Ma`rifat Siyasi

Public opinion, as one of the legitimizing pillars of political systems, is always the focus of attention of domestic and foreign actors. This research aims to discursively analyze the public opinion management model in the Islamic Republic of Iran and its confrontation with the enemy’s thought engineering strategies, and examines the duality of “political action-political passivity.” The findings show that the Islamic Republic of Iran, relying on the religious democracy model, uses tools such as Jihad of Explanation, domestic media, and popular institutions to strengthen “convergence” and confront thought engineering projects. In contrast, the enemies, using foreign media and social networks, seek to induce despair, promote political passivity, and create “divergence” in society. Action and passivity at this level can manifest itself on a national or even regional scale and lead to regional convergence or divergence. The present research analyzes the key components of this confrontation using the method of discourse analysis and citing library documents. The results indicate that the enemy's thought engineering in the form of projects such as Iranophobia and distortion of domestic achievements seeks to weaken social capital and reduce political participation; while the Islamic Republic's public opinion management model emphasizes transparency, trust-building, and strengthening collective action. Finally, solutions such as promoting media literacy and redefining the resistance discourse are proposed to neutralize the enemy's conspiracies.