The State And Revolution In Iran

This book analyses the distant and proximate causes of the 1978 revolution in Iran as well as the dynamics of power which it set in motion. The volume explains the complex and far-reaching processes which produced the revolution, beginning in the late nineteenth century. In explaining the more proximate causes of the revolution, the book analyses the nature of the old regime and its internal contradictions; the emergence of some fundamental conflicts of interest between the state and the upper class; the economic crisis of 1975-8 which made possible a revolutionary mass immobilisation; and the emergence of a new religious interpretation of political authority and the unusual spread of the ideology of political Islam among a segment of the modern intelligentsia. The volume relates the diverse aspects of class, ideology and economic structure in order to provide an understanding of the political processes.

Iranian women tell in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. The Islamic revolution of 1979 transformed all areas of Iranian life. For women, the consequences were extensive and profound, as the state set out to reverse legal and social rights women had won and to dictate many aspects of women's lives, including what they could study and how they must dress and relate to men. Reconstructed Lives presents Iranian women telling in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. Through a series of interviews with professional and working women in Iran—doctors, lawyers, writers, professors, secretaries, businesswomen—Haleh Esfandiari gathers dramatic accounts of what has happened to their lives as women in an Islamic society. She and her informants describe the strategies by which women try to and sometimes succeed in subverting the state's agenda. Esfandiari also provides historical background on the women's movement in Iran. She finds evidence in Iran's experience that even women from "traditional" and working classes do not easily surrender rights or access they have gained to education, career opportunities, and a public role.

Today Iran is once again in the headlines. Reputed to be developing nuclear weapons, the future of Iraq's next-door neighbor is a matter of grave concern both for the stability of the region and for the safety of the global community. President George W. Bush labeled it part of the "Axis ofEvil," and rails against the country's authoritarian leadership. Yet as Bush trumpets the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East, few note that Iran has one of the longest-running experiences with democracy in the region. In this book, Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr look at the political history of Iran in the modern era, and offer an in-depth analysis of the prospects for democracy to flourish there. After having produced the only successful Islamist challenge to the state, a revolution, and an Islamic Republic, Iranis now poised to produce a genuine and indigenous democratic movement in the Muslim world. Democracy in Iran is neither a sudden development nor a western import, Gheissari and Nasr argue. The concept of democracy in Iran today may appear to be a reaction to authoritarianism, but it is an old ideawith a complex history, one that is tightly interwoven with the main forces that have shaped Iranian society and politics, institutions, identities, and interests. Indeed, the demand for democracy first surfaced in Iran a century ago at the end of the Qajar period, and helped produce Iran'ssurprisingly liberal first constitution in 1906. Gheissari and Nasr seek to understand why democracy failed to grow roots and lost ground to an autocratic Iranian state. Why was democracy absent from the ideological debates of the 1960s and 1970s? Most important, why has it now become a powerfulsocial, political, and intellectual force? How have modernization, social change, economic growth, and the experience of the revolution converged to make this possible?Gheissari and Nasr trace the fortunes of the democratic ideal from the inchoate demands for rule of law and constitutionalism of a century ago to today's calls for individual rights and civil liberties. In the process they provide not just a fresh look at Iran's politics but also a new understandingof the way in which democracy can develop in a Muslim country.

For decades, political observers and pundits have characterized the Islamic Republic of Iran as an ideologically rigid state on the verge of collapse, exclusively connected to a narrow social base. In A Social Revolution, Kevan Harris convincingly demonstrates how they are wrong. Previous studies ignore the forceful consequences of three decades of social change following the 1979 revolution. Today, more people in the country are connected to welfare and social policy institutions than to any other form of state organization. In fact, much of Iran’s current political turbulence is the result of the success of these social welfare programs, which have created newly educated and mobilized social classes advocating for change. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in Iran between 2006 and 2011, Harris shows how the revolutionary regime endured though the expansion of health, education, and aid programs that have both embedded the state in everyday life and empowered its challengers. This first serious book on the social policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran opens a new line of inquiry into the study of welfare states in countries where they are often overlooked or ignored.

'...her short analysis of the Iranian armed forces in the 1980s is first-rate, so too is her much more substantial section on women and the state in Iran...As well as offering useful insights into the workings of the Islamic state in Iran, this readable book also provides a warning of the struggles ahead in many other Muslim societies.' - Anoushiravan Ehteshami, Times Higher Education Supplement ;Islam has been the driving force shaping the ideology and the power base of the Iranian revolution. This volume engages critically with the Islamic perspective and promises offered by the revolution. Looking at the rise of the religious institution as a revolutionary force, the author observes their post-revolutionary policies in the domains of politics, economics, education, the armed forces and women's status. In the event, the volume demonstrates that the Iranian government has failed to deliver on most, if not all, of its Islamic pledges.

This book analyses the distant and proximate causes of the 1978 revolution in Iran as well as the dynamics of power which it set in motion. The volume explains the complex and far-reaching processes which produced the revolution, beginning in the late nineteenth century. In explaining the more proximate causes of the revolution, the book analyses the nature of the old regime and its internal contradictions; the emergence of some fundamental conflicts of interest between the state and the upper class; the economic crisis of 1975-8