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| Volume XI, Summer 2004, Number 2 |
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| ABSTRACT: Iran's Democracy Debate |
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| Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr |
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Dr. Gheissari is a professor of history and religious studies at the University of San Diego, and Dr. Nasr is a professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian politics at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey.
Since the presidential elections of 1997, Iranians have been engaged in a vibrant debate about reform and democratization. During this time period the ideal of democracy has emerged as the focal point of political debates, framing central questions regarding relations of state to society, the place of religion in public life and the future of the Islamic Republic. Those currently involved in the democracy debate in Iran can be placed into two principal camps. First are those who would like to reform Islam in order to reconcile it with democracy and to have a pluralistic and more open government. Second are those who would like to reform the constitution in order to separate religion from politics and have a secular democracy. The debate is occurring in the context of mounting social, economic and political problems, on the one hand, and the growing importance of electoral politics, on the other. The democratic debate in Iran and the common conceptions of pluralism and rule of law that it has produced are products of political changes Iran has gone through over the course of the past two decades.
Islamic reformers were more prominent earlier in the debate, during the 1990s. With the end of the Iran-Iraq War and the dissipation of revolutionary zeal following Ayatollah Khomeini's death, Iran embarked upon an ambitious reconstruction effort. That undertaking led to a demand for rationalization of government institutions and the freeing of policymaking from the grip of ideological dogma. That demand was voiced by pragmatists within the regime and Islamic reformers associated with it. The two presented a new interpretation of Islamic ideology that would pave the way for greater pluralism within an Islamic framework.
Pragmatism and Islamic reform did not, however, produce democracy. The prospects for democracy were rather associated with a growing importance of electoral politics that would eventually lead to a resurgence of civil society voices in the elections of 1997. Those elections would make the presidency the main agent of change. The new president, Mohammad Khatami, would promise to restore the rule of law, expand the scope of civil-society activity and push forward with reform. However, the Khatami period failed to deliver on its promises, as its gains were rolled back by the leadership of the Islamic Republic.
The dissatisfaction with Khatami has pushed the democracy debate beyond discussion of Islamic reform to that of constitutional change. These ideas are elaborated by liberal democratic forces, civil-society institutions, activists and secular intellectuals. Their ideas are resonating with the Iranian youth and middle class, who no longer look to reforming Islam in order to produce democracy, but to creating constitutional boundaries that can check the powers of the state, guarantee the rights of the society and the individual, and separate religion from politics. The transformation of the democracy debate in Iran is a unique case in the Muslim world in terms of grass-roots secular, democratic demands that have evolved beyond a concern with the compatibility of Islam with democracy to a demand for liberal democracy.
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