Iranian state formation and foreign policy: International-state-society complex

The main problematic of this study is to explain the pendulums of the conservative-reformist in the state formation and ideology-pragmatism in foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution (1979-2021). This study, which argues that foreign policy cannot be examined in isolation from state formation, state formation in isolation from international and society, argues that state for-mation and foreign policy after the 1979 Islamic Revolution can only be explained based on the mutual relations and reactions of Iran's international-state-society complex for the last two centuries. Iran's international historical sociology, which consist of the Iran's last two centuries international agency, which has manifested itself in colonial influence in the eras of Qajar and Pahlavi; against it state agency, which manifests itself in the form of hesitant modernization in Qajar and radical colonial modernization in Pahlavi; finally, the reflex of the Shiite Usuli ulama, who became the main actor of social agency since the 18th and 19th centuries, against the colonial international intervention and colonial modernization relationship, emerged as a quest of power-crisis of legitimacy. This study claims that the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the state formation and foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran were determined by the last form that the quest of power-crisis of legitimacy dynamic took since 1963, which is the result of this international historical sociological accumulation. The form that Iran's two-century of quest of power-crisis of legitimacy dynamic has taken since 1963, has taken place in the context of the coming together of the processes of the radicalization of the ulema, the actor of social agency, due to the Khomeini leadership and left-wing mass politics feeding each other (Left-Islam Infusion) and international-state relations do not support the state agency over social agency. The reactions of the international-state-society complex since 1963, resulted in a new historical solution model to the quest of power-crisis of legitimacy dynamic of the last two centuries, such as destructive radicalism and constitutive flexibility, with the combination of the Khomeini leadership and the Left-Islam Infusion. We argued that the reflection of the historical the quest of power-crisis of legitimacy dynamic on state formation in the post-Khomeini thermidor (1989-2005) and post-thermidor (2002-2021) periods is the conflict between the conservative-security state and the search for a democratic Islamic republic. Again, we claimed that the reformist ulama and Islamic intelligentsia's reform policy filled the social representation gap due to the integration of the ulama with the state after Khomeini, and that the future international-state-society complex of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be determined by this dynamic.