One of the important goals of Article 100 of Chapter 7 of the Seventh Plan Law is to increase the share of public diplomacy in the foreign policy macro-basis. Parliamentary diplomacy is one of the pillars of public diplomacy and a complement to official diplomacy. It seems that making the diplomatic capacities of the legislature power more efficient in order to enhance the added value of public diplomacy and assist official diplomats in strategic negotiations requires the amending of the structure and internal regulations of the Islamic Consultative Assembly and familiarization of the diplomatic delegations of the legislature power with the techniques and skills of diplomacy. The main question of the present research is what solutions are needed to enhance the capacity of parliamentary diplomacy with the priorities of Chapters 21 and 22 of the Seventh Plan Law. This research also refers to the role of people and emerging technologies in empowering and popularizing the diplomatic activities of representatives. The present research is strategic-applied in terms of its purpose and descriptive-explanatory in terms of its nature and method. The innovation of this research is that, through the synergy of the capacities of parliamentary and official diplomacy and a strategic view of the Seventh Plan Law, it prioritizes the transition from traditional parliamentary diplomacy to the new parliamentary diplomacy of the Islamic Revolution level. Due to its transformational view of structures and the empowerment of representative-diplomats, the structure-agent theory can be effective in the formation of efficient parliamentary diplomacy.
Introduction
Parliamentary diplomacy is the most effective tool of new governance for creating a powerful interactive network between diplomatic missions of the world's parliaments to help manage threats and resolve fundamental regional and global issues. In this strategic-applied research, through the collection of library data and diplomatic findings of parliamentary assemblies, initiatives have been proposed to align the diplomatic activities of the 12th Parliament with the objectives stated in Chapters 21 and 22 of the Seventh Plan Law.
It seems that the current state of parliamentary diplomacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran does not have the potential, logical coherence, and comprehensiveness necessary to help realize the foreign policy headlines of the Seventh Plan Law.
Theoretical Framework
The study of the diplomatic capacities and potentials of the legislature to help achieve the objectives of the foreign policy heading of the Seventh Plan Law can be analyzed from two perspectives: public diplomacy theory and structure-agent theory. From the perspective of public diplomacy theory, parliamentary diplomacy is one of the most obvious manifestations of the popularization of foreign policy. Joseph Nye pays great attention to public diplomacy as one of the methods of soft power. The importance of public diplomacy in the second step of the revolution is so great that Article 100 of the Seventh Plan Law emphasizes the need to make maximum use of it to enhance the added value of foreign policy. The structure-agent analytical framework is also an appropriate tool for assessing the evolution of behavior and trends governing Iran's foreign policy.
Findings
The most important parliamentary diplomacy initiatives that can help realize the foreign policy agenda of the Seventh Development Plan include:
- Strengthening neighborhood diplomacy and parliamentary regionalism
- Signing of documents on strategic parliamentary cooperation
- Focus on countries with parliamentary systems
- Focus of parliamentary diplomats on common regional and international challenges and issues
- Creating added political and economic value in the Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union
- Strengthening parliamentary diplomacy for the Road Corridor
- Paying attention to the concerns of economic and business activists in the legislative diplomacy cycle
-Improving the efficiency of friendship groups by amending the internal regulations.
-Increasing the share of knowledge and new technologies in the parliamentary diplomacy portfolio, such as maximizing the potential of artificial intelligence parliamentary diplomacy
-Establishment of schools of governance and parliamentary diplomacy
-Inclusion of legislative and diplomatic research into the appendix to the Seventh Development Plan law
- Using the diplomatic potential of women representatives
-Establishment of the Consortium of Heads of Research Centers of Asian Parliaments.
Conclusion
The lack of structure and institutions in charge of parliamentary diplomacy, neglect of the capacities of parliamentary diplomacy in the internal regulations of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, and the low level of diplomatic delegations, especially newly arrived representatives, with diplomatic techniques and skills, and neglect of the capacities of parliamentary assemblies, are among the most important obstacles to the transition to revolutionary-level parliamentary diplomacy and the alignment of the diplomatic activities of the Assembly with the goals of the foreign policy heading in Articles 100 to 103 of the Seventh Plan Law. This requires reforming the structure and function of the legislative branch, continuous improvement of processes, and reforming the internal regulations of the Islamic Consultative Assembly.