Iran

1
Iran
2
Iran

• Mostly arid plateau around 4,000 ft.
• 67,000,000 population
• 31 under age 15
• 66.4 urban
• 2nd largest oil exporter within OPEC
• 51 Persian, 24 Azeri, 7 Kurd
• 89 Shia Muslim
• 7000 GDP per capita
• 16 Unemployment
• Life expectancy 69.3
• 72 Literacy
• 4.1 women in the Majlis
• No separation of powers among Supreme Leader,
  Guardian Council, Assembly of Religious Experts,
  and Expediency Council
• Theocracyrule by religion
• Has some democratic elementspopular sovereignty,
  separation of powers, individual rights,
  elections
• RENTIER STATEa country that obtains lucrative
  income (most of its revenue) by exporting a raw
  material like oil or leasing out a natural
  resource

3
Problems Faced by Rentier States

• Resource could be depleted
• Lack of diversification in local economynothing
  else is developed
• Dependence on world market causes price
  fluctuations/instability. Economy can fail due
  to price fluctuations.
• Income inequality is exacerbated
• No incentive to modernize/industrialize
• Increased opportunity for corrupt usage of income
  from rents
• Lack of accountability to citizens since no tax
  system requiredcitizens have no voice/diminished
  civil society
• No foreign direct investment

4
Iranian History 1501-1925

• 1501-1722 Safavid Dynasty rules Iran, coverts
  most from zoroastrianism to Shiism, makes it
  state religion, introduces Majles. 1722 invasion
  ends reign
• 1794-1925 Qajar Dynasty rules
• (1) 1st try to reconstruct theocracy
• (2) 2nd try to achieve modernization (western
  style)
• (a) economy (similar to ISI)
• (b) reorganize the military
• (c) reform the bureaucracy

5
1906 Constitutional Revolution under Qajars

• An experiment with democracy based on
  Belgian/British model (elections, separation of
  powers, elected legislature, popular sovereignty,
  Bill of Rights guaranteeing equality, freedom of
  expression)
• The revolution was an attempt to modernize Iran
• Prompted largely by changes sparked by
  modernization
• Result was a constitutional monarchy
• Only Shia could hold offices
• Reza Shah comes to power through the Coup detat
  of 1921democracy had crumbled into squabbling,
  authoritarian state

6
Rule of Reza Shah/Pahlavi Rule

• Reza Shahs objectives
• a. state led capitalism (German style)
• b. modernize and reform Iran
• c. restrict the power of the clergy and
  aristocracy
• d. build strong economy through cultural
  engineering
• (1) change dress style to western
• (2) promote secular values
• (3)
  make popular culture compatible with requirements
  and goals of development
• Reza Shahs accomplishments
• a. eliminated hereditary privilege
• b. did away with titles
  and asked people to select family names
• c. Took telegraph away from British control
• d. built roads infrastructure
• e. built a railway from
  the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf
• f. establish secular, public schools and
  changed name to Iran
• g. reduce clerical authority
• h. 1935 abolished veil
  for women and encouraged both men and
• women to adopt
  European dress

7
1940s-1960s History

• Reza Shah Pahlavi is forced to abdicate during WW
  II in favor of his son, Muhammad Reza Shah
  Pahlavi
• 1956 PM Muhammad Mossadegh comes to power,
  nationalizes oil industry. Leads a party called
  the National Front
• US and British intelligence services overthrow
  Mossadegh and restore the Shah

8
The White Revolution (1963)

• The Shah announced a program for reforms that
  were popularly endorsed
• land redistribution
• nationalization of the forests
• sale of shares in government owned
  factories to underwrite land reforms
• sharing of factory profits with workers
• electoral reform
• enfranchisement of women
• creation of a literacy corps
• Revolution countered RED influences
• Majles became a rubber stamp
• Iran became a corporatist state with
  patron-client relationships embedded

9
The Islamic Revolution of 1979

• Despite successes (real or perceived) of the
  White Revolution, rumblings of discontent could
  be heard in Iran as early as 1963
• Severe economic and social dislocations from
  White Revolution
• Shah had ruled using imprisonment and death for
  insurgents
• Perceived as totalitarian, Carter pushed for
  opennessdisaster
• Khomeini was charismatic opposition leader-- a
  real option
• Government corruption was severe
• Shia clergy provided an outlet for protest
• Secularized too quickly
• Patron-clientelism did not include interest group
  input, so corporatism never developed
• In 1979 the Shah fell, leaving the country in
  January 1979.

10
3 Oddities of 1979 Revolution

• The 1st Revolution in which the dominant
  ideology, forms of organization, and leadership
  cadres were religious in form and aspiration
• This revolution was the first contemporary
  revolution in which a theocracy was established
  (modern revs were all AGAINST state and church)
• Only modern social revolution in which the
  peasantry and rural guerillas played A MARGINAL
  ROLE
• It was a classic J-curve revolution declining
  oil prices and 20 inflation dented economic
  growth led to DISCONTENTEXPECTATIONS NOT MET

11
How the Revolution Happened

• The Revolutionary Coalition
• Urban poor especially former rural dwellers who
  experienced the cultural chasm between tradition
  and modernity
• Moderate middle classes that want political
  freedoms
• Leftists
• Bazaar merchants (controlled broad networkscould
  bring commerce to a standstill)
• The clergy had solid communication networks,
  financial independence, credibility from decades
  of opposition to Shah
• ARMED FORCES WERE NEUTRAL
• 99 of people voted to endorse new Constitution
  written by Assembly of Religious experts. (75
  voted)

12
The Khomeini Government 1979-1988 Institution of
the Islamic State

• 1) Khomeini accomplishments
• -centralize the role of the state
• -set up a Marxist economy
• -adopt absolute rule with religious
  authorityJurists Guardianship
• -establish the Islamic Republic of Iran
• the term coined by Khomeini to suggest factions
  (republic) but final authority by the caliph
• Luck Oil prices rebounded, providing money for
  social services, medical care, etc.
• Luck Iraq War unified Iranians
• 2) Institutions of Government created/revised
• a) Parliament
• b) President
• c) Assembly of Experts
• d) Supreme Leader
• e) Guardian Council
• f) Supreme National Security Council
• g) Armed Forces
• h) Expediency Council
• i) Judiciary

13
1989 forward

• Khomeini was succeeded by the Ayatollah Khamenei
• Power began to shift back to the Presidency
• The President in 1989 was Ali Akbar Hashemi
  Rafsanjani, who was a hard liner and closely
  allied with Ayatollah Khamenei
• In the 1992 elections, the two held on to power
• 1997 elections a moderate, Mohammad Khatami won
• 2002 Declared a member of the Axis of Evil by
  President George W. Bush

14
The Iranian Executive

• Supreme Leader or faqih chosen by 86 member
  Assembly of Religious Experts a.k.a. Chamber
  of Experts
• Supposed to defend Islam, ensure laws acceptable
• Appoints/removes head of judiciary
• Appoints/removes ½ (6 members) of Guardian
  Council (approves candidates)
• Appoints head of military and may command armed
  forces
• Declares war and peace
• Most famous Ayatollah Khomeini
• Current
• More powerful than Irans President, may overrule
  or dismiss the President and eliminate
  Presidential candidates

15
Irans President

• 1989 PM abolished
• Needs absolute majority of votes, 4 year term2
  term maximum
• Must be well known political personalityGuardia
  n Council has used this to ban women
• June 2005 Election--Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
  hardline mayor of Tehran, defeats Rafsanjani
• Devises the budget, supervises economic matters
• Proposes legislation to Majles
• Executes policy
• Signs treaties, laws, and agreements
• Chairs the National Security Council
• Selects vice-presidents and cabinet ministers
• Approves provincial governors, town mayors, and
  ambassadors
• Abol-Hasan Bani-Sadr removed in 1981 for
  criticizing regime as dictatorship

16
Council of Guardians

• 12 member council
• 6 clerics 6 lay members (lawyers)
• All men
• Has veto power with Supreme Leader over
  Parliamentary legislationdid so with Press
  Control law repeal
• Determines who can run in local, Presidential,
  Parliamentary, and Religious Experts elections
• Work with Supreme Leader to exercise jurists
  guardianship

17
Assembly of Religious Experts

• 86 members
• Elected popularly and directly but its all
  clerics. 1998 revisions do allow non-clerics but
  none elected yet
• No females allowed
• Candidates must pass religion test to qualify
• Chose Ali Khameini in 1989

18
Council for the Expediency of the State

• Created 1998
• 32 leading political personalities appointed for
  3 year terms, may now originate own legislation
• Members
• Heads of 3 branches of government (President,
  Chief Justice, Speaker of the Majles)
• 6 Clerics of Guardian council
• Anyone else Supreme Leader wants
• Resolves policy disputes between Guardian Council
  and Majlis

19
Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis)--
Legislature

• 290 deputies, 4 yr terms, semi-free elections,
  must be 15 to vote
• All candidates must be cleared by Council of
  Guardians (council may veto any law not
  consistent with the Revolution)
• Speaker has emerged as major position Rafsanjani
  used it as springboard to Presidency. Now Akbar
  Nateq-Noori
• Makes laws, interprets laws with Judiciary, 6
  members on Guardian Council, investigations,
  removes Cabinet ministers but not President,
  approves budgets/treaties/appointees of President
• Elections to the Majlis of Iran were held on
  February 20, 2004. A runoff was held on May 7,
  2004, which filled 39 seats where no candidate
  gained sufficient votes to win in the first
  round.
• The elections took place amidst a serious
  political crisis that developed due to the
  January 2004 decision of the conservative vetting
  body, the Council of Guardians, to ban thousands
  of candidates from running -- nearly half of the
  total.

20

• A vast number of reformists, including some of
  their leaders, and particularly members of the
  Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), were
  barred from running. In many parts of Iran, there
  weren't even enough independent candidates
  approved, so the reformists couldn't form an
  alliance with them.
• Out of a possible 285 seats (5 seats are reserved
  for religious minorities Christians, Jews, and
  Zoroastrians), the participating reformist
  parties could only introduce 191 candidates. Some
  reformist parties, like the IIPF, announced that
  they would not vote. Moderate reformists,
  including President Mohammad Khatami, urged
  citizens to vote in order to deny the
  conservative candidates an easy majority.
• While many pro-reform social and political
  figures, including Shirin Ebadi, had asked people
  not to vote, the official turnout was about 51.
  Even in Tehran and its suburbs, a stronghold of
  reformist sympathies, turnout was about 28, and
  one of the conservative alliances, Etelaf-e
  Abadgaran-e Iran-e Eslami, won all of the city's
  30 seats. There are rumors that some voters were
  transferred to Tehran or other big cities from
  other areas by some of the parties, and a claim
  that the Municipality of Tehran, whose mayor
  backed the same alliance, was advertising for the
  alliance illegally, using the government's
  budget.
• Day before the election--reformist newspapers
  Yas-e-no and Shargh were banned.
• The preliminary results of the elections showed a
  victory by the conservatives. A basic comparison
  of the partial lists indicated that even among
  the seats where the reformist alliance had a
  candidate, only 28 (30 out of 107) were elected.

21
Iranian Judiciary

• NOT an independent judiciary, enforces sharia
  and qanun (statutory law). Judicial review in
  the sense that qanun may not violate sharia
• Supreme Leader appoints cleric to be head judge
• Religious zealots (hezbollahis) recruited from
  ranks of urban poor (bazaaris) stormtroopers
• Enforces censorship laws to curtail public
  debates
• Shut down 100 newspapers/magazines 1997-2004
• Banned interest on loans as usury
• Death penalty mandated for adultery,
  homosexuality, drug dealing, and alcoholism

22
Iranian Military

• 540,000 active troops (8th largest)
• Some long range missiles
• Developing nuclear weapons
• Revolutionary Guards developed in case military
  gets reformist ideas

23
Political Parties/Elections

• Finally re-legalized in 1998
• Islamic Iran Participation Front Reformist,
  formed after 1997 election of Khatami. Run by
  Muhammad Reza Khatami (his brother). Did well in
  2000, many candidates blocked by Guardian Council
  in 2004. Helped Muhammad Khatami win re-election
• Servants of Construction Party Grouping of
  technocrats loosely allied with former President
  Rafsanjani
• Assembly of Combatant Clerics Muhammad Khatamis
  party. Left wing, pro-reform.
• Conservatives several different parties, biggest
  is Ahmadinejads Islamic Society of Engineers
• Almost 1 election/year ingrained
• 15 is voting age
• High voter turnout
• Candidate to seat ratio is 101 or more
• Sharia, the canonical law of Islam, is the basis
  for the Constitution and therefore elections

24
Bureaucracy

• Revolutionaries purged bureaucracy
• Doubled in size since 1979 though
• College and Hs graduates
• Second strata is conservative technocrats
• Military Regular Army Revolutionary Guards
  (internal security)
• New ministry Culture and Islamic Guidance
  (censors media)
• Reconstruction expands social services, sees
  that Islam expands into the countryside
• Intelligence, Interior, Justice, Culture headed
  by clerics, often other posts go to their
  relatives
• Result clientelism, corruption, mismanagement,
  patronage, ideological, nepotist
• Some semipublic institutions from confiscated
  pre-1979 wealth, Martyrs Foundation

25
Political Culture

• Shiism Hidden Imam will return. Union of
  religious and political authority through sharia
  (Islamic law). Sharia is an essentail base of
  legitimacy
• Authoritarianism, but not totalitarianism
  (relieves some pressure for reform)
• Escaped from European colonizationwill not be
  same as Mexico, Nigeria
• Geographic limitations Not much arable land,
  plenty of oil, most Iranians live in cities and
  the northwest
• Ancient Persian influences (architecture,
  literary works, decorative arts)
• Mass media severely curtailed, 20 newspapers shut
  down in 1979, 7 more by 1981.
• 1981 law crime to use pen or speech against
  the government
• 2000 Reformists elected, outgoing legislature
  enacted press control law, which Guardian
  Council has ordered cannot be overturned by the
  new legislature

26
Cleavages

• Religion (10 Sunni, lt1 BahaI
• Ethnicity (51 Persian, 24 Azeri), various
  ethnic uprisings have all been put down
• Reformers vs. Conservatives
• Statists vs. Free marketers (Bill to allow 100
  foreign ownership, up from 48, vetoed by
  Guardian Council)
• Resistance to clerical rule by fiat is strongest
  among middle class increasingly urbanized,
  educated, and young. Peasantry and lower class
  support the regime.
• Most upper class left the country in 1979

27
Civil Society

• Cultural Revolution in schoolsrevolutionaries
  made schools teach orthodoxy. Western
  sympathizing professors fired and replaced (like
  Cultural Revolution in China)
• Intellectual prosperity has flourished under a
  repressive regime
• No criticism of Islam or clerics permitted
• Mild criticism of government OK
• About 200 well respected journals present
• Participation high
• 1999 studenbt uprising crushed
• Revolutionaries tried to crush pre-1979 culture,
  eventually decided they would have to
  coexist/co-opt it

28
Political Participation

• Huge gaps in values between different social
  groups
• Western influence over upper/middle classes
• Millions took action during Revolution,
  electionsstudents and youth now have enormous
  political weight
• Womens participation has gone up
• Dissuaded when government assassinated over 100
  ethnic, leftist, and monarchist forces living in
  the WEST.
• Protests remain (1999 shutdown of college
  newspaper), factory workers protest now

29
Gender

• Divorce and custody laws now follow Islamic
  rulesbad for women Equality with difference
• Veil a symbol of oppression
• Scarf and long coat in public required
• Women must have consent of male relatives to
  leave the country
• Occasional stonings for adultery, although they
  have been banned
• Runaway girls, prostitution widespread
• 27 of labor force is women
• Boys and girls do attend school at same rate
• Not well represented in Majles

30
Political Economy

• Khomeini Economics is for donkeys.
• Pressures during 1980s
• 1) Nationalization of many large firms
• 2) Massive emigration of skilled workers
• 3) Decline in Western investment
• 4) Oil price drop
• 5) 8 yr Iraq war
• Pragmatists wanted economic recovery, opposed by
  conservatives who wanted no reforms, keep West
  out
• Guild and professional organizations are
  weakcitizenry have multiple occupations and
  rapid employment turnover

31
Economy

• Oil 85 of exportsrentier state
• Suffers from lack of diversification, dependence
  on world market/price fluctuations, exacerbates
  income inequality, corrupt usage of rents
• Lack of raw materials and spare parts
• 16 Unemployment
• 15 inflation
• But education and health care have improved
• Bazaar merchants have constituted backbone of
  economic flows
• A myriad of quasi-private foundations and
  religious endowments manage state-owned
  enterprises to aid the poor (Shahs old fortune)
• Iran has applied for WTO membership despite
  reservations about Western domination, nothing
  against cooperation, just domination.
• Iran will need outside help with infrastructure,
  developing additional oil resources
• Declining birth rate will help mandatory sex ed
  classes for engaged couples
• Iran did not sign Kyoto Treaty but has gotten
  World Bank aid to clean up air pollution
• Afghan and other refugees have been a strain on
  the economy
• Country suffers from air polllution (not Kyoto
  signatory), deforestation, desertification, water
  contamination

32
Iranian Foreign Policy

• OPEC Member
• Some advocate warmer ties with foreign investors,
  possibly readmitting US dollars
• Tourism industry almost dormant now
• Money a coward Iran the classic example
• Large refugee population Afghan, Iraqi, Kurd
• Large diaspora abroadgovernment tries to court
  them, most demand things the government cannot or
  will not provide

33
Learning Objectives

• After mastering the concepts presented in this
  chapter, you will be able to
• Understand the key moments of the historical
  formation of Persia and Iran.
• Recognize the importance of complex religious and
  political challenges in process of understanding
  of Iranian politics and society. Define the
  following Shiites, Sunni, Muslim, Arab
• Discuss the complicated evolution of Iranian
  politics.
• Comprehend the importance of religious
  intolerance and challenges in the Iranian state
  throughout the history.
• Discuss the role of theocracy in the process of
  Iranian political development.
• Understand the evolution of Iranian state in 20th
  century and define key elements of revolutions in
  Iran. Briefly discuss the role of the following
  leaders Mahmoud Ahamdinejad, Ayatollah Ali
  Khameni, Ayatollah Khomeini, Ayatollah
  Rafsanjani, Shah Mohamed Reza, Shah Reza

34
Learning Objectives

• After mastering the concepts presented in this
  chapter, you will be able to
• Define Iranian geography and current economic
  challenges.
• Understand the process of political, economic and
  social developments of Iran.
• Understand the role of Constitutional Revolution
  and White Revolution in Iran.
• Discuss the key elements of Iranian state
  institution. Define the following Assembly of
  Experts, Expediency Council, Guardian Council,
  Majlis, Supreme Leader
• Understand the specifications of Iranian
  political culture and participation.
• Understand the challenges of democratization in
  Iran.
• Comprehend the challenging process of the
  development of Iranian international positioning
  as an important regional and international
  challenges of international stability and
  nonproliferation.