Journal of World Sociopolitical Studies

Abstract Objective: Barack Obama entered office, promising engagement with Tehran; by the end of his first term, his administration had assembled an exceptionally broad multilateral sanctions regime. This article explains that reversal; it uses the case of Iran’s nuclear program to extend the Copenhagen School's theory of securitization in two ways. First, it treats sanctions and institutional measures not just as consequences of a completed securitization but as part of the securitizing process itself: the UN Security Council Resolution 1929, the IAEA's November 2011 report on possible military dimensions, and the 2012 oil embargo each reset the discursive ground and enabled the next move, so discourse and material action co-produced one another. Second, it theorizes the target state's responses as a structural enabling condition of securitization rather than a factor external to it.
Method: Using explanatory-outcome process tracing, the analysis follows the campaign through four stages - discursive entrapment (2009), institutional coalescence around Resolution 1929 (2010), scientific validation through the November IAEA (2011), and the normalization of sanctions (2012) - and identifies the United States and its allies as the securitizing actors.
Results: Iran's legalism, its missed diplomatic openings, and the timing of its enrichment disclosures emerge as conditions that facilitated the campaign without being its cause.

Abstract In recent years, the United Arab Emirates has begun creating artificial islands in the Persian Gulf. These actions have sparked many concerns throughout the region, particularly from Iran. This study defines and analyzes the process of securitizing the creation of the UAE artificial islands in the Persian Gulf. Although, according to the Law of the Sea Convention, coastal states are entitled to create artificial islands, observing neighboring states’ interests are a primary prerequisite for creating these lands. This study seeks to answer the following question: What are the consequences of the UAE creating artificial islands in the Persian Gulf for Iran? The hypothesis of this paper proposes that creating these islands, regarding the expanding nature of the concept of security in the contemporary world, will have a fivefold consequence for Iran; creating artificial islands by the UAE will cause military, political, environmental, economic, and social insecurities for Iran in the Persian Gulf. The research follows a descriptive-analytical method and studies the question utilizing library sources. The Copenhagen School of Security Studies constitutes the theoretical framework of the paper.