scientific journal Political Sociology of the Islamic Revolution

Abstract The Islamic Revolution of Iran (1979) represents a significant institutional rupture in Iran’s development trajectory, characterized not by a transition to an open access order but by the reinforcement of a limited access order within the framework of traditional-religious structures. This study employs Douglass North’s institutional framework to analyze the role of four key actors post-revolution—clergy and revolutionary institutions, the National Front and Freedom Movement, leftist factions, and technocrats from the Pahlavi regime—in perpetuating Iran’s underdevelopment. The findings indicate that the clergy, leveraging extensive social capital and robust informal institutional networks, successfully established new formal institutions and monopolized power resources within a limited access order. Conversely, other actors were marginalized due to their lack of entrenched institutional networks, limited social legitimacy, and inability to create or strengthen effective formal and informal institutions. The persistence of reliance on traditional-religious institutions, high transaction costs, and constraints on institutional competition have been major obstacles to the emergence of an open access order and sustainable development in Iran.

Abstract Social justice has been a long-standing demand in Iran's contemporary history, which entered Iran's political culture since the constitutional revolution and under the left discourse. During the second Pahlavi period, the desire for justice was strongly intertwined with political trends and found deep connections with the issue of political legitimacy. This led to the delegitimization of the established regime with a justice-seeking approach and the use of justice policy as a sociological source of legitimacy in the alternative system. In the following article, the mentioned historical process is analyzed with a sociological approach and descriptive and analytical method. The article aims to answer the question that how the distributive justice policy directed towards the poor, became one of the most important sources of legitimacy in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The findings of the research indicate that the aforementioned policy is not the exclusive creation of the Islamic Republic, but rather the product of a historical process that the majority of contemporary Iranian political forces have played a role in creating it. The Islamic Republic of Iran has had the opportunity to take advantage of this legitimizing source due to its wide base among the lower classes since its establishment.Analyzing the link between political legitimacy and social justice as a historical matter, from before to after the revolution, is the main goal of this research.

Abstract Different countries use different political economy to achieve development, including free market economy or government and redistribution approach. In this research, the adaptation of the development policies of the 9th and 10th governments in economic and political fields is with this theory. Another goal is to use this theory to study the development in Iran and find suitable solutions to overcome inefficiency problems. Because this theory has been tested in achieving the development of East Asian countries.The findings and results of using the descriptive-analytical method in this research indicate that the construction of the limited access order in the mentioned governments, along with the nature of the construction of the rentier government and economic policy in order to create benefits for the Faradistan and the ruling elite, distort The competitive atmosphere in favor of a certain group of followers of power led to the failure of the government to achieve economic development and social justice. Also, among other factors, we can mention the personal view and the lack of coalition and the existence of rentier relations of the type of unproductive rent. In addition, this government has not been able to get rid of the structure of rentierism by changing the historical institutional path and improving the institutional quality desired by North.

Abstract The different viewpoints of the jurists of the constitutional era, regarding the nature of the government during the absence and the difference in their starting point from the basic principle of the inadmissibility of forming a government, caused a difference in the way the government was formed. This article is in response to the question that the approach of these jurists about the nature of government had an effect on the process of formation of constitutional monarchy. Using the descriptive-analytical method in the framework of interpretive historical sociology studies, the article believes: the lack of theoretical coherence of the jurists of the constitutional era in the face of the constitutional monarchy, gradually created boundaries in the society; In such a way that some considered the establishment of new institutions to be against the Shariah standards and to fight against it, and some believed that the preservation of the foundations of Islam depended on the establishment of such institutions. According to the findings of this research, the sanctification of political behavior under Sharia titles led the society towards social, political and legal gaps and gave a stable state to the created gaps. A situation that caused the removal of platforms for peaceful dialogue between the two groups of supporters and opponents and created disruptions in the process of institutionalizing constitutional monarchy as one of the indicators of the rule of law and overshadowed the process of political development in contemporary Iran.