The Political History of Modern Iran: From Tribalism to Theocracy

Abstract

This book offers a concise and comprehensive examination of Iran's political history from the establishment of the Qajar dynasty in 1785 until the present. It focuses on both the historical evolution of Iranian political institutions as well as on the processes and phenomena to which these institutions have been exposed. Since politics do not occur within a culturally vacuous context, attention is also drawn to the dominant characteristics of Iran's political culture--from tribalism and religion to the cult of personality and political demagoguery--that have similarly shaped political life in Iran. Such characteristics have acquired added accent under the revolutionary regime of the Islamic Republic, although the revolution's gradual routinization has once again brought about a measure of political normalcy. Attention is drawn to the persistence of specific political dynamics that have proven to be particularly resilient throughout Iran's recent history. Throughout the reigns of the three regimes governing Iran since the eighteenth century--the Qajars, the Pahlavis, and the Islamic Republic--radically different from one another as they have been, the three themes of political autocracy, foreign intervention, and revolution have remained.