Abstracts

03IslamicFactorsinIran’sDiplomacyofthePost-KhomeiniEra:FromRafsanjanitoAhmadinejad

AbstractSince the unfolding of the Ruhollah Khomeini era, there has been a marked decline in the impact of Islamic factors on Iran’s diplomacy in general, yet it is still impossible to fundamentally get rid of the constraints of Khomeini’s “revolution exportation” diplomatic legacy. Whether in the relatively moderate period of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, or in the period of Ahmadinejad when Iran’s diplomacy once again turned to hardline and radical, Iran’s diplomacy has neither given up its diplomatic principles of “revolution exportation” nor its long-term goal of establishing an “Islamic world order”. Supporting the Islamic radical organizations had yet been the main approaches for the Islam to Iran’s diplomacy. In the post-Khomeini era, the patterns of the world, and the Middle East in particular, have undergone profound changes. In response to changes in the international and regional patterns, Iran has actively used Islam to influence regional affairs and hotspots in the Middle East and Central Asia. In addition, Islamic factors have also had a significant impact on relations between Iran and the West, especially the United States. In the post-Khomeini era, Iran’s diplomacy has shown a political pendulum effect with two forces or routes of reform and conservativeness alternately rising. The Islamic revolutionary diplomacy is relatively weakened when reformists are in power, while relatively strengthened when the conservatives take the office.

KeyWordsIran’s Diplomacy; Islamic Factor; Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; Mohammad Khatami; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

AuthorLIU Zhongmin, Ph.D., Professor, Middle East Studies Institute, Shanghai International Studies University.

19Iran’sMulti-EthnicUnifiedNationalIdentity:ConstructionandEnlightenment

AbstractThe Persian culture has been the dominant culture of the Iranian plateau historically. However, successive dynasties of Iran had been multi-ethnic states with the ethnic and cultural diversity as the important feature in society. In the formation of modern Iranian territory, multi-ethnic interaction made it possible for many cross-border ethnic groups and complex ethnic relationships, and ethnic identity and tribal loyalty of these groups were often higher than their national identity. Therefore, integrating national consciousness and building national identity have become one of the basic tasks of Iran’s political modernization. Since Reza Khan established the Pahlavi Dynasty, Iranian government has adopted effective policies to overcome the long-standing pluralistic identity and strengthen its national identity of all ethnic groups, which has successfully safeguarded Iran’s national unity. The national identity of contemporary Iranian nationalities is relatively strong. The pursuit of political equality, economic development and freedom of language and culture have become the main concerns of all ethnic groups in Iran. The construction path of Iran’s national identity has been enlightenment for the national identity construction and national governance of the late-developing countries.

KeyWordsIran; National Identity; Ethnic Issue; Ethnic Policy

AuthorsJI Kaiyun, Ph.D., Professor, School of History and Culture, Southwest University; MU Shihong, Ph.D. Candidate, Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, Northwest University.

36TheRiseofMultipleArmedForcesinYemenandItsGovernancePredicaments

AbstractSince the Middle East upheavals, security supply capacity of the Yemeni government has been declining. Coupled with the reasons of fragile security structure and external intervention, the rise of multiple armed forces has become a significant security issue in Yemen. It not only undermines the integrity and unity of Yemen’s sovereignty, but also exacerbates the deterioration of the security situation in Yemen, and deepens the turmoil in the regional situation. There are currently governance practices at the global, regional and government levels. Due to the pitfalls of governance at all levels and the lack of coordination among them, the governance of multiple armed forces in Yemen is in a dire. To solve its predicaments of governance, Yemen has to build a multi-level comprehensive governance framework, to form an effective coordination mechanism among the global, regional and government levels, to strengthen security supply capacity of its government, and to promote the final resolution of the Yemen security issues.

KeyWordsYemen; Multiple Armed Forces; Security Governance; Multi-level Governance

AuthorZHU Quangang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Institute of West-Asian and African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

54OntheEvolutionofIdeologyofYemeniSocialistParty

AbstractYemeni Socialist Party’s ideology has changed many times since it established in 1963, from the hybridity of Arabic nationalism, Nasserism and Marxism-Leninism, to highlighting Marxism-Leninism, then to nationalism and Islamism, and later social democracy. Driving forces of these changes include inner-party struggle, effects of domestic political and economic environment and international interventions. Nowadays, Yemeni Socialist Party’s ideology faces many challenges and threats, such as theoretical defects, lower attraction and pragmatism-oriented tendency. In the future, the development of the Yemeni Socialist Party depends to some extent on whether it could or not integrate its own ideology into Yemeni Islamic society and carry out theoretical innovation, so as to win public supports.

KeyWordsYemeni Socialist Party; Ideology; Marxism-Leninism; Social Democracy

AuthorCHEN Feng, Ph.D. Candidate, School of International Studies, Peking University.

70TheTribe-StateRelationshipinYemenfromthePerspectiveofSocialAnomieTheory

AbstractThe current political crisis is a reflection of long-term social anomie in Yemen. The root cause of the social anomie in Yemen is that the modern country cannot effectively integrate traditional tribal societies, which could be manifested in the confrontations between tribes’ autonomy and decentralization requirements and the central government's centralized requirements politically, in the coexistence and insufficient integration of traditional economic systems and management methods and market economic systems economically, and in the contradiction between tribal identity and modern national identity culturally. Clarifying the interaction between tribal society and the state is not only a summary of the failure lessons of modern country construction in Yemen, but also an important significance for the resolution of political crisis and the realization of national reconstruction.

KeyWordsYemen; Social Anomie; Tribal Society; Autonomy; Tribe-State Relationship

AuthorsSU Ying, Post-doctoral Researcher, School of History and Civilization, Shaanxi Normal University, Associate Professor, Institute of Politics and Law, Shihezi University; HUANG Minxing, Ph.D., Professor, Institute of Middle Eastern Studies , Northwest University.

89AReviewontheIslamicStudiesofMaximeRodinson:AMarxistSociologicalApproach

AbstractSince the 1960s, Maxime Rodinson, a French historian and Marxist, has published many works on Islam and the Muslim world, includingIslamandCapitalism,MarxismandtheMuslimWorld, andIslam:PoliticsandFaith. In his works, Rodinson analyzes Islam and its features of both “Ideology” and “Utopia”, along the line of a Marxist sociology. He also explains the interaction between Islamic traditional ethicsand Capitalism, and the role that Islam had played in the development of Capitalism in the Islamic world. Within specific historical context, Rodinson also shed light on multiple models and prospects of intersection between the Islam and socialist movements, this helps the understanding of historical and ideological characteristics of the Islamic world and the Middle East macroscopically.

KeyWordsMaxime Rodinson; Islamic Studies; Muslim; Marxism; Capitalism

AuthorZHOU Sicheng, Ph.D., Editor, CPC Central Committee Institute of Party History and Literature.

102HistoricalEvolutionofFeministTheoryintheIslamicWorld

AbstractIt was the male Muslims supporting reforms that firstly gave attention to women’s rights in the Islamic world. Since then, Muslim female intellectuals had begun to evoke women’s rights awareness through poetry, novels, autobiography and newspapers. The anti-colonial struggle of the 20th century provided a platform for the development of Arab women’s rights, and some inter-regional women’s rights organizations aimed at promoting the change of women’s social status have been established. During this period, feminist activists actively participated in public debates on national, Islamic or democratic development. The rise of the Islamic renaissance movement in the late 1970s clearly contained the further development of feminism. Feminists turned to the traditional way of creating new rules to develop women’s rights in an Islamic context. Since the 21st century, influenced by globalization and public questioning on Western human rights theory, Muslim feminists have begun to reflect, thus develop a feminist theory which is more in line with the reality of the contemporary Islamic world.

KeyWordsIslamic World; Muslim Women; Feminism; Women’s Rights

AuthorsLV Yaojun, Ph.D., Professor, School of Politics and Law, Ningxia University; ZHANG Hongjuan, Associate Professor, School of Politics and Law, Ningxia University.