The State
Farzad Kalateh; Faez Dinparast
Abstract
Research problem
The performance of governments in resolving individual and collective conflicts depends on their ability; in the modern era, unlike the pre-modern era, societies, affected by various developments, including the industrial revolution in the economic sphere, the Renaissance and modernization ...
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Research problem
The performance of governments in resolving individual and collective conflicts depends on their ability; in the modern era, unlike the pre-modern era, societies, affected by various developments, including the industrial revolution in the economic sphere, the Renaissance and modernization in the cultural sphere, and urbanization in the social sphere, have undergone extensive, very complex, and specialized changes, and the amount of conflicts and demands of society from the government has expanded in quantitative and qualitative terms; therefore, governments must also develop to resolve conflicts, and one of the important requirements for the development of governments is structural separation; that is, the institution of the government should deal solely with political affairs and delegate other matters to other institutions; specialization of institutions will lead to an increase in their capacity and power; increasing the capacity of the political institution of the government will make the government more efficient, and the efficiency of the government will lead to the stabilization of the prevailing political order.
The available evidence and data confirm that despite the 1979 revolution, the state of structural differentiation during the Islamic Republic of Iran has not only not improved, but has also intensified to the point that today, some researchers use terms such as state capitalism, crony capitalism, quasi-state capitalism, and khusulati to describe the Iranian economic system (see Ghaninejad, 2017, Sattari, 2010, Pesaran, 2011). In this regard, the issue of this research is to explain the state of structural differentiation during the Islamic Republic of Iran; that is, to answer why the current situation arose; in other words, what factors have caused the widespread interference and dominance of political power over economic power during the Islamic Republic of Iran?
Research Background
Researchers have conducted many studies to explain the issue of structural differentiation during the Islamic Republic of Iran; in most studies, the rentier nature of the government institution in Iran has been introduced as the main reason for the weakening of structural differentiation (see Katouzian, 2013, Karshenas, 2003, Haji Yousefi, 2000, Heshmatzadeh, 2000, Ghaffari and others, 2019). However, oil rent has played a key role in the emergence of this situation and it cannot be denied, but the available evidence shows that some countries that enjoy oil rents are in a much better position than Iran in terms of separation of powers, or even some countries that do not enjoy oil rents are in a much lower position than Iran. Therefore, this evidence shows us that the mere existence of oil rent is not sufficient to explain the situation of structural differentiation and it seems that other factors are involved in this context. In fact, in these works, the pathology of the separation of power is referred to an external and non-political factor, namely oil; but the innovative aspect of the present research is that it tries to explain the challenges of structural differentiation during the Islamic Republic of Iran from a political perspective.
Research Objective
Describing and explaining the state of structural disintegration in Iran during the Islamic Republic.
Research Method
In this study, the documentary method was used to collect data and the process tracing method was used to judge the data; process tracing is a technique that helps the researcher to examine certain mechanisms through which an independent variable is linked to a dependent variable. Causal mechanisms mean processes or intermediary variables through which an explanatory variable has a causal effect on the dependent variable (Taliban, 2008: 96). The use of this method is because the process of the emergence of institutions is contextual and time-dependent and is affected by various factors. The unit of research analysis is Iran and the time period, the Islamic Republic period (1978 to 1991), the observation unit is political events, such as the Islamic Revolution of 1978 and the establishment of the political system of the Islamic Republic, the process of drafting and approving the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the measurement unit is the state of separation of political power from economic power.
Research findings
To determine the status of the separation of political power from economic power in Iran during the Islamic Republic, global indicators were used. The scores received during the period in question were aggregated and the average was obtained by dividing it by the number of years. The results of the calculations show that the separation of political power from economic power in the Islamic Republic is in the "unfree" state overall.
Table No. (5): Status of structural differentiation (separation of political structure from economic structure) during the Islamic Republic of Iran
Index
Time period Total Scores Average Score Status
1 Economic Change from the Bertelsmann Foundation 16 years (from 2005 to 2020) 118 45.2 Unfree
2 Economic Freedom from the Heritage Foundation 26 years (from 1996 to 2021) 1104 46.42 Unfree
3 Free Economy from the Legatum Institute 14 years (from 2007 to 2020) 254 18 Unfree
4 Economic Freedom from the Fraser Institute 23 years (from 2000 to 2018 and 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995) 119 17.5 Relatively unfree
5 Government Ownership of the Economy 42 years (from 1979 to 2020) 5568 63.1 Relatively unfree
Source: Research findings
Conclusion
The Constitutional Revolution is considered the starting point of the modernization of the state in Iran, but the economic structure and structure of society and the authoritarian modernization approach of the Pahlavi government led to the expansion of the government's ownership, duties, and powers in the field of economy. After the victory of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, despite the widespread opposition of political forces to the previous political order and the minor and general differences that existed between them regarding the nature of the new political order, except for a small part of the political forces, the rest of the forces, considering the prevailing institutional context, and for various reasons and with varying intensity and weakness, were in favor of the stateization of the economy; In addition, the weakness of the theoretical and empirical knowledge of political forces in the field of how to regulate economic affairs, the rentier nature of the state, and the occurrence of the Eight Years' War also contributed to the cause and were effective in weakening structural differentiation; After the establishment of the new political order, the relative increase in political and economic benefits resulting from the new way of organizing economic affairs in the political order of the Islamic Republic of Iran caused the supporters of the ruling status quo not only to oppose and resist any structural reforms in the field of improving the separation of political power from economic power, but also, due to the pattern of unequal distribution of political power among the elected and appointed parts of the political structure, the economy became more and more state-owned and the majority of economic resources were taken over by the state. In fact, the non-uniformity of the state institution and the conflict and conflict between the elected and appointed parts of the government over the issue of the distribution of political power have been very effective in opposing the separation of power and the intensification of the state-owned economy; the political power tries to manage and control the citizens' bio-politics by dominating their economic and bio-economic resources. In fact, it can be said that from the second half of the seventies onwards, the role of beliefs in the state-owned economy has become less important, and economic and political benefits have become more prominent in the continuation and intensification of the existing situation. On the other hand, given the data and the economic situation of the society, it seems that the continuation of the current situation is impossible and requires fundamental reforms. However, any policy-making to overcome the current situation requires the management of conflicts of interest and the consensus of the instrumental/political elites of the society. Otherwise, the ability and capacity of the state institution to respond to the demands of the people will decrease, and, in the same proportion, the dissatisfaction of the society with the state and the conflict between this state and the society will increase, and the continuity and strength of the political system will face challenges.
Political Sociology
Mazaher Goodarzifar; Faez Dinparast
Abstract
IntroductionThe subject of this research is the judiciary's performance in the regeneration of political trust in Iran. The requirement for trust is that a person can make a positive prediction of the behavior and performance of institutions in the future. Citizens' political trust is dependent on getting ...
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IntroductionThe subject of this research is the judiciary's performance in the regeneration of political trust in Iran. The requirement for trust is that a person can make a positive prediction of the behavior and performance of institutions in the future. Citizens' political trust is dependent on getting the desired results from the government. If people feel that their problems will be solved in the future due to the performance of political institutions, their trust in the government will be preserved and regenerated. Some studies conducted in the last decade confirm that political trust amongst Iranian people has relatively decreased. The social capital measurement of the country, which was carried out in 2014 at the request of the National Center for Social Monitoring of the Ministry of Interior, reported people's evaluation of the future, which shows that only 24.2% of the target population believe that conditions will improve in the future, and 43.8% believe that their conditions will worsen.In the regeneration of trust, especially political trust, there are two society-oriented or institution-oriented approaches: The first group are researchers who consider the regeneration of trust in the existence of some social and historical foundations of a country. Based on their research, they believe that the more people take part in some associations such as parents – teachers, or sports associations in a society, the greater trust will be developed from social and political standpoints. Based on their criticism, the second group suggests that the society-oriented approach imagines the role of the government in the regeneration of trust. They believe that the existence of such inclusive, fair, and impartial institutions as the police, courts, and health care contribute to the regeneration of trust from political and social perspectives, establishing the authority of the governmentThe standpoint of this research is close to the approach of the role of official institutions in the regeneration of political trust. In this research, we are trying to investigate the impact of institutions that exercise the authority of the government on political trust. Therefore, regarding the role of the judiciary as a judicial institution in the regeneration of political trust, to the best of our knowledge, we have found that there is a scientific gap in the research conducted in Iran. Thus, this article aims to evaluate the performance of an important and influential institution, namely the judiciary in building trust in government between Iranian citizens. According to what was raised, this article wants to investigate and answer this question; What is the role of the judiciary in political trust reduction in Iran?MethodologyTo collect data in this article, in addition to studying documents, the field method was used. In the field method, in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 senior lawyers of the judiciary to make the data reach theoretical saturation. In this research, the data analysis method is theme analysis at first, and the second step is process tracking. For the theme analysis, in the first stage, 216 basic themes were identified with the help of the initial encoding of the interviews' text. Then, in the next stage, these themes were reanalyzed with the help of axial encoding to identify 13 basic concepts such as "weakness of judges' knowledge", "Weak knowledge of lawyers", "Limited access to legal advice", "Lack of meritocracy among judges", "Guaranteed vote based on corruption in the judiciary", "Lack of transparency in the judiciary", "Feeling of corruption in the judiciary by people", "violations in the body of the judiciary at the level of employees and experts", "numerous and interpretable laws", "long handling of court cases and delays in proceedings", "lack of appeals due to the costs of proceedings", "threat to the independence of lawyers by the judiciary" and "influencing the court and limiting the independence of judges" in this research. Finally, and in the final analysis of the initial concepts, the following 5 categories were obtained, which are respectively "the presence of weakness in the expert staff", "the presence of corruption", "limitation of independence in the judiciary" and "structural weakness in the judiciary". These categories show that there is a disruption in access to a quick and fair judgment. In the subsequent stage, with the help of the process tracking method, the results obtained from thematic analysis about the effect of the quality of judgment on political trust were examined.Discussion and ResultsThis research stands on the side that believes in a complex world and society, the existing order in the establishment of relationships between organizations and even people has a great need for a third party, which shows itself in the form of the government. When governments are supposed to play the role of a third party as a mediator, a virtue should be defined for them. A virtue that seeks to ensure the collective good, or in other words, is inclusive. Therefore, the important feature of a qualified government, being able to play the role of a third party (between people and organizations) to provide the collective good well, is to be impersonal. with this approach, there are a special type of political institutions that generate trust, governmental institutions that generate political, legal, and social equality and are based on the principles of fairness, honesty, and impartiality. Thus, to research the reasons behind political trust reduction in a society, one should look for signs of unfairness, dishonesty, or favoritism in political institutions. If the judicial system in a country is supposed to cause a decrease in political trust, it should make itself far away from the characteristics of inclusiveness. Two important indicators of inclusiveness in the judicial system are quick and fair access to this institution. The results of our investigations showed that the corruption and limitation of independence in the judiciary as well as some structural problems have disrupted access to quick and fair judgment in judicial courts, which has made the conditions that can contribute to making judicial institutions far away from the circle of inclusiveness. The more this distance is, the more effect on political trust reduction is conducted by the judiciary. Tracking the process stemming from the results obtained from thematic analysis in this research confirms that this disruption in quick and fair access has caused the performance of the judiciary to decrease political trust in Iran.
faez dinparast; zahra Ramezani
Abstract
The present paper aims to answer the question: Why instability erupted within the political scene of Egypt in context of so called Arab spring revolutions from January 2011 up the coup in June 2013. According to Charles Tilly’s social movement theory, the present study claims that those instabilities ...
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The present paper aims to answer the question: Why instability erupted within the political scene of Egypt in context of so called Arab spring revolutions from January 2011 up the coup in June 2013. According to Charles Tilly’s social movement theory, the present study claims that those instabilities were results of weak and brittle coalitions which were formed between political groups in Egypt. The study hypothesis was analyzed through the game theory. Muslim brotherhood, Salafi forces, Liberal-Secular forces and Egyptian Army were identified as four main players within the political scene in Egypt according to Tilly’s theory. The relationships between those main political players were analyzed using the game theory concept based on two strategies of “making coalition” or “avoiding coalition”. From the total 17 resulting calculated scenarios (4 players each with two strategies), 12 acceptable scenarios were identified. The results showed that the political situation will tend to move towards stability if the military and secular forces form a coalition. This result can be linked to two after coup periods between 2013 and the present time. Also our findings based on game theory and Nash’s equilibrium theory suggests that Egypt needs a triangle of political forces to prevail the arena in order to achieve a stable situation. Since the weights of stability condition for three tier coalition of brotherhood-secular-army, or salafi-brotherhood-army or secular-brotherhood-Salafi are almost identical, it can be stated that political stability in Egypt is more depending on the number of forces which enter a coalition than the type of players which form the coalition.
