This study investigates the relationships between religious fundamentalism, collective identity, and individuality. The questions addressed in this research are: Who is joining fundamentalist student organizations? Why and how are they doing so? And, how do these organizations maintain their collective identity in the face of ever-growing individualism? To gain an adequate understanding of the fundamentalist characteristics of such organizations, we first explored the existing theoretical literature. Then, we performed a qualitative case study of two student organizations at The University of Guilan: the Basij and Welayat Lovers. Our findings indicate that although these organizations strongly tend to define and impose a unified collective

Political developments, such as the ‘Arab Spring’, have led the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) towards instability, unrest and severe sectarian confrontations. Nearly 2 years before the ‘Arab Spring’, ‘the Iranian Green Movement’ swept over the country and led to the expectations that Iran would undergo a fundamental political change. The article addresses an important question as to why the 2009 Iranian unrest known as the ‘Green Movement’ did not lead to regime change, while on the other hand, the ‘Arab Spring’ ultimately led to the change of political systems in Tunisia and Egypt. Further, some significant factors are highlighted anticipating the degree of stability and instability for the future of political reg

This paper studies the situation of the developmental state in Iran and its role in promoting economic development. The main question of the present study is why in the post-revolutionary Iran, the" developmental state" did not function efficiently and could not successfully promote the economic development of the country. To answer the research question, Adrian Leftwichchr ('39') s theory of developmental state was used as the conceptual framework of the present study. Douglass C. North et al.’s theory of social orders was also applied. The present study is based on historical research method and narrative analysis technique. In the present study, the" national government" is the unit of analysis. Domestic, regional and international eve

The presence of women in the city and attending informal gatherings is part of their daily lives. The main purpose of this study is to describe women's lived experience of the relationships they produce and reproduce as social actors in feminine urban hangouts. Influenced by Henri Lefebvre's theory of space production, the premise of this study is that space and place were not merely a material product but a product of social relations. The main purpose of the present study is to understand women's lived experiences and spatial perceptions of feminine hangouts and their role in reproducing social structure. In order to achieve these goals, relying on phenomenology, interviews and observation were considered as data collection techniques. In

The dialectic relation between sociocultural changes and political developments in the post-revolutionary Iran is discussed in the article which shows how the social policy of the governments has changed under this relation. The 1979 Islamic Revolution brought about a wave of tendency toward a specific discourse that can be called “downtrodden discourse” wherein the poor and deprived are the center of attention, and the resources of society are mainly mobilized in the direction of improving their economic and social conditions. Furthermore, the eight-year Iran–Iraq War (1980—1988) strengthened this discourse, and the new political system relied on the lower class of the society to push the war forward, stabilize the foundations of i

It is safe to say that over the past decade, no region in the world as much as the Middle East and North Africa has been involved with rapid political developments, unrest and instability. The beginning of a cycle of mass protests and instability in the aftermath of the Arab Spring is just one of those cases. The main purpose of the present research is to explain the conditions of the Arab Spring formation. The main question of the present research is what caused the Arab Spring to begin with Tunisia and Egypt. In this research, it is attempted to explain the conditions of development and the beginning of the Arab Spring based on the multilevel and multidimensional approach. The main hypothesis of the study is that there were similarities b

Iranian border cities in last decades had gone through many changes due to informal trade and the increase of tourists’ numbers .This has a significant effect on the sustainability of these cities. In Baneh, most of informal employment occurs only in a small area of the city. The centralization of activities which mostly offer goods in high quality and low price has caused millions of people to visit this city every year. In this research, the impacts of informal employment on social sustainability of Baneh and the area of centralization of these activities are studied. The research method is based on descriptive-analytical method and data are gathered by library studies, field observations, interviewing and using questionnaire. In statis

Studying different cultures clarifies that general values and attitudes are closely related to the other aspects of individuals’ life. Economical conditions, historical experiments, geographical environment, etc are among the factors forming individuals’ beliefs, and consequently any alteration in any of these factors changes the individuals’ beliefs accordingly. Superstition is an ingredient of the public beliefs detectable in almost all cultures; though its definition has been exposed to alterations through the time. The current study aims at collecting and categorizing different superstitions in Isfahan province, Iran. All 15 years old and above are considered as the population for the current study. The total sample size consists