Is physical Distance Important in Economic Regional Integrations? Utilizing a Method for measuring political distance

There are many evidences that regional integrations in middle east are not so efficient, many experts believe that political distance among integrations members is one of the most important reasons of integration inefficiency. Hence the main object of this paper is exploring a method for measuring political distance in economic regional integration. For this purpose an index has been made for measuring political distance basis on AHP technique for Iran and its selective neighbourhoods during 1999–2008.