Determining Iran’s foreign policy: institutions, power clusters, and the public

Abstract

This objective of this research is to show how government institutions, power centers and the public influence foreign policy decisions in Iran. The study has a qualitative research design and uses four research tools: content analysis, discourse analysis, meta-analysis and in-depth interviews. Findings are presented in two main sections. The first one provides an overview of the impact that the mentioned agents have on foreign policy. The second is a comparative case study, which illustrates the influence of these agents on Iran’s nuclear program during Khatami’s and Ahmadinejad’s presidencies. The paper makes the following conclusions. 1) The Iranian government intuitions have overlapping functions regarding foreign policy, which creates inter-agency competition. 2) Iran’s foreign policy is mainly influenced by the power struggles among four major political factions, which are balanced by the Supreme Leader. 3) The public in Iran has an indirect impact on foreign policy through their support to one of the stated factions. In sum, Foreign The policy of Iran highly depends on the positions and interests of multiple stakeholders.