Class, Politics, and Ideology in the Iranian Revolution

A common weakness of many current dominant theories of revolution, argues author Mansoor Moaddel, is their exclusion of the role of ideology. He examines the Iranian revolution, highlighting class politics and contention for power within the context of changing the ideological relation between the state and civil society. In Moaddel's analytical framework, class politics and the state's action play crucial roles in the genesis of the Iranian Revolution. The state-patterned class conflict defined the identity of the opposition and channeled oppositional activities through the medium of religion. The revolutionary crisis began when the social discontent was expressed in terms of Shi'i revolutionary discourse. Moaddel argues that Shi'i revolutionary ideology was produced by diverse ideologues to address the problems they faced in the post-coup (1953) period. In presenting his argument, Moaddel provides a new and useful interpretation of the revolution in Iran, characterizing the postrevolutionary political order as a Third-World variant of fascism.

Dr. Moaddel studies culture, ideology, political conflict, revolution and social change. His work currently focuses on the causes and consequences of values and attitudes of the Middle Eastern and Islamic publics. He has carried out values surveys in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia. He has also carried out youth surveys in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. His previo...

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