Author: Nassef Manabilang Adiong

Reflecting the growing influence of Shi‘i Islam experts in determining U.S. foreign policy toward the Muslim world, early in his first term in office Obama appointed Vali Nasr as Senior Advisor to the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Already facing the existing difficulties of developing a workable idea of an Islamic IR theory, scholars, practitioners, and students of IR have however shown little coherent understanding and structured knowledge of Shi‘itology. A field of enquiry in its own right, this used to belong exclusively to a few scholars of Islamic Studies within the Euro-American academia but is increasingly unavoidable for anyone interested in deciphering current Islamic political discourses and the dynamics gradually dominating contemporary international relations. This paper delineates and conceptualizes some major frameworks and layers of understandings IR scholars should be aware of when researching the geopolitics and international relations of countries with a significant Shi‘a presence, taking as case study Iran and Iraq. In particular, it problematizes the different and possibly alternative roles that geography, Shi‘ism, and Islam play in the geopolitics of these countries.

This study seeks to examine how constructivism can help to deep our understanding of the Israeli-Iranian conflict over Iran’s nuclear program. In doing so, the basic tenets of constructivism is unpacked to identify which aspects of the constructivist approach to seeing social reality as derived from the shared understandings of actors would be most suited to this particular case study. Focusing on the manner in which actors create and maintain identities, both for themselves and others, through language use in realm of discourse, the identities of Iran and the Israel is shown to be mutually constituted; that is, the identity of one was, in part (for given contexts), formed in relation to the identity of the other. The central question that this study seeks to answer is: how can the application of a social constructivist approach to the Israeli-Iranian conflict over Iran’s nuclear program enhance our understanding of the nature of this conflict? This study goes beyond Realism to explore the dynamics of the cultural and religious underpinnings of the “clash of narratives” that shape the dynamics of nuclear confrontation between Israel and Iran. This paper compares the ways in which Israelis and Iranians utilize sacred text, myths, tradition, national-religious historiography, and “selective memory” to construct and promote their identification with ancient cultures, traditions, and historic grievances. In addition, this study highlights the ways in which Israelis and Iranians use the negative stereotypes of one another especially in nuclear issues to brand and demonize the opponents. This study finally shows the constructivist approach to the Israeli-Iranian conflict over Iran’s nuclear program can expand our understanding of that encounter by underlining the ways in which actors and their representations of any given situation are constructed, rather than being objectively given.

There has been an increasing assertion of the velayat-e-faqih in Iranian politics in recent years. This has led to tensions between them and the presidential office in Iran. Against this backdrop, this article seeks to analyse the constitutional position of the velayat-e-faqih and how it has interacted with other institutions to shape Iranian foreign policy and taking a decisions in nuclear issue. The article critically analyses the relationship between the velayat-e-faqih and different popularly elected presidents. so this study will consists of the following:

first: historical background of Iranian nuclear program and its developments.

second:motivations that encourged iran to acquire nuclear program

third:the role of velayate-e faqih in building iranian nuclear program

fourth: International responses toward Iranian nuclear program

conclusion.

“Islam” in particular as well as “the MENA region” more generally continue to be research objects that are often reflected upon in the light of specific grand narratives. “Orientalism”, “Clash of Civilisations”, and the “Arab Spring” are not only indicative of the ambiguous position of “Islam” in varying discourses but also shows its particular relevance within IR due to its meaning in the global realm. Does the requirement to develop an Islamic or Middle Eastern IR theory logically follow? This paper argues that such an endeavour would rather reinforce meta-theoretical narratives and eventually perpetuate Middle Eastern exceptionalism. Instead, this paper seeks to contribute to critical IR theory which accounts for the ‘situatedness’ of meaning that shapes social practices in a particular context. Further, in an increasingly globalised world that harbours more and more constitutionalised structures on a global scale, the question of legitimacy has to be substantially addressed. Thus, the paper proceeds in three steps: First, it critically assesses predominant IR theories (tacitly) working with normative assumptions, e.g the Westphalian system, and thus producing positivistic scholarship based upon “Western principles”. Second, it will be shown that a turn to reflexive scholarship and interpretive methods in IR not only allow to better assess the diverse practices that are related to “Islam” in different contexts but also constitute the basis to critically approach the question of legitimacy. Third, the discourses during the Syrian uprising will empirically highlight the theoretical claim.

While much scholarly attention has in recent decades been placed on situating religion in general, and Islam in particular, into Western-dominated IR theory–invariably as an attempt to tame the analytically unspeakable and transform Geisteswissenschaft to Socialwissenschaft–little has sofar been said in terms of Islam’s own normativity in relation to established IR paradigms. The present paper seeks to answer the question of how Islam, qua ethico-nomocentric ideational form, would read the state of art in contemporary IR theory. Drawing on Islam’s own intellectual history pertaining to the questions of power, rights and statecraft–from the Constitution of the Medinan Prophetocracy to the meditations of Abbasid jurists on the nature of politics—but tempered also by that Islamic orthopraxy of which Islamic politics is an extension, the paper provides a critical inquiry into both the ontology and epistemology of Realism and other schools of contemporary IR theory from an Islamicate position. What is at stake in this examination is whether Islam, as a theologically anchored Weltanschauung, provides a fundamentally dissident discourse about the nature of international relations relative to the assumptions implicit in leading IR theories, or whether Islamic normativity, just like Islamist politics, is co-optable in relation to post-Westphalian paradigms of world politics. The answer to this question has implications not only for the intellectual debates surrounding late-modernity’s hybrid social forms but also for the broader question of regional and indeed world order in an age characterized by the political ascendancy of Islam.

In the last chapter of his book Social Justice in Islam, Sayyid Qutb asked about the direction the world was going, and wished to go, after two world wars. He also considered that the real struggle was between Islam on the one hand and the combined camps of Communist Russia (Soviet Union) and the West (Europe and America) on the other. From Qutb’s point of view, Islam was the true power that opposed the strength of the materialistic philosophy and possessed a universal theory of life which could be offered to mankind, a theory whose aims were a complete mutual help among all men and a true mutual responsibility in society. Sixty years after the first edition of his seminal work, the world is a different place with the Soviet Union no longer in place, the Arab world going through profound changes, the West becoming parochial, and the Rest asserting itself. Using Sayyid Qutb’s political theory, this paper will try to assess how a new, and different, International Relations practice could become viable and surpass an anachronistic world order established after the end of the 1939-1945 war.

The elemental subject of this study is the concept of ‘nation-state’ but delimited within the bounds of two disciplines, i.e. International Relations (IR) and Islamic Studies (IS), particularly Political Islam and Jurisprudence. This is in part of the author’s aim of contributing to the evolving literature on the relation of IR and religion in the 21st century. The defining problem lies in the vagueness of interpretations and understanding on the conceptualization of nation-state in those mentioned disciplines while subsequently reaching a ‘via media’ of understanding. To ameliorate our focal understanding, the proponent selected two frameworks: 1) a selective mainstream theoretical IR survey, i.e. Liberalism, Realism, and Social Constructivism only, and 2) Islamic jurisprudential and political understanding of nation-state. It will humbly try to examine, analyze, and decipher the origin, idea, and operationalization of nation-state in IR and IslStud by the usage of Comparative Analytical Method (CAM). Three data analytical or coding stages under CAM will be operationalized: the first stage is setting the Textual Codes via alpha-numerical representation next is processing the Arithmetical Codes and the last step is determining the Categorical Codes. Through these CAM codes, the inferential chart of ‘compare and contrast’ will compose the result of data analysis. Thus, allowing us to categorically pinpoint inferences of similarities and differences, and further it through the use of analytical induction, which is, inducing it to specific facts or imperative details. In generalization, there were foreseen differences and/or similarities on the notions of level of analysis, sovereignty, citizenship, and territoriality.

The right to freedom of expression as stated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR), which is subject to limitations to be determined by law, as stated in Article 29 of the UDHR and Article 19 of ICCPR. In practice questions were raised concerning the right to freedom of expression, namely: Does the depiction of Prophet Muhammad, in the west, constitute an abuse of the right to freedom of expression, in international Human Rights Law and Islamic Law “Sharia”? And if so, did the concerned states fulfill their international obligations with this regard? On the other side, was Muslims’ reaction Consistent with the provisions of Islamic law and international law? The answer of the above mentioned questions will be the subject matter of a paper that will try to shed light on the depiction of Prophet Muhammad in the west in accordance to International Human Rights Law and Sharia Law.

A fair amount of the official statements from governments, media coverage, as well as policy analysis undertaken by think-tanks in the West, have tended to perceive the Arab Revolutions as manifestations of long repressed desires for human rights and individual dignity. The – rather unproblematic- remedy for those localities then become Western-style liberal democracies and free market economies. Various critical observers have been skeptical of such interpretive dispositions, and tended to view them as appropriations of a Liberal Reason which respects no epistemic or ethical boundaries. The paper seeks to clarify what is at stake in those starkly different positions. No doubt, when observers interpret the Arab Revolutions in a vocabulary of human rights, democracy, and secularism derived from the Western experience of secular modernity, this may obscure the ontotheological roots of such notions themselves. It is far from clear that the language of human rights is easily translatable to cultural settings rooted in Islamic cosmologies. However, rather than lapsing into a facile relativism, what I would like to do in this paper, is to explore the possibilities of inter-cultural communication that is attentive to the inherent power/knowledge nexus, but at the same time seeks communicative openings, and even commonalities in how contested signifiers such as human rights are understood.

A broad range of literature in the United States is dedicated to ethnic lobbying and foreign policy. In Europe, though the range of literature dedicated to Muslims is broad, it has never been looked at from this angle. The basic question guiding this paper, based on my doctoral dissertation, is thus: how have the presence and mobilization of Muslims in Europe affected foreign-policy making? To this end, two countries standing for two opposite models of integration, namely assimilation and multiculturalism, constitute the case studies and allow for a comparative study: France and Great Britain. A conceptual model based on basic game theoretical assumptions and instruments of measure of political influence is used as a grid to systematically analyze the case studies. A set of elements to be investigated empirically are derived from the model to guide the exploration of the case studies which constitute the focus of this paper. Empirical investigations look at the presence of Muslims in each country and their characteristics, the model of integration, the resources of the group in terms of electoral impact and institutional organization. Four elements are then emphasized to understand Muslim communities and their relation to foreign policy debates in both countries: their preferences, their influence attempts, their access to the decisions sphere and the reactions of decision-makers.