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The Foreign Policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran at 40. a Discourse Analysis

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The Foreign Policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran at 40. a Discourse Analysis THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN AT 40. A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS. Author: Siavosh Bigonah Political Science (VT 2019-ST631L-GP759), 2-year Master MA Thesis, 30 credits Department: Global Political Studies (Faculty of Culture and Society), Malmö University Supervisor: Dr. Johan Brännmark Date of Submission: August 15, 2019 Siavosh Bigonah Global Politics Master Thesis Abstract This Master Thesis departs from the puzzling fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has been able to push forward its agenda of independence and sovereignty from imperially and colonially inherited systems of dominance, based in a militant discourse of resistance and peace, exponentially gaining regional and international influence, despite its lack of military and economic hard power. Applying discourse analysis (archaeology and genealogy) on mainly Iranian primary sources, e.g. IRI’s constitution and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) speeches, the thesis seeks to answer the question: which is the narrative attraction of IRI’s foreign policy discourse as it has been presented at the UNGA opening sessions during its first 40 years? The thesis concludes that IRI’s foreign policy discourse, which is focused on state- based resistance to domination, emanates to a narrative attraction, thus generating legitimacy and space of manoeuvre for its foreign policy interests. By analysing IRI’s foreign policy discourse based on a reading of IRI’s foreign policy within its own logics, the thesis intends to fill a gap in the research of IRI’s foreign policy through the extensive use of primary Iranian sources. Word count: 21 672 Key Words: Islamic Republic of Iran; discourse analysis; foreign policy; dialogue; security networking; peace; resistance. 2 Siavosh Bigonah Global Politics Master Thesis PREFACE This Master thesis must be read as the continuation of my Bachelor thesis work, and as such it emanates from my BA study on the political and cultural history of Iran and the relationship of that history to that of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) contemporary foreign policy under President Rouhani. The primary aim was to gain an in-depth view-from-within, of the country’s stance on international politics and peace. To that end, I employed Foucault’s methodology of archaeology and genealogy on historical and contemporary data, taking into account 4000- years of recorded history. The primary findings of that study have shed light on the major research gaps concerning Iran in peace research and thus de-validating the discipline’s claim of being universally relevant, uncovering a cultural political sphere of deep-rooted practices of structural peace, state-building, conflict management, continuous movements of people and changing political centres. The historical experiences of multi-religiosity, multi-ethnicity and multi-polarity have greatly contributed to the forging of a foreign political discourse of peace in IRI, centred around a discourse of transnational anti-colonial imperial resistance, translating into a historical nexus of resistance predominant in Shi’ism (Bigonah 2017). An important conclusion drawn from that study is the centrality of a combatative form of poly- cultural, syncretic and multireligious resistance practices in modern Iran. The foundational aspects of the Iranian social fabric, and economic, political and religious practices have emanated from cosmopolitan experiences since Achaemenian times ca. 500 BCE—a de facto cosmopolitan reality spanning two and a half millennia (see Bausani 1975, Nordberg 1979, Meskoob 1992, Boyce 1982, Regueiro et.al. 2006, Vlassopoulos 2013, Alishan 2014, Jahanbegloo 2014, Dahlén 2014 and 2016, for additional references on this issue see Bigonah 2017). The continuity of these experiences is inscribed in a long tradition of theological, historiographic and philosophical works set off by the Islamic conquest (7th century CE) and the subsequent inclusion of pre-Islamic thought in the exponential growth of Islamic science and philosophy (Nasr et al. 2008-15, Dabashi 2011 and 2012, Ahmed 2016). Since the inception of colonial modernity in Asia (Dabashi 2007, Frankopan 2015), following the fall of the Mughal state and empire in the wake of the destructive episodes leading up to Nader Shah’s sack of Delhi in 1739 (Farrokh 2011), and the ensuing episodes of European imperial conquest, set in motion a trajectory towards combatative resistance practices in West and Central Asia. European imperial colonialism—by definition a universalised provincial proposition (Shari’ati 1979, Al-e Ahmad 1984, Mbembe 2003, Wallerstein 2006, Mottahedeh 2009, Frankopan 2015, Dabashi 2015 and 2016, Bell 2017)—represented a particular enforcement of acculturation. 3 Siavosh Bigonah Global Politics Master Thesis The experiences of this, and the residual cultural, political and economic effects of colonial imperial dominance gave rise to a trajectory of anti-imperialist resistance (Keddie 2006, Lapidus 2014). In Iran this resistance subsequently transmuted and transformed into a particularly transnational form of resistance discourse, which became paradigmatic to the modern revolutionary movements in the country—from the religiously conscient secular political movements to the Islamic ones (Foucault 1978, Ahmad 1984, Keddie 2006, Mottahedeh 2009, Dabashi 2011)—all of which are of importance to the edificial point of departure in this thesis. 4 Siavosh Bigonah Global Politics Master Thesis Table of Content Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 7 Problem statement .................................................................................................................... 7 Puzzle, objectives and research question .................................................................................... 7 Contextualisation...................................................................................................................... 8 Delimitations.......................................................................................................................... 10 Outline of the thesis ................................................................................................................ 11 Methodological considerations and analytical framework ................................................ 12 Design and methodological choice ........................................................................................... 12 Method .................................................................................................................................. 13 Data....................................................................................................................................... 14 Research techniques................................................................................................................ 16 Analytical framework: the conceptualisation of continuous resistance ........................................ 17 Surveying the field: On Iranian Foreign Policy .................................................................. 23 Military power and regional dominance ................................................................................... 24 Readings of Great Game Logics .............................................................................................. 27 A reading of the Constitution................................................................................................ 33 A profoundly Islamic state ...................................................................................................... 33 Constitutional amendments ..................................................................................................... 35 IRI’s foreign policy discourse: The discursive webs of violence, justice and peace ........ 38 The discursive web of violence (sharr) ..................................................................................... 39 The discursive web of justice (adl) ........................................................................................... 45 The discursive web of peace (salaam) ...................................................................................... 49 IRI’s foreign policy practice ................................................................................................. 54 Dialogue and security ............................................................................................................. 55 The pulse of the beating heart .................................................................................................. 58 5 Siavosh Bigonah Global Politics Master Thesis The importance of being IRI: Concluding discussion ........................................................ 61 Narratives of attraction............................................................................................................ 61 Contribution of this study to foreign policy research and global politics ..................................... 64 Further research...................................................................................................................... 64 Abbreviations ......................................................................................................................... 66 Glossary................................................................................................................................... 67 Bibliography ..........................................................................................................................
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