The Real Issue Is Iran's Emergence as a Regional Power

As the confrontation between the West and Iran over uranium enrichment comes to a head, the internal confrontation in Iran between the partisans of divine sovereignty, allied with the Revolutionary Guard, and popular sovereignty continues to simmer.
In this section, the first president of the Islamic Republic, a leading cleric of the opposition, the Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and a former British intelligence agent ponder what lies ahead.     

Iran at the Crossroads

As the confrontation between the West and Iran over uranium enrichment comes to a head, the internal confrontation in Iran between the partisans of divine sovereignty, allied with the Revolutionary Guard, and popular sovereignty continues to simmer.
In this section, the first president of the Islamic Republic, a leading cleric of the opposition, the Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and a former British intelligence agent ponder what lies ahead.     

I Support Ayatollah Khomeini's Republicanism

As the confrontation between the West and Iran over uranium enrichment comes to a head, the internal confrontation in Iran between the partisans of divine sovereignty, allied with the Revolutionary Guard, and popular sovereignty continues to simmer.
In this section, the first president of the Islamic Republic, a leading cleric of the opposition, the Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and a former British intelligence agent ponder what lies ahead.     

Sanctions Will Only Bolster Iranian Regime

As the US prepares new sanctions to stop Iran form obtaining a nuclear weapon, the partisans of popular sovereignty in the “green movement” continue to battle with the partisans of divine sovereignty fortified by the Revolutionary Guards. What does the “green movement” want? Will the regime be successful in crushing it? Will sanctions only bolster the clerical/military alliance instead weaken it? The first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran and several top reformist scholars address these issues.     

Manifesto for Iran's Green Movement

As the US prepares new sanctions to stop Iran form obtaining a nuclear weapon, the partisans of popular sovereignty in the “green movement” continue to battle with the partisans of divine sovereignty fortified by the Revolutionary Guards. What does the “green movement” want? Will the regime be successful in crushing it? Will sanctions only bolster the clerical/military alliance instead weaken it? The first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran and several top reformist scholars address these issues.     

Why a Manifesto?

As the US prepares new sanctions to stop Iran form obtaining a nuclear weapon, the partisans of popular sovereignty in the “green movement” continue to battle with the partisans of divine sovereignty fortified by the Revolutionary Guards. What does the “green movement” want? Will the regime be successful in crushing it? Will sanctions only bolster the clerical/military alliance instead weaken it? The first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran and several top reformist scholars address these issues.     

A Harsh Crackdown Is Coming in Iran

As the US prepares new sanctions to stop Iran form obtaining a nuclear weapon, the partisans of popular sovereignty in the “green movement” continue to battle with the partisans of divine sovereignty fortified by the Revolutionary Guards. What does the “green movement” want? Will the regime be successful in crushing it? Will sanctions only bolster the clerical/military alliance instead weaken it? The first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran and several top reformist scholars address these issues.     

The Iran nuclear deal: winning a little,losing a lot

Iran’s nuclear programme had for more than a decade become a controversial issue between Iran and the West; it had even threatened to develop into a military confrontation between Teheran and its arch adversary, Washington. The issue was finally resolved in an agreement, after more than a year of negotiations, between the two sides in Geneva in July 2015. This was hailed as a ‘breakthrough’ and a ‘win-win’ for both parties. It is argued here that the nuclear deal has made Iran’s nuclear programme almost inoperable, and pointed out that many members of Congress are vehemently against the deal; the next administration may not honour it or may revise it. The high costs of sanctions against Iran to the sanctioning countries are also examined, with a comparison made between the meagre concessions that Iran will get and the huge concessions that the West will receive under the deal. Furthermore, Iran has acceded to very intrusive inspection of some of its military sites. It is contended that, if the Iranians hope the agreement will soon bring about the resolution of other thorny regional and international issues that exist between Teheran and Washington, they are very likely to be disappointed.     

Electoral theocracy and hybrid sovereignty in Iran

Post-revolution Iran is uniquely based upon the contradictory principles of divine and popular sovereignty but with ultimate authority delegated to jurists. At the same time, the theocratic basis of clerical dominance is rooted within a pluralistic and decentralised theological tradition peculiar to the Shiite establishment. Despite the tutelary institutional arrangements engineered by the ruling clergy, elections have generated unexpected outcomes and unleashed power and policy shifts. Emphasising the political dynamic generated by elections, this paper examines the uncertainties stemming from electoral processes that have been constructed by conflicting electoral and theocratic principles. In developing the concept of electoral theocracy, the paper highlights the paradoxes underpinning the hybridity of Iran’s clerical and electoral authoritarian system of governance. These hybrid features have remained largely neglected in the literature on electoral authoritarian regimes.     

The paradox of Turkish–Iranian relations in the Syrian Crisis

Abstract

Iran and Turkey have competed for regional power projection in Syria and sought through cooperation to find a peaceful end to the conflict in the Astana talks, while also at the same time confronting each other in Idlib province via proxies. This simultaneity of competition, cooperation and confrontation in the Syrian Crisis presents a picture of a relationship that is riddled with contradictions and is in effect a paradox. The question that must be asked is, how can we understand this puzzle of competition, cooperation and confrontation in Turkish–Iranian relations in the Syrian Crisis? International historical sociology (IHS) research brings in discussions on the longue durée, narratives, domestic constraints and, most important, the international which can help decipher this intellectual puzzle. Moreover, the ‘relationality’ of each country’s policies in Syria combined with IHS can help unlock the puzzle of the Turkish–Iranian relationship in the Syrian Crisis and provide insight into the debate surrounding the outbreak of war.     

Conceptualising components,conditions and trajectories of food sovereignty’s ‘sovereignty’

This paper addresses the ambiguity of the term ‘sovereignty’ in food sovereignty (FS), intending to clarify the ‘aspirational sovereignty’ that food sovereignty movements indicate as the ideal configuration of power that would allow FS to flourish, or which might help measure movement towards FS. Since aspirational sovereignty is conditioned by existing power relations, the paper elaborates components of ‘actually existing sovereignty’, based on readings of a variety of political and social science literatures. By critically assessing the difference between actually existing and aspirational sovereignty across three geographic–political levels, the paper offers strategic options for constructing FS, and suggests what such an elaborated definition of FS’s sovereignty might offer future research on FS.     

The Strategic Re-view of China’s Territorial Sovereignty

This paper re-examines the status quo of China’s territorial sovereignty security from a strategic perspective.Territory is the most basic physical where-about for a country to express national sovereignty.It is the territory that the national sovereignty derives its physical basis from.In the context of globalization,however, the traditional national territorial sovereignty space is continually squeezed and constrained,but the national territorial sovereignty is still the cornerstone of the international relations.And the inviolability of national territorial sovereignty is still the most important principle of modern international law.In this regard,the primary goal of Chinese national security today remains as a goal to safeguard the unification,integrity and security of China’s territorial sovereignty.At present,the integrity,unification and security of Chinese national territorial sovereignty have yet to be achieved on the strategic level.As one of China’s basic national conditions,it should be taken seriously and paid adequate strategic attentions.     

A Solution to the Crimean Crisis: Egalitarian Shared Sovereignty Applied to Russia,Ukraine and Crimea

Abstract

Sovereignty is intrinsic to conflict in international relations. There are various sovereignty disputes around the world caught between legal and political limbo, the status quo and continuous tension, with various negative consequences for all the parties involved. It is increasingly clear that the available remedies have been less than successful, and that a peaceful and definitive solution is needed. The essay considers how theories of distributive justice, and particularly the hypothetical thought experiments proposed by Rawlsian theory, can be used productively with the concept of sovereignty and explores the possibility of a solution for sovereignty conflicts such as the Crimean case by the application of a Rawlsian methodology.     

The Public Administration Reform in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Reform Process Embedded in a Sovereignty Paradox

As the post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina has turned its interest towards a European Union membership, it has entered an accession process requiring it, among other things, to reform its public administration system. The European Union's involvement within the reform has been placed under critique, as it has been claimed to have placed Bosnia and Herzegovina's sovereignty at risk by presenting contradicting behaviors leading to a sovereignty paradox. By examining the European Union's role in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its possible relations to a sovereignty paradox in the process, the article finds sovereignty paradox indicators to exist along its processes.     

African Green Revolution,food sovereignty and constrained livelihood choice in Mozambique

This article examines the complicated food security agendas of the African Green Revolution and the food sovereignty models in Mozambique. Drawing on fieldwork conducted by the author in Mozambique in 2014 and 2015, the paper analyses how smallholder farmers engage with these two agrarian models. Whereas the literature frequently presents the African Green Revolution and the food sovereignty in oppositional frames, this paper finds that farmers in Mozambique utilize some of the tools that these models offer in complementary rather than competing ways. One such area is the use of commercial hybrid seeds and herbicides by some farmers associated with food sovereignty, an approach that runs counter to food sovereignty’s principles of agroecology. In Mozambique, farmers’ “lived experience” of food sovereignty is more a strategic response to their limited livelihood options, using whatever tools are available to them, rather than a resistance to power.     

Assembling security in a ‘weak state:’ the contentious politics of plural governance in Lebanon since 2005

Lebanon is most often depicted as a ‘weak state’ lacking territorial sovereignty and thus fostering the proliferation of violent non-state actors that generate political instability and regional insecurity. In contrast, this essay explores the dynamics of security politics in Lebanon since 2005 through the lens of hybrid sovereignty. It shows how an assemblage of state and non-state actors has been able to navigate between rival understandings of insecurity, producing at times shared, but still contested, understandings which have sustained a system of plural governance over security that has been able to respond to a shifting geography of threats.     

The Uses of Sovereignty in Twenty-first Century Russian Foreign Policy

Contemporary Russian foreign policy demonstrates a dual approach to state sovereignty, using a Westphalian model of sovereignty outside the former Soviet region and a post-Soviet model inside it. This approach performs three functions in contemporary Russian foreign policy: securing Russian national interests at domestic, regional, and international levels; balancing against the United States; and acting as a marker of ‘non-Western’ power identity in an emergent multipolar order. The conflict between these two models increasingly appears to threaten the last of these objectives, however, and as a means of advancing foreign policy objectives the approach thus appears caught in a self-defeating logic.     

The case of the ‘other India’ and Indian ir scholarship

ir scholarship in India has focused on the borders, territory and sovereignty of the Indian state, overlooking the rich complexity of interior border formation between colonial and independent India. The paper argues that the study of the princely states under the British paramountcy (1858–1947), neglected so far, is valuable to ir scholarship on three grounds. First, in mapping colonial India’s engagement with the outside world, the focus has been solely on British India. The princes were equally participative and perceptive of the outside world. Second, the princely states represent yet another challenge to the Westphalian notion of sovereignty, demonstrating the limited capacity of European categories to understand the ‘non-West’. Third, incorporating the paramountcy system in the genealogy of sovereignty of the Indian subcontinent offers a fresh account of border construction inside the state.     

Iran's nuclear programme and the west

Judged by the media reports and statements by US officials in recent months, the USA is seriously considering, or at least thinking about, taking military action against Iran, if it refuses to forgo its legal right to enrich uranium for its nuclear energy programme, which Washington claims is a cover for making nuclear weapons. Iran denies the allegation. The effects of such an attack on Iranian society and the political ramifications beyond Iran's borders are discussed and analysed here. The irony of the present dispute between the West and Iran is that, for three decades up to the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Europeans and Americans helped, in fact earnestly encouraged, Iran in the development of its nuclear programme. The article explains the reasons for the failure of talks between Iran and the European trio to resolve the issue. It argues that, even if the question of Iran's nuclear programme were resolved, the 27-year conflict between the two countries would be unlikely to end in the near future. For Washington the name of the game is ‘regime change’ in Iran, either through military means or through fomenting internal chaos, hoping for implosion. But considering the political and military difficulties that Washington is experiencing in Afghanistan and Iraq, achieving either of these options is highly problematic.     

Iran and Turkey: not quite enemies but less than friends

The rise and subsequent erosion of friendly relations between Iran and Turkey was a result of their regional ambitions. While Turkey had long seen its secular system as presenting an alternative to Iran’s Islamic ideology, the alignment of their regional interests facilitated a rapport between the two states in the first decade of the twenty-first century. However, the Arab Spring proved divisive for this relationship as each state sought to advocate its model of government and secure a leadership role in the Arab world. The war in Syria widened the divide, as Iran’s long-standing support for the Bashar al-Assad regime could not be reconciled with Turkey’s desire to see President Assad out of office. Using a close reading of Persian and Turkish sources, the authors will analyse the Iran–Turkey divide, focusing specifically on how the Iranians have portrayed it as a clash of civilisations, citing Turkey’s so-called ‘neo-Ottoman’ ambitions as the primary cause.