Sense of justice and its relationship with political tendencies (Tehran city study)

Master's thesis

Sociology field

Abstract

The meaning of trend; People's orientation towards various topics and issues of the society, and specifically in this research, it is the political orientation of people. In fact, the people of each society tend to different political tendencies such as reformism, conservatism and radicalism due to several factors. Based on this, the study of trends has significant importance and benefit for social planning executives and practitioners. In addition, it is important to study trends in order to predict behavior. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to study the sense of justice and its relationship with political tendencies, so that through value and normative convergences, we can achieve recognition of behavioral alignments and take steps towards creating justice-oriented comprehensives for all classes and different social groups.

The research method in this research is a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. In fact, in order to know the characteristics of different political tendencies, we interviewed people in a targeted manner. After determining the desired indicators, a survey-based quantitative method was used.

Based on the findings of the research, political tendencies can be considered as a spectrum, on one side of which is the conservative political tendency and on the opposite side is the radical political tendency. Among the two ends of the spectrum, there is also a reformist political tendency. While the conservative political tendency is characterized by religiosity and high political satisfaction. Radical political tendency is characterized by lack of ritualism, reduced sense of political justice and political satisfaction. In fact, political dissatisfaction is the dividing line between reformism and radical political tendencies. As long as we face the feeling of injustice, we are in the realm of reformism. As the level of political dissatisfaction increases, we will take steps towards radical political tendency.

Key words: political tendency (conservative, reformist, radical), sense of justice (social, economic, political), satisfaction (social, economic, political), social class, religiosity, Tehran. The transformations of a society like Iran, without dealing with different cultural layers and different social trends on the one hand and deep understanding of the elements and values ??of consistency on the other hand, do not seem likely. In fact, the combination and entanglement of many factors during Iran's turbulent history has caused a kind of convergence of values ??and norms to emerge in Iran, which has somehow led to the emergence of a kind of behavioral alignment, despite the linguistic, racial and religious pluralism and diversity. In this way, as most researchers of Iran's issues have pointed out, understanding an example like Iran depends on wide-ranging studies and multi-faceted analyses; Studies and analyzes that can show such a situation based on innovative formulations and conceptualizations in a scientific way (Sari al-Qalam, 1386: 10).

Therefore, in this chapter of the research, which is related to the generalities of the research, we will discuss the research problem, its questions and objectives and provide a preliminary definition of political tendencies and justice - as a social value.

It is worth noting that In relation to the sense of justice and political tendencies, limited studies have been conducted, especially in Iran. Therefore, in the background of research in Iran, only theses will be analyzed. A few research articles have been written separately about social justice or in relation to political orientation, which were avoided due to their limited relevance to the problem of the present research. Books have also been written in the field of measuring values ??and attitudes - taken from social surveys (Nazir Mohseni, 1379) - which, unfortunately, have not done justice even in the social values ??section, and trends have also been neglected. Of course, in the survey of the values ??and attitudes of Iranians in 2019, this issue has been investigated, and we avoided bringing it up due to the purely statistical aspect of the discussion. In the foreign research section, only research articles were examined. As a result, it affects people's lives from different aspects.For example, one of the most important roles of the political system is to control and distribute scarce economic and political resources in the society, but the policies adopted by the governments in these cases do not affect all strata and classes of the society in the same way: these policies benefit some strata of the society and put pressure on others. This situation forces the strata and classes of the society to react, so that some people are very pleased and satisfied with the policies and programs of the government and show a positive attitude and tendency towards it and support it. Other classes that the government's policies benefit them less, or even put them under pressure and harm them, are dissatisfied with the political system and show a negative attitude or tendency towards it. The latter groups may feel discrimination and injustice, and demand changes in government policies or even the political system itself.

As a result, different strata of society tend to different political trends such as reformism, conservatism and extremism due to policies related to the way resources are distributed and many other factors, which affects the behavior of citizens. Based on this, the study of people's political tendencies is of great importance and benefit for social planning executives and practitioners. In addition, in order to predict the behavior of citizens, it is very important to study their political tendencies. It is because of these different tendencies that different parties and political groups with different political tendencies and ideologies such as radical, reformist and conservative parties, etc. are formed in today's societies, and a part of the people favors each of them.

As it was said, many factors influence the formation of people's political orientation: factors such as age, gender, tendency towards traditionalism/modernism, the type of media used, reference groups and many other factors. The type of political orientation of people towards the ruling political system, all of which cannot be investigated in one research. Therefore, the focus of the current research is on the sense of justice and its effect on people's political tendencies. In other words, the main independent variable of the research is people's sense of justice and the main dependent variable is the types of people's political tendencies.

It can be said; Justice is one of the most basic concepts in human rights and one of the highest values ??of human life; so that it can be called as primary and basic virtue. Justice is the creation of special links between the highest human goals and the way people live, such as welfare, knowledge, and the exploitation of society's gifts such as wealth and dignity. Justice is not just a theoretical and philosophical concept, but a phenomenon that is oriented towards action (Sharifzadegan, 2016: 11). In general, several definitions of justice have been presented so far. Ashuri believes that justice is "a legal and political principle whereby everyone should be treated equally in all social affairs, except where there are sufficient reasons for exceptional behavior in the case of some individuals and groups" (Mardani, 1386: 8). Although its sensitivity is different in different societies and eras, but this sensitivity can be generalized to a wide level historically and geographically. The issue of justice is related to how to distribute rewards, privileges and all the desirable things that exist in societies and people want to get them. The special way in which these privileges, resources and benefits (wealth, power, dignity) are distributed has a wide reflection on individuals and society. Therefore, different societies create rules based on which the method of distribution of power, wealth and rewards is determined, and people show different reactions to these rules (Yacoubi, 1388: 15). But the issue is not only the objective distribution of resources, but the understanding and feeling of justice or injustice and the emotional reaction of people towards those rules is also very important. It can even be said that more important than objective and real justice (injustice) is the subjective feeling of the members of society and their perception of justice (injustice) which provides the ground for different political tendencies. In fact, people evaluate the existing rules in the society and judge and evaluate whether they are fair or unfair, and make an emotional and emotional orientation towards the political system and society accordingly. Therefore, the important factor is what people think of justice and what components and characteristics they consider for a just society.