IRAN’S FOREIGN POLICY THE QUESTION OF NATIONAL INTEREST IN IRAN’S FOREIGN POLICY
A CONSTRUCTIVIST PERSPECTIVE
Abstract
Given that the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is a nation state with a streak of Islamic-revolutionary transnationalism, the question of national interest has appeared to be quite a perplexing issue for both analysts and researchers of Iranian foreign policy. What lies at the heart of this issue is whether ideology and national interest or, say, idealism and realism can coexist or not. This debate, in turn, revolves around how the term national interest is defined. If it is viewed, for example, through the prism of materialist-rationalist theories, Iran seems, in many cases, to be acting against its own national interests which is—from the perspective of Iranian leaders—not the case. Against this general theoretical background, this article argues for a constructivist interpretation of national interest as an appropriate approach in dealing with the question of national interest in Iran’s foreign policy, arguing that the country’s conception of its national interest is based essentially on its perception of the “Self,” and that it sees no contradiction between its transnational ideological objectives and national interests.
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