The Causes of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran

Abstract

Marx, the prophet of revolution, may no longer haunt conservative politicians, but Marx, the theorist of revolution, continues to both attract and arouse social scientists. In the words of one student of politics, the social sciences, especially political sociology, can be described as a ‘century-long dialogue with Karl Marx.’ And as one prominent historian of ideas has aptly stated, Marx can properly be called the midwife of twentieth-century social thought, ‘for in the process of discarding what they had found invalid in Marxism and explaining what aspects of it had proved helpful, the innovators of the late nineteenth century took their first steps towards constructing a more general theory of social reality.’ For example, Emile Durkheim developed the paradigm of ‘mechanical and organic solidarity’ to counter the theory of class struggle. Vilfred Pareto and Gaetano Mosca stressed the dichotomy between ruling elites and ruled masses to supplant the concept of socioeconomic classes. Robert Michels formulated the ‘iron law of oligarchy’ to warn that popular organizations, such as the Social Democratic Parties, would bring in not the era of democratic socialism but the autocracy of bureaucratic socialists.’ And Max Weber, of course, devoted much of his career to showing that the dynamics of class conflict should be studied concomitantly with the heavy weights of conservative ideologies, traditional religions, ethnic castes, and bureaucratic institutions.

The application of causal layered analysis to understand the present conditions and possible futures of media and politics in Iran

“…As a result, we can track back to find a blueprint in which one of the most original discursive struggles has been triggered and continued for almost two centuries in the modern history of Iran. 2 According to Sharifi [31], for instance, there are two basic pre-modern signifiers that constitute the official state discourse from the Shah Abbas Safavi era (1587-1629) until the 1906 Constitutional Revolution: Islam and security. Encountering Western modernity after 1870, new thoughts and opinions suggested some alternative signifiers in order to create several new imagined political discourses: law, development, people/democracy, and class/equality.…”

“…There are also several media organizations like IRIB and Jam-e-Jam newspaper that are directly controlled by the supreme leader, while other institutions, legally under the supervision of the supreme leader, like military forces and economic foundations, play a significant role in administering some media platforms financially or even editorially. 2 In this section, we mainly rely on several scientific sources that track back Iran's historical transformation after the nineteenth century with the concrete fact of Western modernity's entrance into undeveloped traditional parts of the world like the Middle East, Latin America, or China. As there is a rich literature about this issue with various scopes and focuses about Iran, quite a few inquiries directly employ DA and almost no record can be found similar to our purpose.…”

“…Although the official and mainstream media have always been under the control of the state regime, alternative media have succeeded in affecting official politics in different dimensions. They have influenced several political outcomes and decision-making processes, not only after the advent of social media but also during the broadcasting era when the underground press played an unprecedented role in the Persian constitutional movement, which was mainly against the divine right of the king to rule the country and set the politics [2]. Alternative media resonate with new social and political demands such as reform, freedom, equality, social democracy, and citizenship, which are issues that remain focal points of various contemporary social struggles against traditionalism in Iran.…”

Shi'i Ideology, Iranian Secular Nationalism and the Iran‐Iraq War (1980–1988)

“…For the first time in Shi'ism's long history, according to Azar Tabari, the clergy was able to 'directly operate the state without a secular structure either superimposed on it […] or parallel with it' (Tabari 1983:72). The role of the ulama (Islamic clerical scholars) in Iran's modern history is one of multiple perspectives, varying from effective, albeit by default, socio-political leadership (Abrahamian 1979) to pure 'wishful thinking' (Floor 1980). It can safely be argued that since their introduction into Iran by the Safavid dynasty, the Shi'i ulama were able to use the burgeoning civil infrastructure to enhance their power by having direct contact with the population (Moussavi 2004:125).…”

“…Ahmad K. Moussavi even names the Qajar era, a new era for Shi'ism since the ulama were on a new quest to popularise all things Shi'i, starting by promoting public mourning of the Prophet's family, Imam Hussein being the most popular, and pilgrimage to the Shi'i imams mausoleums throughout Iran and Iraq. It also appears that the ulama's political involvement before, during, and after the Constitutional Revolution (1906-11), according to Ervand Abrahamian (1979), cannot be denied either. Because the ulama enjoyed an uninterrupted and uncensored connection with the masses, they refused to be excluded, and in reality could not have been excluded from the political activities of the Constitutional era (1979:403).…”