Discourse Analysis of Iranian Rural Development Policies in the Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad Governments

This article attempts to interpret the formation of discourse of development in Iran’s rural development policies by analyzing the discourse of Hashemi and Ahmadinejad governments in the areas of development in general and rural development in particular. The research method used in this article is based on the principles of Laclau and Mouffe's Discourse Theory and the proposed method of Post-foundation discourse analysis (PDA). The data used in this article was collected from interviews, lectures, and statements of presidents and clauses and notes related to rural areas in the context of the First, Second, and Fifth Five-Year Development Plans by purposive sampling. The results showed that the rural areas had been incorporated into the discourse of Hashemi’s government domain. But the set of factors led to the incomplete relationship between the rural sphere and the discourse of government causing many inconsistencies in this area. On the other hand, discourse of Ahmadinejad government has a stronger and more discursive relationship with the rural issues. In other words, the discourse of Ahmadinejad's government to disrupt the discourse of Hashemi government focusing on physical and external conditions, seeks to improve these conditions. However, as in the discourse of Hashemi’s government, the discourse of Ahmadinejad's government ultimately did not pay much attention to the cultural and social spheres of development, emphasizing instead the improved distribution of physical facilities.