The pluralistic momentum in Iran and the future of the reform movement

Abstract

This article explores the pluralistic momentum in Iran. It challenges the state-centric approach to Iranian politics, arguing that contemporary Iranian reformism manifests itself as a trajectory, yet original and indigenous, political culture that feeds into the political process in a bottom-up manner—from society to the state—not the other way around. Assessing the theoretical, methodological and empirical implications of this hypothesis, the article outlines the contours of Iran's reform movement and its interaction with the country's diverse civil society. As long as Iranian politics is driven by the pluralistic momentum, it is claimed, Iranian reformism will elicit political results and—to highly dissimilar degrees—will continue to provoke the silent subservience of central institutions of the state.

Notes

The author would to thank Louis Fawcett, James Piscatori, Adam Roberts, Ali-Reza Sheikholeslami and Philip Robins for their helpful comments on this article.

1 From ‘Mabadi ara ahl al-madinat al-fadilah’ (The Perfect State), in Seyyed Hossein Nasr & Mehdi Aminrazavi (eds), An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Vol 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, p 126.

2 Islamic Republic News Agency (irna), 11 November 2003.

3 For a comprehensive analysis see Dilip Hiro, The Iranian Labyrinth: Journeys Through Theocratic Iran and its Furies, New York: Nation Books, 2005, esp ch 2.

4 Agence France Press (afp), 1 February 2004.

5 irna, 4 February 2005.

6 For a critique of this strategy, see Akbar Ganji, ‘The struggle against sultanism’, Journal of Democracy, 16 (4), 2004, pp 38 – 51.

7 See Morad Saghafi, ‘The new landscape of Iranian politics’, trans from French Kaveh Ehsani, Middle East Report, available at http://www.merip.org/mer/mer233/saghafi.html, accessed 10 December 2005.

8 Leading members of the ifm, such as Reza Alijani, Hoda Saber and Taghi Rahmani, have been in prison since 2003.

9 The results of the first round of votes were announced on 18 June 2005. Rafsanjani won with 21% of the votes, hence failing to secure an absolute majority (above 50%) which, according to the electoral law in Iran, would have sufficed to form the government. Moin came in fourth, securing only 14% of the vote.

10 For an analysis of the ascendancy of Khatami and the Islamic – democratic movement in Iran, see Ray Takeyh, ‘God's will: Iranian democracy and the Islamic context’, Middle East Policy, VII (4) 2000, pp 41 – 49, at http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal_vol7/0010_takeyh.asp, accessed 4 May 2002.

11 ‘Khatami justifies years in office’, bbc, 3 May 2004, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/3681153.stm, accessed 8 December 2005.

12 For the emergence of the Isargaran, see Bill Samii, ‘Iran: a rising star in party politics’, Radio Free Europe (rfe), 8 November 2005, at http://www.payvand.com/news/05/nov/1060.html, accessed 2 December 2005.

13 The campaign themes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—social equality, cracking down on elite corruption, redistributing Iran's oil and gas income and returning to the spiritual ideals of the Islamic revolution—were especially effective in the urban, working-class districts of Iran's major cities. He did not primarily market himself on the radio and television like the other candidates (reformers and conservatives alike). Rather than solely relying on official media outlets, he used recorded messages which were transmitted to the streets of Tehran and other major cities through loudspeakers.

14 Ahmadinejad secured a landslide victory, winning 62% of the vote, with Rafsanjani taking only 36%. For a balanced analysis of Ahmadinejad's election victory, see Kamal Nazer Yasin, ‘Iran: new direction?,’ Middle East International, 3 August 2005, at http://meionline.com/features/390.shtml, accessed 1 December 2005. See also Mark Gasiorowski, ‘The causes and consequences of Iran's June 2005 presidential election’, Strategic Insights, IV (8) 2005, at http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2005/Aug/gasiorowskiAug05.pdf, accessed 21 November 2005. For complementing views, see Doug Lorimer, ‘Iran: a vote against neo-liberalism’, Green Left Weekly, 6 July 2005, at http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/632/632p14.htm, accessed 11 December 2005; and Patrick Seale, ‘Iran's election may provide an Islamic role model’, The Daily Star (Beirut), 11 July 2005, at http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=1664, accessed 11 November 2005.

15 It should be added in parenthesis that the authorities also temporarily banned the conservative news website Baztab.com, which belongs to the former Commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezai, a supporter of Ayatollah Khamenei and close confidant of Iran's intelligence community.

16 For a comprehensive analysis of Iran's internet surveillance regime, see Opennetinitiative, A Country Study: Internet Filtering in Iran 2004 – 2005, at http://www.opennetinitiative.net/Iran, accessed 21 November 2005.

17 ‘Ebadi protests Iran human rights violations’, iafp, 31 December 2005.

18 ‘Iranian reformist speaks out against sectarian violence’, Financial Times, 22 February 2006.

19 See Ali M Ansari, ‘Continuous regime change from within’, Washington Quarterly, 26 (4), 2003, pp 53 – 67, at http://www.twq.com/03autumn/docs/03autumn_ansari.pdf#search='Continuous%20regime%20change%20from%20within, accessed 15 December 2005. See also Ali R Abootalebi, ‘Civil society and Iran's quest for democracy’, Iran Analysis Quarterly, 1 (1), 2003, pp 2 – 5, at http://web.mit.edu/isg/IAQ/IAQSUMMER.pdf#search='Civil%20Society%20and%20Iran%E2%80%99s%20quest%20for%20democracy, accessed 12 November 2005.

20 For a comparative analysis of Soroush's thoughts within an Islamic context, see Bernhard J Trautner, ‘The clash within civilisations: Islam and the accommodation of plurality’, In iis Working Paper No 13/99, Institut für Interkulturelle und Internationale Studien, University of Bremen, at http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/∼bjtraut/clash/clash.pdf, accessed 12 November 2001.

21 See further Abdolkarim Soroush, Reason, Freedom & Democracy: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush, trans and ed Mahmoud Sadri & Ahmad Sadri, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000; Valla Vakilli, Debating Religion and Politics: The Political Thought of Abdol Karim Soroush, New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997; Laura Secor, ‘The democrat: Iran's leading reformist intellectual tries to reconcile religious duties and human rights’, Boston Globe, 14 March 2004, at http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/03/14/the_democrat/, accessed 15 March 2004; and Robin B Wright, ‘Two visions of reformation’, Journal of Democracy, 7 (2) 1996, pp 64 – 75, at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v007/7.2wright01.html, accessed 23 February 2000. For Shabestari's ideas, see Farzin Vahdat, ‘Post-revolutionary discourses of Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari’; and Mohsen Kadivar, ‘Reconciling the terms of mediated subjectivity’, at http://www.kadivar.com/Htm/English/Reviews/Paper-01.htm, accessed 14 November 2005.

22 For a list of Iranian ngos, including websites, see Syma Sayyah, ‘A short note on ngos in Iran’, at http://www.payvand.com/news/03/jan/1114.html, accessed 14 November 2005. There are also constructive efforts to link the work of ngos operating in Iran with the diaspora. Here, the Iranian Alliances Across Borders (iaab) and the Iranian Studies Group (isg) have recently launched a project which aims to attract Iranians in the diaspora ‘who are looking for opportunities to intern/volunteer in the service of Iranian civil society’. See http://www.project-connection.org.

23 I am drawing on sociological theory here. See Peter L Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, London: Anchor Books, 1967; and Berger, A Rumour of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural, London: Anchor Books, 1969.

24 ‘According to the republican view’, Jürgen Habermas argues, ‘the political opinion- and will-formation occurring in the public sphere and in parliament obeys not the structures of market processes but the obstinate structures of a public communication oriented to mutual understanding … This dialog conception imagines politics as contestation over questions of value and not simply questions of preference.’ Jürgen Habermas, ‘Three normative models of democracy’, in Ronald J Terchek & Thomas C Conte (eds), Theories of Democracy: A Reader, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, p 238.

25 For a discussion of some of the sociological indicators mentioned, see Critique's special issue in collaboration with the University of Tehran. Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 14 (1), 2005.

26 Indeed, with an estimated 100 000 active Iranian blogs, Persian is now (together with French) the second most common ‘blogging language’ after English. See Time, 9 May 2005.

27 I have discussed the impact of these changes on Iranian foreign policy elsewhere. See Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, ‘Islamic utopian romanticism and the foreign policy culture of Iran’, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, 14 (3), 2005, pp 265 – 292; and Adib-Moghaddam, The International Politics of the Persian Gulf: A Cultural Genealogy, London: Routledge, 2006, esp chs 3 and 4.

28 Fariba Adelkhah, Being Modern in Iran, trans Jonathan Derrick, London: Hurst, p 177.

29 It should be noted that the post-revolutionary generation in Iran comprises both reformist groups who have contributed to the election victories of the Khatami presidencies and (neo)conservative forces who have contributed to the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For our line of argument it is important to note that in both instances the electorate voted for the ‘outsider’, that is for the candidate who was perceived to act in opposition to the establishment.

30 See Robert Dahl, Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy: Autonomy vs Control, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982, p 5.

31 For Khatami's ideas see his Hope and Challenge, Binghamton, NY: State University of New York, 1998; and Khatami, Islam, Dialogue and Civil Society, Canberra: Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, 2000.

32 ‘Iran report says rights violations common in prison’, Reuters, 23 July 2005; and ‘Iran to hold jury trials for press offences', AFP, 5 October 2005.

33 See Michel Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, Vol 1, trans Robert Hurley, London: Penguin, p 92ff; and Foucault, ‘Two lectures’, in Michael Kelly (ed), Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas Debate, Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 1998, pp 17 – 46.

34 Adib-Moghaddam, ‘Islamic utopian romanticism’, p 286.

35 Edward Said, Reflections on Exile, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000, p 580.

36 Ganji, ‘The struggle against sultanism’, p 51.

37 See further Ansari, ‘Continuous regime change from within’; Mehrzad Boroujerdi, ‘The paradoxes of politics in post-revolutionary Iran’, in John L Esposito & RK Ramazani (eds), Iran at the Crossroads, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001, pp 13 – 27; Katajun Amirpur, ‘Gibt es in Iran noch einen Reformprozess?’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 23 February 2004, pp 18 – 24; and Mehdi Parvizi Amineh, ‘Demokratisierung und ihre Feinde in Iran’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 23 February 2004, pp 25 – 28.