Inside the Islamic Republic (Introduction)

Inside the Islamic Republic SOCIAL CHANGE IN POST-KHOMEINI IRAN EDITED BY MAHMOOD MONSHIPOURI INTRODUCTION SOCIAL CHANGE IN POST-KHOMEINI IRAN Mahmood Monshipouri he dramatic transformation of Iranian society over the past two decades has led to renewed attention to the ways in which social interaction and cultural tradition have evolved. Iran is currently experiencing long-term processes of cumulative social change that have fostered various kinds of reactions and adjustments, including contentious politics and a wide variety of social movements bent on transforming the social realm. Internal challenges to long-held ways of deining power and status have intensiied relations among diferent factions vying for control and access within the Islamic Republic. Focusing on the complexity and interconnected patterns of change, Craig Calhoun argues that signiicant social disruptions—such as population growth, demographic transitions, capitalism, industrialization, modernity, and the spread of information and communications technologies—tend to have far-reaching repercussions. Given the pervasiveness of this process, dramatic change in one aspect of social life undoubtedly alters others.1 It is in this sense that social change has caught up with the Islamic Republic. he striking intensity and speed with which change is occurring in Iran has far surpassed the ability of even the most entrenched regimes and establishments to come to grips with it. Although the Islamic Republic’s success in exerting control 1 INSIDE THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC over the nature and direction of some aspects of social change has been clear, its attempts to curb the low of information facilitated by modern technologies of communication have proven less so. he inability of most formal Iranian political mechanisms to generate sustained economic growth and efective long-term socioeconomic planning relects not only the country’s ot-changing realities but also the enduring efects of mismanagement. Struggles for power among the competing factions within and outside of the governing institutions, especially in the postKhomeini era, have completely overshadowed any systematic and meaningful attention to the economic, cultural, religious, and technological changes taking place in Iran. he persistent reliance of Iranian leaders on improvising policy decisions has led in the past to gross miscalculations and mismanagement. More broadly, these factors have led to cumulative uncertainties and policy failures in the wake of the dramatic socioeconomic, cultural, and political changes that the country has recently undergone, making it increasingly imperative to deine and understand the broader contours of social and cultural change in Iran. It is worth noting that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini depicted the 1979 Revolution as an Islamic rather than an exceptionally Iranian one, conferring further legitimacy on it as an anti-imperialist and anti-West movement capable of spreading. Both symbolically and substantively, this move fueled panIslamism throughout the region and led to an increased disdain toward foreign inluence. he impact of the Revolution was instant and heavily felt in the region.2 he subsequent Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), which was rooted in the Iraqi regime’s belief that revolutionary Iran was attempting to trigger a Shi’ite uprising in Iraq, overshadowed the direction of the nation’s socioeconomic and cultural change. Indeed, the entire Khomeini era was dramatically overshadowed by the Iran-Iraq War. In 1980, a year ater the Pahlavi dynasty crumbled, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his Ba’thist state became fearful of the populist implications of the Iranian revolution for his own regime, especially since Iraq was a Shiite-majority country. On 22 September 1980, Iraqi forces invaded Iran. One observer argues that there is no escaping the fact that the Shia movement and networks between Iran and Iraq were strong, spanning Qom and Mashad in Iran to Karbala and Najaf in Iraq.3 he most widely shared explanation for the Iraqi invasion of Iran was that Saddam Hussein’s regime felt threatened by the possible spillover of the Iranian Revolution into Iraq. Some experts have also argued that Iraqi leaders were intent on using 2 INTRODUCTION the war as a way to maintain Arab unity and their pre-eminence in the Persian Gulf region.4 Other experts have pointed out that in the latter half of the war, following US attacks on Iranian oil platforms during the so-called “tanker war” and the accidental shooting down of an Iranian Air Bus aircrat by the USS Vincennes, which killed 290 civilians, Iranian leaders felt that this senseless violence had come to an end, agreeing to a cease-ire and inally adopting UNSCR Resolution 598 in 1987.5 Still others have noted that the rivalries that underpinned the war and its somber legacy legacy demonstrated that neither side achieved its war aims and that this was truly a war without winners. In both countries, the war was used to legitimate the regimes that followed and prompted a stronger sense of national identity.6 Ironically, the war consolidated the Iranian regime’s position, as it proved a very useful tool against internal opposition. Any criticism of the Islamic Republic and its leaders was denounced as treason, with severe penalties imposed on the convicted individual. Iran inanced its war operations entirely from its own reserves, which created enormous economic hardship for its people, yet it also led to a sense of unity and self-reliance.7 he destruction wrought by the war allowed little space for normal life as most Iranians were badly hit by the economic stagnation and sociocultural restrictions it engendered. he long-term efects of that bloody and devastating conlict cast a dark shadow over many Iranians in the ensuing years. Khomeini’s death in June 1989 ushered in a new era with a new emphasis for Iranian politics. Revolutionary fervor was replaced by a desperate and urgent need for national reconstruction and economic development.8 hus the post-Khomeini era has been marked by a profoundly changed sociopolitical landscape in Iran. Since 1989, the internal dynamics of change in Iran—encompassing a panoply of socioeconomic, cultural, institutional, demographic, and behavioral factors—have led to a disruptive transition in both societal and governmental structures of power, as well as the ways in which Iranians have come to deal with the changing conditions of their society. Global trends in communication and information expansion have hastened burgeoning demands for women’s rights and individual freedoms, as well as exacerbated festering tensions over cultural politics. hese realities have rendered Iran a country of unprecedented—and a times paradoxical—changes. his book intends to open up new ways of looking at Iran by upending and unpacking widely held but dubious assumptions about Iranian society, state, culture, and economy. Our aim is to promote critical engagement with social 3 INSIDE THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC change in an evolving and modern Iran with an eye toward deepening normative analysis and inspiring action and results. A recurring theme in the literature on social change is that democratic reforms and socioeconomic development go hand-in-hand. While socioeconomic development does not automatically bring about democracy, political reforms alone will bear no results in the face of continuing structural problems. his reveals a general tendency in which political reforms typically raise democratic hopes but the subsequent lack of economic development quickly extinguishes them. In Iran, a middle class has developed that is digitally interconnected, tech-savvy, and acutely aware of profound changes that have transpired in the past three decades under the Islamic Republic. As a result, this middle class is leery of the regime, vehemently resists, and strongly resents the harsh social and political restrictions enforced by a small group of hardliners. his book demonstrates how evolving identities, norms, and culture have shaped Iran’s transformation in post-Khomeini era and how today’s social forces such as ideas, knowledge, and rules have inluenced what the Iranian state and its diverse structures regard as legitimate. he Islamic Republic has come under persistent pressure to concede the existence and importance of social facts as well as its citizens’ evolving identities, interests, and subjectivities. Such clerical absolutist and totalitarian rule, blasé about social facts and observations, has ceased to be relevant a long time ago. From ideological imperatives to pragmatic necessities Khomeini’s death and the rise of President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989– 1997) diminished the populist fervor of the early years of the Islamic Revolution. A national referendum abolished the post of prime minister and replaced it with a popularly elected president as head of the government. Although the Majlis (parliament) was important in promoting popular sovereignty in the post-Khomeini era, it failed to provide genuinely broad political participation. Parliamentary elections were manipulated by oversight committees that controlled access to the Majlis. Inter-factional disputes continued to present problems for the executive branch. he radicals in the legislature advocated for the nationalization of foreign trade and major industries, and sought land reform and progressive taxation. he victory of the pragmatists demonstrated that Iran’s devastated economy and practical needs had replaced vague political and ideological slogans. Rafsanjani’s liberalization program (1989–1997) encountered many setbacks, 4 INTRODUCTION including low levels of private investment, low growth rates, budget bottlenecks, and mounting foreign debt. Corruption and mismanagement of resources also complicated these programs. he late 1990s “reform” era, characterized by the landslide victory of Mohammad Khatami in the 1997 presidential elections, ushered in the expansion of civil society, rule of law, women’s rights, and greater media freedom in the ensuing years. Khatami’s notable victory was also a irm rebuke to hardline clerics who had dominated Iranian politics since the 1979 Revolution that had toppled the pro-US Pahlavi regime. Khatami’s supporters—mainly youth, women, intellectuals, and ethnic minorities—demanded greater social and political freedom and increased political pluralism. Khatami contributed signiicantly to the growth of civil society in Iran by opening up the political climate, by espousing the formation of diferent political parties by civil groups, and by supporting the rule of law. He laid the groundwork for introducing transparency into the political texture of society via the institutionalization of law and the multiparty system. Support for the rule of law has been widely regarded as the key to the formation and expansion of civil society. Khatami’s ultimate goal of introducing an open and tolerant interpretation of Islam and his broader understanding of Islamic philosophical tradition was to show how reason and revelation could be reconciled. Khatami embraced a notion of religious interpretation that was dynamic and prone to change. Retrogressive religiosity, Khatami emphasized, was incapable of safeguarding the sanctity of religion for it would fail to properly address the public demand for change. he majority of Iranians, who seemed keen to maintain their attachment to the constructive features of the Islamic faith, responded positively to the promise of greater freedom and transparency by the government.9 During Khatami’s presidency, according to Human Rights Watch, the country witnessed a substantial surge in the number of independent newspapers and journals, and an unprecedented increase in the number of NonGovernmental Organizations (NGOs), both registered and unregistered, including human rights groups. his opening was facilitated by a concurrent rise in the number of Iranian internet users, particularly bloggers, which allowed NGO activists to reach out to partners inside the country and abroad.10 During this time, approximately 8,300 oicially registered NGOs were operating in Iran. Many of these NGOs were later closed down during Ahmadinejad’s presidency.11 he dramatic social and political opening during Khatami’s presidency can be best illustrated by the increase in the number of political associations, from 5 INSIDE THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC thirty-ive in 1997 to 130 by 2001. he number of professional and advocacy NGOs, including those of women’s NGOs, increased to 230 by 2000 and 330 two years later. Youth and environmental organizations exceeded 2,500 ater 2001. he Student’s Oice of Consolidation and Unity, an active organ of civil society and a barometer of democracy in Iran, began a news agency, Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), and published a national newspaper called Azar and some 700 local newspapers while sponsoring some 1,437 cultural, scientiic, and social associations.12 In a backlash against these openings, between 1997 and 2002, 108 newspapers and periodicals were banned.13 Perhaps the most diicult challenge that Khatami faced was the country’s sluggish economic development and reform. A key pressure point in the controversy over democratic reforms in the developing world more generally— but in the Middle East particularly—was the underestimation of the need for socioeconomic change alongside political reform. Democratic reforms are unlikely to be sustained over time if they are not shored up by social and economic development. his theory still holds and has yet to be discredited. Absent policies to tackle structural problems, the future of democratic reforms remains problematic. his was especially true during the reformist era in Iran. Once in oice, Khatami found himself faced with the onset of a global recession and a sharp decline in oil prices. He also faced persistent inlation, unemployment, and mismanagement. His economic policies were oten based on small-scale initiatives that yielded no major results.14 Although Khatami and his reform movement were credited with some initial steps toward enacting economic reforms, they failed to build and sustain broader public support in the long term. heir political tribulations persuaded much of the Iranian public that political reforms ranked higher than job creation on their priority list. his gross strategic miscalculation let the reformist camp vulnerable to a populist challenge, as the surprise 2005 election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demonstrated.15 In the meantime, radical vigilantes, threatened by reform and the expansion of civil society, changed tack, and did so by expanding their strategy of “defamation” in dealing with internal reformists who operate within Islamic legal bounds, to include disappearance and murder—a violent approach reminiscent of the killings of Iranian dissidents abroad. he defamation tactics included calculated attacks on major political and religious igures. As the defamation attacks continued, vigilante groups, known as the Ansar-e Hezbollah (the Partisans of the Party of God), “serve[d] as enforcers for conservative clerics.”16 Such assaults took the form of verbal and physical attacks 6 INTRODUCTION on media igures, publications, and broadcasting networks; frequent and violent disruptions and the cancellation of public lectures by prominent cultural elites; acts of vandalism against the oices of opposing media and organizations and assaults against their leaders. Blasting the reform and human rights campaign During Khatami’s presidency, the judiciary, which is accountable to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rather than the elected president, was at the center of many human rights violations. Many abuses were carried out by the so-called parallel institutions (nahad-e movazi)—that is, the plainclothes intelligence agents and paramilitary groups that violently attack peaceful protests, students, writers, and reformist politicians. hese institutions also include illegal secret prisons and interrogation centers run by intelligence services. Groups such as Hezbollah and the Basij, working under the control of the Oice of the Supreme Leader, are examples of such organizations.17 Khatami’s reluctance to challenge the legitimacy of such organizations, and the theocratic constitution of the Islamic Republic more generally, increasingly undermined his support for civil society and the rule of law. Because of this, Khatami’s rhetoric, as one expert notes, “went no further than advocating better management of the government.”18 his style of leadership severely limited Khatami’s ability to spearhead the popular demand for democracy and promotion of civil society that his own election unleashed. It should be mentioned, however, that in the irst two years of Khatami’s presidency, Iranian parliament enacted several laws signiicant to women. A law was passed that permitted female civil servants to retire ater 20 years’ service. Some 5,000 women were given a chance to run for 220,000 local council seats in cities, towns, and villages across the country. Nearly 300 women were elected to the local city councils. Many NGOs actively promoted women’s rights in both rural and urban areas. Increasingly, Iranian women were drawn less to political arenas and more to the control of their lives within political, social, and economic institutions, irrespective of the ideological coniguration of these institutions. Khatami’s administration proved incapable of curbing the security apparatus, as the latter continued to act independently of the executive branch. he slaying in late 1998 of ive prominent secular critics of the Islamic government’s conservative faction renewed fears of long-anticipated ideological and political turmoil and further related violence throughout the country. 7 INSIDE THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC he killing of Dariush Foruhar, former labor minister in the Bazargan government, and his wife, Parvaneh Eskandari, who belonged to the National Iranian People’s Party—an outlawed but tolerated opposition party—and who lived under house arrest, spread shock waves among the reformists. In the ensuing weeks, the kidnapping and slayings of writers and social critics who had been openly critical of the ruling clerical establishment fueled fears of broader violence and chilled open dissent. Iran faced and continues to face many structural obstacles en route to building a civil society. For these setbacks to be removed, there needs to be a balance between civil society and state organizations. Such a balance requires an independent judiciary, separation of powers, and a free press. he absence of these conditions in Iran is further confounded by the fact that ideological loyalties and commitments continue to determine the shape of political groups and the degree to which they can function within a safe environment. he gap between Iranian politics and society was noticeable during the reform era. Although Iranian society has been exposed to modern ideas and constructions, Iranian politics has straddled and continues to navigate between autocratic and democratic tendencies. he result has been an intensiied power struggle between two factions of the clerical regime with masses of ordinary people, secularists, and Islamic revisionists caught in the middle. A highly evolving and complex process, Iranian politics continues to grapple with the reality of civil society and the rule of law—elements without which no democratic system can function. Iranian society, on the other hand, is thoroughly impregnated with modern ideas such as civil society and internationally recognized human rights. Islamic reformists are likely to play an important part in shaping the future, although change is going to be slow, gradual, and orderly. he most formidable challenge facing reformists is to promote civil society in light of the fact that civil society tends to be anti-statist by deinition.19 It is now a matter of time before democratic forces, both Islamic and secular, prevail over reactionary forces. Until then, the expansion of civil society is one of the means by which to safeguard and promote the individual’s dignity, liberty, and autonomy vis-à-vis the absolutist tendencies of a theocracy. In 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the nation’s new president. He banned Western music from Iran’s radio and television stations. As the head of Iran’s Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, Ahmadinejad promised to confront what he saw as a Western cultural invasion and to promote traditional Islamic values. His ban on media also included censorship of the con8 INTRODUCTION tent of ilms and music. hese cultural restrictions were imposed at a time when Western music and ilms were widely available on DVD on the black market and when more than 3 million Iranian homes had satellite television. Many Iranians listened—and continue to listen—to the Voice of America and to watch CNN and BBC world news. Today, there are more than 20 million internet users in Iran. An underground culture continues to dominate Iran’s social and cultural life in the face of government-imposed restrictions. Modernization and information and communication technologies have drastically transformed and broadened the cultural life of many Iranians. Closing the borders and reverting to the conservative cultural control of the early years of the revolution has proven untenable. he dramatic 2009 post-election protests in Iran—which arose in reaction to disputed election results that declared Ahmedinejad president for another term—rocked the foundation of the Islamic Republic. he so-called “Green Movement,” reminiscent of the “color revolutions” in Ukraine and Georgia, posed a homegrown and popular threat to the country’s power structure. he reach of social networking and digital communication diminished the efectiveness of the usual narrative of the conservative leadership, which blamed an externally directed conspiracy for the protests. Despite the fact the street protests in Tehran and other provinces of Iran faded away in the face of the government crackdown, the political cleavages within the ruling establishment continued. Moreover, the credibility of the Ahmadinejad administration sank so low that his government never recuperated in the ensuing four years from a cloud of doubt hanging over his presidency. Islamic moderates within the Iranian political context can play an important part in shaping the future, although any change will hopefully be slow, gradual, and orderly. Hassan Rouhani’s victory in Iran’s 2013 presidential election was a clear protest vote against his predecessor’s mismanagement of Iran’s relations with the Western world. he Rouhani administration has thus far engaged in serious negotiations with the Western world within the context of the P5+1 talks (China, England, France, Russia, and the United States, plus Germany), reaching an interim deal with the West over its nuclear program, reduced regional conlict by declaring its preparation to participate in talks and mediations aimed at ending the Syrian crisis, and has prioritized Iran’s economic recovery and the general wellbeing of the Iranian people above its nuclear program. In the end, the fortune of Rouhani’s presidency hinges upon his ability to come to grips with challenges such as Iran’s strategic isolation in the region as 9 INSIDE THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC well as managing its relations with the West over the nuclear standof. Rouhani has acknowledged that he is willing to risk his political standing in order to clinch a nuclear deal, even as this means taking on the conservative forces in Iran who would prefer not to see an agreement.20 Emphasizing that diplomacy with the Western world is the key to breaking Iran’s isolation and that it is a “win-win” situation for both Iran and the West, the Rouhani administration has taken the view that beyond routing the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Iran and the United States have other shared regional interests, including containing the spread of sectarianism, stability in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a possible rapprochement between Iran and its Arab neighbors and Turkey that have been so negatively impacted by disagreements over Syria’s crisis, with Iran supporting the Bashar Assad regime and others vehemently opposing it.21 Earlier indications point to the fact that Rouhani’s presidency might provide the perspective necessary for breaking away from the outdated and futile approach of his predecessor.22 Organization of the book his book is organized around four parts. Part One deals with the conceptualization of power and political authority, as well as the evolution of identity construction and the rise of technocratic leadership. Lacking the charismatic power of Khomeini and in the absence of a revolutionary fervor and ideology to steer the country’s direction in the uncharted waters of the early revolutionary years, Khamenei faces a drastically diferent political milieu. Nationalism, democracy, theocracy and identity construction As Arshin Adib-Moghadam rightly observes in his chapter, while Khomeini ruled over a young state with budding bureaucratic structures and a difuse political system without much institutional architecture, current Supreme Leader Khamenei oversees a state that is far more professionalized, with a rather more specialized and bloated public sector that is inancially linked to the bureaucracy sustaining the state. Khamenei’s moves have to be measured and strategic, as his power is channeled through the diverse power centers scattered throughout the Iranian body politic. Increasingly, Khamenei’s core task has become forging consensus at the same time that he has to control a diverse array of power blocs, economically powerful institutions, the national radio/television network, the Basij volun10 INTRODUCTION tary forces, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. he Revolutionary Guard has become increasingly linked to the power of the faqih (the judicial leaders of Islamic law), but also inexorably connected with the economic and political power sustaining the Islamic Republic. he current transformation of the military has also encountered competing ideas from inluential dissenters, from Abdol-Karim Soroush to Ayatollah Shabestari and Mohsen Kadivar, widening a pluralistic space that further challenges the Supreme Leader’s sovereignty and legitimacy. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, as William O. Beeman explains in his chapter, Western commentators have continually characterized the Iranian government as a theocracy, further declaring it to be non-democratic. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s conception of “governmentality,” this essay presents Iran’s governmental structure as a blend of cultural elements unique to Iran. It is not theocratic, though it embodies models from religious history and religiously trained individuals who participate in leadership. Moreover, it contains many features that are common to other democratic governmental structures throughout the world, embodying a mix of directly elected and appointed oices. he core ideology for Iranian government is shown to be a concern for legitimacy, drawn from cultural models based on the inspirational historical igures of Shi’a Islam, and embodied in popular symbolism. But beyond this, the governmental structures of Iran are seen as expedient and practical as evidenced by the stability and longevity of transfers of oice over more than three decades. here are practical limitations to this governmental structure that will likely result in change in the near future, but its basis is stable at present. he reaction of the Iranian populace to Supreme Leader Khamenei’s growing powers has been broadly negative as more Iranians have embraced the construction of new, “more open” identities. In his chapter, Mansoor Moaddel aptly captures these developments when he writes that the formation of the Islamic Republic and the forced Islamization of society were a major setback for the followers of liberal values and secular ideologies. Despite this reality, as Moaddel describes, decades of clerical absolutist rule have failed to create sustainable religious order in the country. he Iranian public appears to be less religious than the populations of many other Muslim-majority countries, and the trend in value orientations among Iranians appears to be toward individualism, equality, democracy, and national identity. On the national level, Moaddel concludes, liberal nationalism and anti-clerical secularism have grown diametrically opposed to the religious authoritarianism of the Islamic 11 INSIDE THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC Republic. Liberal nationalist values have been buttressed by people’s global connectivity through access to the Internet and information and communication technologies. Women, families, human rights and immigrants Iranian women have played a signiicant role in nudging along the dynamics of social change in Iran. Following Khomeini’s death in 1989, an overpopulation crisis compelled the state to rethink its previous stance against family planning. Subsequently, Iran’s parliament passed a bill—however limited in its enforcement—that required court permission for divorce. For the most part, women’s fortunes were inextricably connected to the promotion of the state’s needs, interests, and agendas. Struggles for reform in legal and socioeconomic conditions conducive to women’s presence in the public realm became fortiied with their broad educational achievements. Similarly, participation in cultural arts, such as ilm and literature, provided crucial vehicles for maintaining the visibility of feminist agendas.23 Part Two of the book evaluates the role of women in pushing for reforms in law, engaging in struggles for political freedoms through the arts or culture, and facing the profound transformation in the family structure caused by socioeconomic change. his section also addresses broader human rights struggles— zeroing in on women’s movements—for the protection and promotion of human dignity. he Iranian diaspora in the United States has gravitated toward gaining greater political power and visibility to assist in addressing prevailing discriminations against their communities. heir actions to redeine and protect their ethnic identity and rights have given them a newfound power base in a country where the rule of law governs. While not denying that Iranian women face many setbacks in their attempts to achieve gender equality, they have achieved a degree of self-consciousness and self-expression that is unprecedented in modern times in Iran. Perhaps nowhere is change in the status of women more drastically visible than in the rising educational standards and achievements that have provided an impetus for peaceful, democratic change. Women’s success in gaining more rights and changing gender-biased laws bears witness to the impact of female educational achievements. hese advances in socioeconomic and political contexts have also led to in an increasing emphasis on freedom and self-expression by women poets and writers, afecting the debate in both the social and political spheres. At the 12 INTRODUCTION same time, women’s struggles best exemplify social change by virtue of their embracing—as a matter of choice—modernity and globalism. hese changing realities have emerged due to dramatic attitudinal changes among individuals, who tend to view themselves as rational, reasonable, and autonomous agents of change, as well as due to the spread of innovative information and communication technologies in the last few decades. To better understand the scope and scale of social change in post-Khomeini Iran, it is important to engage a new social paradigm, one that is capable of accurately describing the systemic, attitudinal, and structural characteristics of transformation in Iran since 1989. Iranian women’s ability to ight for their place in society has placed the state under enormous pressure to respond positively to such demands. he dramatic growth of the educational and professional capacity of Iranian women has become a social challenge for a country torn by a festering conlict between traditional and modern structures and contexts. Tensions remain over the system’s lack of capacity to generate equilibrium between women’s demands and their satisfaction. his imbalance has increased the potential for a signiicant social problem in a society in which females constitute sixty-four percent of university graduates. Women have become a major presence in sports and social activities. he number of female laborers is growing steadily. More and more women are demanding full equality in pay and job opportunities and beneits. he increasing gap between women’s expectations and the state’s capabilities is becoming intolerable, with far-reaching implications and complications on the horizon. Increasingly, it has become diicult for Iranian women to ind suitable marriage partners given the long-established tradition for women to marry a husband of their social status or above. Although no social institutions currently exist to translate this frustration into an organized resistance, this discontent is increasing and is bound to be a source of social friction in the near future. In chapter four, Arzoo Osanloo points out that codiication of the laws that derived from Islamic principles was also subject to jurisprudential doctrines. hese doctrines have been lexible, luid, and accommodating, debunking the notion that a law cannot be changed solely because it is based on a Shari’a understanding of Islamic principles. Legal scholars and activists on behalf of women have increasingly voiced their opinions through scholarship and public awareness campaigns, in part because of the role that the post-revolutionary state has assigned to women as signiiers of morality. he state, Osanloo 13 INSIDE THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC argues, has elevated women’s issues to a level where Iranian women can question the state’s validity with an appraisal of how the state treats them. Farzaneh Milani, in chapter ive, examines the evolution of women’s social context through literary movements, an important way in which Iranian women have expressed their identities and their claims. She describes an unprecedented lourishing of women’s literature as an unexpected beneit of the 1979 Revolution. he Islamic Republic failed to silence prominent women writers and poets for a long time, although it banned most of them in the immediate atermath of the revolution and succeeded in driving others into exile. Despite the multiplicity of problems that they face—including, but not limited to, sex re-segregation, social and economic hardships, the eightyear war with Iraq, censorship, and conformity to the Islamic Republic’s interpretation of morality—women poets and writers have attained a stature previously reserved solely for men. he accumulation of Persian literature, Milani reminds us in chapter ive, is inally integrated in terms of the gender of its producers, consumers, and objects of representation. It is worth noting, however, that the literary universe of contemporary Iranian women writers is built on narratives of movement and containment. As well as shaping a new literary landscape, their themes are a radical socio-political upheaval of sorts. he major focus for women has been to challenge established familial and political hierarchies, religious traditions, and social conditions. One of the most obvious changes transpiring since the 1979 Revolution is the transformation in the social structure of the Iranian family. In chapter six, Djavad Salehi-Esfahani looks at the past three decades, arguing that the country has seen a complete transformation of the Iranian family. At the time of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Salehi-Esfahani notes, the average family lived in a home in a rural area with no running water and no accessible school beyond the primary grades. Neither husband nor wife could read or write. he wife would give birth to six or seven children on the average, with her main roles conined to cooking, cleaning, and struggling to keep her children alive. he three decades of transformation since the revolution, Salehi-Isfahani maintains, have resulted in a narrowing gap between urban and rural residents and between men and women. he most striking aspect of this change is the narrowing gender gap in education. A generation ago, women had less than half the education of their husbands. Today, urban women are on average more educated than urban men, and in rural areas women have about the same level of education as men. Equality in education, coupled with the lower 14 INTRODUCTION burden of fertility, has improved women’s power within the family, helping channel family resources in the direction of child education. Despite lower fertility and higher education leading to more balanced families, women still largely lack the opportunities to earn income that exist in the country for its male citizens. Women account for only one-fourth of the income-earning labor force, and their rate of unemployment is twice that of men. Barriers to women’s employment are due in part to the lack of appropriate jobs for women, but there is also a powerful ideological barrier. hese dramatic gains notwithstanding, women’s struggle for political power is by no means assured. A recently amended family law requiring men to seek their wife’s permission before taking a second wife has resulted in a conservative push-back on a number of fronts. here has been discussion in the parliament, for instance, to limit women’s access to public universities, with some universities deciding on their own to block women’s access to certain ields and subjects. Monshipouri and Zakerian assert in chapter seven that Islamic and secular women alike began to reject their traditional coninement to the home and moved toward participation in the public sphere and socioeconomic activities. In doing so, they signiicantly contributed to the development of a broader civil society in Iran. Many NGOs have actively promoted women’s rights in both rural and urban areas. Secular women have also created solidarity networks for mutual assistance. Lawyers and jurists provide legal advice. hrough informal groups, they organize debates on such topics as hijab, motherhood, employment, feminism, and activism. he increasing number of third-generation feminists—that is, those who emphasize rationality over textual reinterpretations and dynamic jurisprudence—is bound to expand the ranks of opposition reformers. he potential costs for expressing themselves and organizing for their emerging demands have become less severe. here is always tension when the new and old collide, and disagreements among feminists (irst, second, and third generations) will naturally continue. President Rouhani’s support for broader social freedoms, including his strong advocacy for women’s rights, made him a favorite candidate for change and won him the presidency. In a carefully crated image-building and symbolic move in his early days in oice, Rouhani freed 80 political prisoners, including a prominent human rights lawyer and activist, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who had been imprisoned following protests over the disputed 2009 presidential elections. his has clearly led to a more relaxed social and political atmosphere under the presidency of Rouhani. Given the numerous domestic constraints that he faces, whether 15 INSIDE THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC Rouhani can play a sustained role in enhancing the country’s human rights conditions and women’s rights more particularly remains to be seen. he struggle for human rights has also been followed outside of Iran via various other mechanisms and means. he large Iranian diaspora community that emerged ater the 1979 Iranian Revolution is modernist in its outlook and openly at odds with the country’s conservatives. Ironically but understandably, it should be noted that many young Iranians today dream of emigrating to the West.24 For those who have become immigrants in the West, however, challenges are varied and many, especially in the post-9/11 period, which has seen alarming discrimination and threats against Muslims living in the West, particularly in the United States. Mohsen Mobasher, in chapter eight, systematically examines the problems that Iranian-Americans face in the atermath of 9/11. he initial feelings of vulnerability and helplessness, Mobasher points out, coupled with a better understanding of the US political system and their legal rights as US citizens, propelled many ordinary and prominent second-generation members of the Iranian community to ind efective vehicles for political action and political mobilization across America, and to engage in political processes in their communities, including running for oice. Mobasher observes that gradual political socialization—a deeper understanding of American culture, society, and language, and the availability of professional, legal, and human capital resources—coupled with an inherent sense of attachment to both American society and Iranian culture, has inspired many second-generation IranianAmericans to be more politically active locally and nationally. he primary political aim of many of these activists is to protect the civil rights of naturalized Iranians in the United States and to reclaim, retain, and redeine the Iranian ethnic identity that has been under attack since the Islamic Revolution. Unlike their irst-generation parents, who passively submitted to the sanctions and discriminatory practices in the United States during the 1979 hostage crisis, the young second-generation Iranian-Americans actively challenged the new post 9/11 discriminatory immigration sanctions that targeted Iranians and other Muslim groups through multiple channels. Cinema and pop music he contributors to Part hree pay special attention to the role that cinema, pop music, and art in general have in recent years played in spreading new ideas— sometimes challenging and in sync with dictates of temporal and special change 16 INTRODUCTION but at other times in conformity with Islamic precepts, principles, and local norms. Of particular focus for the contributors to this section is how global impacts of art, cinema, and pop music have manifested in the emergence of a new cadre of post-revolutionary ilmmakers and musicians and songwriters who courageously create under strict social and political conditions. Iranian cinema has become an internationally recognized medium of expression for Iranian society. he Islamization of society in the immediate atermath of the 1979 Revolution failed to contain the imagination of the new generation of ilmmakers, who were dedicated to disconnecting their arts from the social and ideological restrictions of the state. hese artists embraced the notion that ilmmaking can free an artist from state ideology. Like other cultural and artistic features, cinema has come to deine—and even help construct—a new identity for Iranians, both at home and internationally. Hamid Naicy, in chapter nine, discusses the reasons for the global impact of art-house cinema. He also examines politics and aesthetics behind such impact. he Iranian art cinema, or as he dubbed it “art-house cinema,” has deeply impressed Western critics and audiences for many reasons. Modernization of the industry involved wide-ranging activities, including infrastructure, the de facto banning of ilm imports, government inancing, production, and wide-ranging censorship, rehabilitation of veteran Pahlavi-era new-wave directors, and the emergence of a new cadre of post-revolutionary ilmmakers. hese ilmmakers included, among others, women and ethnic minority directors. he state’s involvement intensiied for a time ater the revolution to the point of a de facto takeover of all means of ilm production and distribution, but privatization ultimately prevailed, making room for independent directors and, subsequently, underground ilmmakers. here were certain characteristics of their themes that further contributed to their high recognition and regard. More importantly, a focus on humanism and intimacy were doubly attractive as they ofered a stark contrast to the dominant view abroad of the Islamic Republic as a hotbed of hostility, violence, intolerance, and terrorism. In her chapter, Nahid Siamdoust addresses the rise of pop music in Iran. he prominent narrative about the launch of state-sanctioned pop music is that the Islamic Republic, in a calculated move, launched young singers— oten with voices and styles similar to popular Los Angeles stars—in order to draw Iranians’ attentions away from what it regarded to be as cultural invasion by morally corrupt and wicked expatriates, and inward toward a state-controlled discourse compatible with local cultural traditions. he open climate of post-revolutionary Iran and a new generation keen on enabling indepen17 INSIDE THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC dent pop music rather than centrally sanctioned production led to the emergence of pop music. Just as the heavy sadness of lyrics in some prerevolutionary pop songs functioned as an oppositional idiom, the generous dissemination of themes of love in some post-revolutionary pop songs and concerts equally functions as an idiom that opposes the oicially promoted culture of grief. Political economy of social change Although it is diicult to discern an emerging framework or pattern from Iran’s evolving political economy, it is easy to pin down the key institutions and the role that they have played in Iran’s modern economy. he clergy controls the major institutions of the state and has much leverage over the parliament, the Revolutionary Guard, and the Foundation for the Disinherited—also known as “Bonyads,” that serve more or less as a kind of centrally managed corporate inancial entity. It is unlikely that they will retreat from politics any time soon, even as there is growing evidence that the younger Iranians have begun to lose faith or interest in the Islamic regime. As with all authoritarian governments, the Islamic Republic has oten played the nationalist card as part of its strategy to cling to power.25 Part Four examines the growing impact that the economic sector—Bonyads and corporate Iran in tandem with the apparatus of power—has had on the nation’s economic development and social change. Acting independently of the powers of presidency and the supreme leader, “Bonyads continue to be an anomaly in Iran’s complicated power structure. he recurring theme of this part is that as long as the Iranian government remains a key player in the economy, in large part because of its monopoly on oil and gas revenues, it is inconceivable to put in place a functioning liberal market economy and vibrant private sector.” he nature of politicized decisions by rentier states like Iran renders such an eventuality highly unlikely. A marked characteristic of Iran’s economic structure in the atermath of the 1979 Revolution, as Manochehr Dorraj argues in chapter eleven, “Bonyads operated as parallel institutions of power that enabled the clerical elite to bypass and keep in check the elected and representative institutions and the public organs of power such as the parliament, local governments, municipal councils, and even the presidency.” his ensures that the real power resides in the unelected and ideologically loyal institutions that are free of the potentially challenging inluences of civil society, and are committed to safeguard18 INTRODUCTION ing the regime’s survival as their top priority. he creation of these parallel centers of power, headed for the most part by the former military or paramilitary leaders, also militarizes the power structure, centralizing power in their hands, thus strengthening political authoritarianism. his does not bode well for the possibility of peaceful democratic transition in the near future. he evolution of Bonyads also suggests that these institutions have emerged with a distinct interest and their own apparatus of power. By bypassing oicial governmental institutions and directly allocating money to their base, they buy loyalty for their distinct political agenda. his has led to the charge that they are a government within the government. herefore, it is not clear how much power oicial political actors, including the president and the Supreme Leader, have over the operation of these organizations. Similarly, as Bijan Khajepour in chapter twelve notes, the contemporary characteristics of the Iranian corporate landscape are heavily dependent on the country’s political, economic, and social realities. Considering the major upheavals (revolution, war, reconstruction), as well as the internal and external uncertainties and the resultant transformations, one can argue that corporate Iran remains in a state of lux. If one can identify the trends of the past two decades, however, it should be possible to discern several future trajectories. Privatization along with the consolidation of diverse, decentralized networks of power will create a new and more complex set of stakeholder relations for Iranian enterprises. While in the past an enterprise needed to develop a good working relationship with the government as the largest economic player, it will now need to understand the complexity of relations and competitions between networks around its business. his means that the country will witness the emergence of new formal and informal entities (guilds, industry associations, regional chambers of commerce, and cooperatives) that will represent the interests of corporate Iran. Eventually, a number of such entities will convert to political parties and potentially pave the way for a more democratic interaction between corporate Iran and the branches of power. here is precedence for this phenomenon: the Islamic Motalefeh (Coalition) Party was originally an association of traditional merchants, but it gradually evolved into a political party that has participated in bargaining processes with the government. he Society of Industrial Producers (Jamiayate Tolidgarayan) is another example of a business interest group that has become a political entity. To project this form of enterprise into the future, Iran will witness a greater diversity of entities representing the interests of corporate Iran in political decision-making. Although the political engagement of these 19 INSIDE THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC groups creates some positive glimmers of hope, it is uncertain whether this political representation will help the country’s democratization, or whether it will set the stage for a dense set of informal relationships that would empower a tightly controlled interdependency between politics and business. Along this line, the central government will gradually lose signiicance in operational business activities, focusing more on regulatory functions, with most large-scale enterprises being controlled by semi-state institutions. As such, the regulatory framework will become the central instrument for controlling any economic activity the government wields. In this process, the genuine private sector will most likely be overshadowed by the semi-governmental organizations and business networks. Finally, modern management concepts will have to become an integral part of enterprise development in Iran. his reality should materialize, thanks in part to a generational shit toward outwardness, which is partly due to increased domestic competition and a desire to participate in regional and international markets. here will be a greater emphasis on human resource management and skills development that could possibly distinguish between successful private companies and semi-state enterprises. 20