the authorities. 

What broke out as the Arab Spring in Tunisia in 2010 stroke Egypt and shed its light on the Middle East, including Syria. During the first few days of demonstrations in Syria, the spring turned into a bloody fall and a full-scale civil war. Political-security crises and economic and social problems that had dominated the country during Assad's family rule left the state in deep defeat. Meanwhile, the arena of war turned into the scene of conflict between different political forces and their regional and international supporters, caused Syria to encounter immense foreign intervention. In this regard, this article attempts to figure out the answer to this question, "What are the causes for the Syrian state of failing during 2010-19?" The authors hypothesize that "the state in Syria has failed since the beginning of the protests due to persistent social, economic and political-security crises that led to the militarization of the country by the opposition and insurgent groups." The findings also indicate that the Syrian state faced historical crises after 2010 in economic imbalance and decline, demographic and environmental pressures, political-administrative corruption, and weak public services, which deepened after 2011, and it spread to other areas such as ethnic-religious violence.

Human life is tied with space through spatial emotions and the sense of place. Although existence of spatial emotions plays a vital role in the creation of space and in some ways reflects the presence, tale, culture, and feeling in the place and space and in this way assists man in there, in some situations this issue can lead to some challenges which are rooted in discriminative approaches that divide humanity into "us" against "others". In the critical human geography and critical geopolitics, scholars mentioned numerous factors which are influential in this dividing. One of the main factors which plays a significant role in this process is "geographical imagination" which obtains semi-logical reasons for a group of individuals and some states and powers to exclude other social, political, and ethical groups from "us". This subject can influence people and encourage them to ascribe wrong facts to individuals who are categorized as "others" and misattribute their spaces and places as dangerous locations. This spatial approach, consequently can result in labeling some spaces as "spaces of fear" and through this generates a wide range of social, economical, political and spatial problems and restrictions for individuals who are considered as "others or them".

Although the goal of all regional organizations is to strengthen cooperation between member states, in some cases there are apparent or hidden rivalries in minor or major levels, which sometimes leads to stagnation and inefficiency of the regional organization and hinders effective cooperation. The need for cooperation in South West Asia to benefit all developing countries in the region became the main driver for the foundation of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) in 1985. This study aimed to identify the areas of rivalries among the member states of this organization resulting lack of cooperation and success, from a political geography and geopolitics point of view. Contexts of rivalries classified into four political, economic, cultural, and geopolitical factors containing eighteen sub-variables. The results showed geopolitical, political, cultural factors, and economic factors respectively have a positive and significant effect on rivalries in ECO

The theory of the Buzan’s regional security complex is one of the most important theories of regional system analysis. But the theory has some shortcomings in the analysis of regional systems such as the Middle East. This article seeks to illustrate and reform those shortcomings with a fundamental theoretical and explanatory approach. This can also provide common variables for scrutinizing the regions all over the world.  In this way, it is argued that it is need and necessary adding one more variable called "problematic" to the regional security complex theory. Also It is argued that, due to the specific characteristics of each region, it is necessary to consider the other particular variables of each region. Since this study focuses on the regional system of the Middle East as a case, it is also necessary to examine two other variables, the "individual" and the "structure of the international system".

This study focuses on the democratization in Iran from 1909 to 2013. I show that Iranian society experienced four waves of democratization. I argue that although Iran has experienced long-run processes of democratic change, the country has not yet been able to establish a democratic system. Meanwhile, these long-run processes of democratic change have led to long-lasting institutional change, realizing some of the minimum criteria of the transition process, including periodic elections. I set out a theory by which democratization increases parallel to the degree of socio-economic development. Importantly, I argue that successful democratization hinges on political elites strategically choosing to refrain from repression. The strategic choices made by the élites determine the main process of the transition stage. I use a novel dataset collected from 33 parliamentary and 11 presidential elections. Using multiple linear regression model, I find that socio-economic development and elite agency explain 0.42 percent of the variation in electoral participation and 0.62 percent of the variation in electoral competition. When elites decide to repress oppositional forces, the democratic transition index decreases by an average of 13.93 units.

One of the issues discussed in geopolitics is the role of international straits (canals); as such, it is of great importance to investigate their geopolitical and strategic role. It is because the straits are the places of distribution of power, where the competition of governments is very evident in using the potential of geographic space to achieve greater benefits and ultimately to gain power in international relations. Even in some cases, countries not located around the straits enter many ways in order not to lag behind other countries. That is to say, there is a kind of conflict and competition between countries over the use of straits, especially the countries bordering the strait. Therefore, the strategic straits play a decisive role in the power of nations and their fate and also in the foreign policy of the coastal states along with the balance of regional and global power, as a result, their study is essential for political geographers and geopoliticians. One of the most important straits in the world is the Malacca Strait whose investigation strategically and geographically provides important points. Using descriptive-analytical method and also based on statistics and figures for plotting diagrams in this paper, it has been tried to study the role, geopolitical features, and importance of Malacca Strait for coastal states and conditions as well as factors causing challenges and crises for the strategic role of the strait. According to the results, as one of the major international straits, the Malacca Strait has strategic potentials in the regional and global arena and coastal governments need to rely on targeted and strategic plans to combat the challenging processes in this strait<strong>.</strong>