A Holistic Constructivist Approach to Iran's Foreign Policy
Mahdi Mohammad Nia

Abstract
The author believes that the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran mostly is driven by its revolutionary values and ideological perspectives than the logic of nation state. This paper attempts to apply a constructivist approach for explaining Iranian foreign policy since the Islamic revolution. The author argues that “Holistic Constructivism” with its emphasis on normative structures at both domestic and systemic levels considered as an appropriate paradigm for explaining Iran’s foreign policy behavior. Based on holistic constructivism, as a norm-based approach, we can answer the question that why Iranian foreign policy toward the Western countries in general and The United States in particular has remained relatively unchanged under the systemic pressures? Hence, the present article identifies the determinant factors affect Iranian foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

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