A Pathological Survey of Dictionaries/Encyclopedias of Political Science & International Relations in Iran: Problems and Solutions

This article seeks to conduct a pathological survey on the dictionaries and encyclopedias of Political Science and International Relations in Iran since the beginning of the 20th century when these two fields of science were established in Iranian universities. In this article we study around 100 dictionaries and encyclopedias of Political Science and International Relations in Iran including the descriptive ones, those bilingual dictionaries, and those with media and journalism emphasis. Our research findings indicate that the most important deficiencies of these dictionaries are as follows: some are influenced by political orientations, others explain political terms in accordance to some political parties’ interests , some are unfamiliar with cultural symbols in various spheres of political knowledge in English &Persian languages, some are not precise enough in finding Persian equals of English terms, most are not written by political scientists who are familiar with Lexicography, many are unfamiliarity with modern methods and techniques of Lexicography, and least but not last many are not observing the regulations and standards of Lexicography. The article concludes with some recommendations for improving the status of the dictionaries/encyclopedias of Political Science and International Relations in Iran.