regional powers

Iraq, as Iran's western neighbor, has the appropriate and potential capacity for regional interaction and cooperation. Accordingly, intelligent and planned interaction with this country can be important for the production of wealth, power and national security of Iran. Being aware of this, regional powers are also investing in Iraq ostensibly to rebuild the country, but in practice with political motives, and this could pose a threat to Iran. The present study seeks to answer the main question: What effect does the investment of regional powers in the reconstruction of post-ISIS Iraq, which is done in the shadow of the passivity of Iran's economic presence in this country, have on Iran's national security? The study claims that the investment of regional powers in Iraq, which leads to an increase in the influence of these powers and a change in Iraqi policies and orientations in the shadow of Iran's economic passivity in this country, increases Iran's national security threats in economic, political, social, military and environmental fields. The present study tries to investigate the subject with a descriptive-analytical method.

As the self-image of International Relations as a “hegemonic discipline”, under the influence of the American IR community, is questioned and challenged, the issue of “others” in IR, particularly those in the global South, and their approaches to and understandings of the “international” are becoming increasingly significant. IR communities in the global South are perceived to have different understandings of the “international,” which need to be reflected in IR to make the discipline more inclusive and global. As it is assumed that IR scholars in the more active and powerful countries in the international system have more interest in understanding the world, IR communities in countries known as regional powers can be seen as good candidates for having their voices heard in IR. This article, a comparative study of IR in South Africa and Iran as two major regional powers, examines the reception and application of the Western-centric IR by Iranian and South African IR scholars, as well as their home-grown innovations in order to illustrate the way in which the plurality in IR is reflected in scholarship in these two countries. Despite similarities in experience, their differences indicate the way in which voices from the global South are far from being monolithic.

Regional trends strongly influence and are influenced by global power flows. For decades, international politics have been shaped and reshaped by a bipolar and, after the break down of the USSR, a unipolar world order. Both orders played a significant role in shaping and directing Middle Eastern politics. Yet the unipolar order is no longer at play. And since the global flow of power is ongoing, a new world order is being shaped in what seems to be a lengthy transitional period. This article focuses on the effects of the global transition of power in the Middle East and the region’s efforts and mechanisms to cope with it. I argue that the spill-over of international volatility into the Middle East creates a less stable regional politics, and that efforts for balancing are pursued by regional powers to increase their maneuverability as well as their coping capabilities in a volatile era by distancing their policies from global actors’ priorities and standoffs. The article is structured such that after an introduction, I delve into the meaning and nature of the global transition of power, which serves as the paper’s the conceptual framework. In the ensuing four sections, I discuss the imbalanced nature of regional politics as well as the way in which the region is interpreting and thereupon coping with the global change.