Youth Protests or Protest Generations? Conceptualizing Differences between Iran’s Contentious Ruptures in the Context of the December 2017 to November 2019 Protests

Abstract

In this article, I argue that contentious ruptures in Iran have produced socio-political generations with differing views on political processes and strategic approaches toward contestations. Using a constructivist approach to sociological generations, I argue that the experience of such events creates ruptures that shape the emergence of generations beyond demographic similarities. While the last event to produce major systemic change was the revolutionary generation, later generations had relative success in shaping relations with the state and defining new political strategies. The most recent protest cycle between December 2017 and November 2019 seems to have the capacity of shaping another generation: One that is defined by a greater disillusionment with the state and a strategy of contention defined by a more decentralized and more adversarial approach regarding state institutions. Barring major changes to accommodate this development, the regime may be facing the emergence of a new generational group whose attitudes and strategies could shape politics in Iran for decades to come.

Key Words:

• Authoritarianism
• Generations
• Iran
• Protests
• Social movements
• Youth

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The age of three members could not be identified

2 The Associated Press (11 July 2019) Iran’s First Post-Islamic Revolution Minister Already Dreaming of Presidency Bid, Haaretz. Available at https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/iran/iran-s-first-post-islamic-revolution-minister-already-dreaming-of-presidency-bid-1.7491509, accessed March 5, 2020.

3 Karl Mannheim (2017) Das Problem Der Generationen [The problem of the generations], in KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift Für Soziologie Und Sozialpsychologie, 69(1), pp. 81–119. D. I. Kertzer (1983) Generation as a Sociological Problem, Annual Review of Sociology, 9, pp. 125–149; J. Pilcher (1994) Mannheim’s Sociology of Generations: Un Undervalued Legacy, The British Journal of Sociology, 45(3), pp. 481–495; D. Woodman & J. Wyn (2015) Youth and Generation: Rethinking Change and Inequality in the Lives of Young People (London: SAGE Publications).

4 Mannheim, Das Problem Der Generationen.

5 Tareq Sydiq & Miriam Tekath (2022) Youth as Generational Configurations: Conceptualising Conflicts along Generation-Based Dynamics, in: Peacebuilding, 10(1), pp. 51–65.

6 Matteo Capasso (2018) Guest Editor’s Introduction: Sketches of the Everyday, in: Middle East Critique, 27(3), pp. 221–229.m

7 Ibid.

8 Shahram Khosravi (2017) Precarious Lives (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press), p. 61.

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11 Behrouzan, Prozak Diaries, p. 127.

12 Khosravi, Precarious Lives, p. 62.

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18 Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran.

19 Sydiq & Tekath, Youth as Generational Configurations: Conceptualising Conflicts along Generation-Based Dynamics.

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43 Foran, The Iranian Revolution of 1977–79; and Farhi, The Antinomies of Iran’s War Generation.

44 Abdolmohammadi, The Revival of Nationalism and Secularism in Modern Iran.

45 Hashemi, Coming of Age in Iran: Poverty and the Struggle for Dignity, pp. 6, 8.

46 Ibid, p. 9.

47 Behrouzan, Prozak Diaries.

48 Khosravi, Precarious Lives, pp. 61–62.

49 Ibid.

50 Narges Bajoghli (2019) Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press), pp. 8–9.

51 Ibid.

52 Nejad, From Built to Performed Space: Post-Election Protests in Tehran.

53 Saeid Golkar (2011) Liberation or Suppression Technologies? The Internet, the Green Movement and the Regime in Iran, International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society, 9(1), pp. 50–70.

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58 Karimi, The Iranian Green Movement of 2009: Reverberating Echoes of Resistance, 191–192.

59 Seth G. Jones & Danika Newlee (2019) Iran’s Protests and the Threat to Domestic Stability. Available at: https://www.csis.org/analysis/irans-protests-and-threat-domestic-stability, accessed March 5, 2020.

60 Karimi, The Iranian Green Movement of 2009: Reverberating Echoes of Resistance, 192.

61 Capasso, Guest Editor’s Introduction: Sketches of the Everyday.

62 Radio Farda (18 August 2019) Iran Minister Says Despite Discontent Fewer Protests, Radio Farda. Available online at: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-minister-says-despite-discontent-fewer-protests/30115906.html, accessed March 5, 2020.

63 Ali Fathollah-Nejad (2020) The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On: The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple Crisis, Doha, Qatar: Brookings Doha Center, April, 9; and Afshin Shahi & Ehsan Abdoh-Tabrizi (2020) Iran’s 2019–2020 Demonstrations: The Changing Dynamics of Political Protests in Iran, Asian Affairs, 51(1), pp. 1–41.

64 Fathollah-Nejad, The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On: The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple Crisis.

65 Shahi & Abdoh-Tabrizi, Iran’s 2019–2020 Demonstrations: The Changing Dynamics of Political Protests in Iran.

66 Human Rights Watch (2020) Iran: No Justice for Bloody Crackdown, Hrw.Org (Beirut), available online at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/02/25/iran-no-justice-bloody-crackdown, accessed March 6, 2020; Amnesty International (2019) Iran: Thousands Arbitrarily Detained and at Risk of Torture in Chilling Post-Protest Crackdown, Amnesty.Org. Available online at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/12/iran-thousands-arbitrarily-detained-and-at-risk-of-torture-in-chilling-post-protest-crackdown/, accessed March 6, 2020.

67 Babak Dehghanpisheh & Parisa Hafezi (2020) Iranians Bury Dead from Downed Plane after Days of Rage on the Street, Reuters. Available online: at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-crash/iran-social-media-posts-call-for-more-protests-after-plane-disaster-idUSKBN1ZE0KA, accessed Dezember 6, 2021.

68 Iran: People’s Tribunal on Deadly Protest Crackdowns Must Serve as Wake-up Call for All UN Member States (11 November 2021), Amnesty International. Available online: at https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/11/iran-people-tribunal-wake-up-call-un-member-states/, accessed Dezember 6, 2021.

69 Misagh Parsa (2017) Democracy in Iran (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

70 They do, however, share in common the departure from strategies itself, i.e. surprising observers through the novelty of their politics. For 2009, Kevan Harris notes how unexpected the Green Movement seemed, with Reza Nejad pointing out that it “could not be fit within the framework of conventional Iranian politics.” Harris, The Brokered Exuberance of the Middle Class: An Ethnographic Analysis of Iran’s 2009 Green Movement; Nejad, From Built to Performed Space: Post-Election Protests in Tehran, p. 5. Similarly, 1997 saw the fusion of street politics and Reformism as an electoral strategy, which Mehrdad Mashayekhi characterizes as an opportunity structure for protesters and Wells even considered a Thermidor due to competitive post-revolutionary elections being possible. See Mehrdad Mashayekhi (2001) The Revival of the Student Movement in Post-Revolutionary Iran, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 15(2), pp. 283–313; Wells, Thermidor in the Islamic Republic of Iran: The Rise of Muhammad Khatami. The unexpected nature of the Islamic revolution has been well documented in Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran.

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83 Sommers, Governance, Security and Culture: Assessing Africa’s Youth Bulge; Nordås & Davenport, Fight the Youth: Youth Bulges and State Repression.