After Khomeini Iran Under His Successors

by Arjomand, Said Amir

ISBN13: 9780195391794

ISBN10: 0195391799

Format: Hardcover

Pub. Date: 2009-11-20

Publisher(s): Oxford University Press

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Summary

Iran has not ceased to surprise the world since the American ambassador's famous "thinking the unthinkable" 1978 cable about the imminent fall of the Shah and the coming of Islamic revolution. The apparent sequence of moderate government of President Hashemi-Rafsanjani (1989-97) and democratic reform under President Khatami (1997-2005) was followed by the return of the hardliners and revolutionary populism coupled with an aggressive foreign policy, including a nuclear program. Iran's political regime has proved remarkably resilient through all these changes, despite the disaffection of the younger half of the population, and become all the stronger, partly as a result of the Bush administration's ill-advised bluff about regime change. The death of Imam Khomeini as its charismatic leader in 1989 did not mean the end of the Islamic revolution, but only the beginning of a prolonged struggle among the children of the revolution over Khomeini's heritage. The integrative social revolution begun in 1979 has continued quietly, while the raucous/noisy struggle to define, structure and control the new Islamic political order set up by Khomeini among different factions of his followers has produced a unique political regime which defies understanding. Arjomand draws on the sociology of revolution to offer a general explanation of political developments in Iran in the last two decades while seeking to understand its unique features in terms of constitutional politics of the creation of the post-revolutionary order. Not only Iran's domestic politics but also its foreign policy are shown to follow a pattern typical of the great revolutions. Surprising as it may seem, the parameters for Iran's constitutional politics in the last two decades are those set by Khomeini's mixture of theocratic, republican and populist elements in the ideology of the Islamic revolution.

Author Biography

Said Amir Arjomand was born in Tehran and is the founder and president (1996-2002, 2006-2009) of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies and the Editor of the Journal of Persianate Studies.

Introduction	p. 3
Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution	p. 16
Leadership of the Revolution	p. 16
The Making of Khomeini's Constitutional Order	p. 26
Dual Leadership and Constitutional Developments after Khomeini	p. 36
The Constitutional Amendments of 1989	p. 38
Constitutional Development of Clerical Conciliarism	p. 41
Contestation of Clerical Domination	p. 52
Thermidor at Last: Hashemi-Rafsanjani's Presidency and the Economy	p. 56
The Hydra-Headed Structure of Military and Economic Power	p. 58
Stalled Political Liberalization	p. 62
Revolutionary Power Struggle: The Emergence of the Hardliner and the Reformist Factions	p. 65
Revolutionary Ideology and Its Transformation into Islamic Reformism	p. 72
Nativism and the Ideology of the Islamic Revolution	p. 73
From the Islamic Ideology to the Reform of Islam	p. 76
The Dialectic of Tradition and Modernity and the Making of Post-Islamism	p. 84
The Rise and Fall of President Khatami and the Reform Movement	p. 90
The Rule of Law and the Glasnost	p. 91
Mellowing of the Power Struggle among the Children of the Revolution	p. 94
Constitutional Politics of the Perestroika	p. 99
Clerical Councils versus the Majles	p. 105
Trapped in Their Own Rhetoric and Abandoned	p. 107
Social and Political Consequences of the Integrative Revolution	p. 112
Iran's New Political Class	p. 112
Social Stratification and Economic Inequality	p. 120
Urbanization and Migration	p. 123
Social Mobility through Education and the Mobilization of Women	p. 125
Consequences of the Iranian Perestroika: Provincial Autonomy, Local Politics, and Presidential Populism	p. 127
Iran's Foreign Policy: From the Export of Revolution to Pragmatism	p. 133
The Gulf "War as a Turning Point	p. 133
Transition to Pragmatism in Foreign Policy: Both South and North	p. 141
The United States Rebuffs Hashemi-Rafsanjani and Woos Khatami Too Late	p. 143
Iran's New Political Class and the Ahmadinejad Presidency	p. 149
Rise of the Revolutionary Guards and Ahmadinejad's Election	p. 150
The Leaders Little Man Becomes His Own with a Little Help from the Hidden Imam	p. 156
Populism and the Revival of Islamic Revolutionism	p. 158
Ahmadinejad's Relations with the Clerical Elite, the Majles, and His Own Stratum	p. 161
The Revolutionary Guards' Electoral Coup to End the Republic and Inaugurate Clerical Monarchy	p. 165
Khomeini's Successor: Ayatollah Khamenei as the Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran	p. 172
Neopatrimonial Domination and Growing into the Office of Leadership	p. 172
The Supreme Jurist and the Subjugation of the Shi'ite Hierarchy	p. 174
Protecting the Islamic Revolution against Cultural Invasion by the West	p. 177
Growth of the Leader's Personal Power: His Pick from the Second Stratum	p. 178
Clerical Monarchy: Who Guards the Guardians?	p. 187
The Hardliners, Foreign Policy and Nuclear Development	p. 192
Foreign Policy Cartels and the Failure of Pragmatism	p. 192
President Ahmadinejad's Hardliner Populism and Nuclear Policy	p. 196
Overview of Post-revolutionary Foreign Policy	p. 203
Conclusion	p. 207
Appendix: Two Models of Revolution	p. 213
Notes	p. 217
References	p. 245
Index	p. 257
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