درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Having deep historical roots, the relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of India have been shaped by a multitude of factors, encompassing domestic, regional, and international developments. The influence of major powers on the contemporary ties of these two countries stands out among the international factors. Drawing on the analytical framework developed by Erzsébet N. Rózsa (2021), this paper aims to examine the role of the United States (US) in transforming the dynamics of Iran-India relations. The central argument put forth is that the foreign policy behavior of both countries towards each other in recent years is driven by national strategic interests rather than historical connections. The study employs a three-tiered analysis, examining the bilateral, regional, and global levels. Each level focuses on particular prominent aspects, such as trade flows and the energy market, developments in Southwest Asia, and the nuclear issue, respectively. This article contends that at all three levels, the importance of forging a strong bilateral relationship between India and Iran cannot be overlooked, given their numerous converging interests. However, the US foreign policy towards Tehran, notably through the maximum pressure campaign initiated by former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden’s failure to reverse unilateral sanctions, has indeed had a significantly detrimental impact on the ties between the two countries in the post-JCPOA period.

To strengthen and perpetuate the discourse of the Islamic Revolution, familiarity with its intellectual foundations and goals is essential. This article employs Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory to argue that before the Islamic Revolution, Iranian political discourse was centered around the idea of “Sultanism.” However, this dominant discourse was challenged by two intellectual realms: religious and intellectual. In religious thought, Imam Khomeini’s reinterpretation of the principle of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) and his assertion of the incompatibility of Shiism with monarchy rendered his political discourse credible among opponents of Sultanism. In the intellectual domain, while leftist and liberal discourses lost credibility over time, the national-religious discourse of liberal intellectuals (the Freedom Movement) gained traction by better understanding the religious context, aligning with Khomeini’s religious discourse to undermine the neo-patrimonialist narrative. The findings indicate that Khomeini’s discourse, emphasizing social justice, support for the oppressed, and Islamic unity around Velayat-e Faqih, successfully replaced the Sultanism discourse, achieving a level of success that previous religious discourses had not attained.

The traditional conception of sovereign immunity, rooted in the notion of absolute state authority, increasingly conflicts with contemporary demands for justice and accountability. This article proposes a reconceptualization of sovereign immunity through an Islamic political framework that views sovereignty not as an inherent entitlement but as a divine trust (‘amāna’) conditional upon the realization of justice (‘ʿadl’) and the promotion of public welfare (‘maṣlaḥa’). From this perspective, immunity must serve the purpose of protecting legitimate sovereign functions rather than shielding violations of individual rights. By analyzing the evolution from absolute to restrictive immunity in international law and aligning it with Islamic governance principles, the study argues for a justice-centered model where immunity is granted selectively, contingent upon the sovereign’s adherence to ethical and legal obligations. This trust-based understanding ensures that sovereignty remains a mechanism for the preservation of human dignity and the prevention of oppression (‘ẓulm’), rather than a barrier to accountability. The article advocates for a normative shift toward recognizing sovereign responsibility as intrinsic to sovereign rights, offering a new lens through which contemporary debates on immunity can be assessed.

Justice has long been a topic of interest and concern in human societies and among scholars. Justice can be considered the ultimate goal of government formation and has always been a fundamental necessity for the collective life of humans throughout history. Distributive justice, the focus of this study, oversees the government's responsibilities towards the people and determines the distribution of occupations, positions, and public wealth. The importance of distributive justice lies in achieving the acceptance of the ruling system and the satisfaction of citizens, leading to stability and the de-velopment of society in various dimensions of collective life, ultimately resulting in national pros-perity. This research aims to analytically and comparatively examine the perspectives of Western and Islamic scholars on distributive justice. The research method is of a library nature. The research findings indicate that distributive justice in the writings of various Western philosophers and think-ers can be found in one of the following four forms: distribution based on merit, distribution based on fairness, distribution based on need, and distribution based on the principle of equality. From the perspective of Islamic scholars, distributive justice emphasizes universal equality of humans, main-taining proportionality in everything, rejecting any form of discrimination, respecting all entitle-ments, equality in benefiting from Bait al-Mal, and belief in the equality of humans before the law.

Popper, by proposing the theory of falsifiability as a prerequisite for the scientific nature of theories and hypotheses and by rejecting inductive method as the conventional scientific methodology up to that time, presented a new criterion for distinguishing science from pseudo-science, which sparked much agreement and disagreement. Inspired by the Socratic dialectical method, he affirmed the un-certainty and conjectural nature of theories and beliefs, and by equating reason with criticism, he considered the only method of approaching truth to be through continuous dialogue while observing the principles of liberty, tolerance, and fallibility in a free environment guaranteed by the democrat-ic state he envisioned. The democracy Popper had in mind, contrary to the prevailing interpretation, did not mean rule by the people or rule by the majority but rather stemmed from critical rationality and its foundations such as falsifiability and fallibility, which had a negative rather than a positive character. Popper, through a negative interpretation of how democracy functioned in ancient Greece, particularly during the Periclean era, first regarded the age-old question of “Who should rule?” as fundamentally mistaken and defined the correct interpretation of democracy as the ability to remove or dismiss an undesirable government without bloodshed. He redefined the punishment of exile in ancient Greece as a method of preventing tyranny and despotism stemming from popular-ity, thereby presenting evidence of the negative and deterrent aspect of democracy. In this study, the researcher, based on a descriptive-analytical method, attempts to show the close relationship be-tween the theory of critical rationality and Popper’s theory of democracy based on the main ques-tion and hypothesis.

The sociopolitical role of the ʿulamāʾ is a common element of most of the academic accounts on Shia. The scholars of political sociology of Iran have commonly crafted new theoretical frameworks to explain this unique element role in Iranian society. Here, I present a general framework for the study of the ʿulamāʾ in Iran based on their patronage networks among the political elites, bazar, and grassroots. Apart from their religious functions as spiritual leaders and as the authoritative source (taqlīd) of Islamic rulings, the ʿulamāʾ performed the role of patrons for their networks of clients existed among political elites, bazar merchants, and grassroots. Their religious capital facilitated the ʿulamāʾ with a solid social influence that turned them into a major source of grievance and support for these social networks. In this paper, I start with a critical analysis of the existing literature on Shia ʿulamāʾ, then I present a historical account of the sociopolitical patronage of the ʿulamāʾ which finally helps me to suggest a coherent theoretical framework for sociopolitical analysis of the role of the Shia ʿulamāʾ in the 19th century Iran. In order to social connections in my work, I also relied on the Weberian approach that concentrates on social alliances and group models.

Due to external factors (like sanctions) and internal issues (such as poorly managed privatization and banking), the country's economic performance has been disappointing over the past decade, with economic growth averaging less than 2%, inflation over 20%, and negative 5% fixed capital formation. Consequently, the country now falls into the category of low-income nations in international reports. Additionally, the loss of the golden era of revenues from crude oil sales has increased restrictions on the government's access to programmable financial resources. Therefore, to address these challenges, Iran must reconstruct its trade flows and explore new economic activities, particularly through economic diplomacy with neighboring countries. This effort should also involve defining new areas for economic activities. For this reason, while it is possible to view economic diplomacy through conventional political definitions as a means to enhance a country's standing in the international arena by promoting foreign trade and creating new markets, in our country, economic diplomacy should be regarded primarily as a strategy to navigate the current challenges facing the national economy. Within this context, among other states, Russia is identified as a key partner for enhancing trade. The conclusions of this research identify the most significant trade obstacles between Iran and Russia as follows: A) Inadequate business infrastructure, B) poorly organized foreign trade activities, and C) The complexities of international political economy. Conversely, the principal solutions to enhance trade levels include A) strengthening infrastructure, B) fostering joint investment opportunities rather than solely focusing on exporting goods, C) enhancing the information and marketing sectors, and D) diversifying the range of exported goods.