ISLAMIC REVOLUTION STUDIES
Year:2010 | Volume:7 | Issue:22|Papers Count:7

This article tries to explain the Islamic revolution using a multi-cause solution. This model explores the Islamic revolution in three levels: indirect structural elements, direct voluntary elements and intermediary elements. At first level, the emphasis is on structural elements of social condition which have created unnormal opportunities or obstacles, since the renewal process in Iranian revolution has played a pivotal role in creating such a social condition. At the level of voluntary elements, executers of the revolution and their power to mobilize people and how and why some people and groups are absorbed to revolutionary actions are investigated. Finally at the level of intermediary elements, relative feeling of deprivation has been discussed as a psycho-social factor and as an intermediary for previous two levels.

This article tries to explain the Islamic revolution using a multi-cause solution. This model explores the Islamic revolution in three levels: indirect structural elements, direct voluntary elements and intermediary elements. At first level, the emphasis is on structural elements of social condition which have created unnormal opportunities or obstacles, since the renewal process in Iranian revolution has played a pivotal role in creating such a social condition. At the level of voluntary elements, executers of the revolution and their power to mobilize people and how and why some people and groups are absorbed to revolutionary actions are investigated. Finally at the level of intermediary elements, relative feeling of deprivation has been discussed as a psycho-social factor and as an intermediary for previous two levels.

Iranian Islamic revolution is in many ways different from current and experienced theories about revolutions and the way they happen. It is also different from theories and ideologies governing revolutions like the kind of leadership and common approaches of government in the field of science, politics and government forms. One of the theories brought up in recent decades about the governments in third world countries is that these governments are Rentier governments. Explaining the concept of Rentier government, this article investigates its applicapiblity to Islamic republic of Iran’s system and proves that although there are some similarities between Islamic republic of Iran and Rentier governments, it is an exception and can be completely considered as a Rentier government.

The main question of the current study is this: how does the revolution influence the Persian poetry? Investigating the poems of this period, we observe that the revolution has had a tremendous impact on contents, motifs and subjects of poems and has created a cultural change in this field. As a mirror, Persian literature and poetry reflected in itself the passion and reason caused by the victory of the revolution, eight year defence, self-denial, martyrdom and religious values and displayed emotions and thoughts of a revolutionary nation.

During his exile in Iraq, Imam Khomeini could not benefit from information networks and mass media, due to Iraqi government severe control. However, his journey to Paris and using the free atmosphere of media there, led to a change in media strategies of the revolution. Finding of this research indicates that in this new strategy by fully applying enormous capacity of media in Paris, political development of the revolution toward their desired goal (regime change) in a faster and smoother fashion.

Viability is a fundamental concept in political thought which is currently beenig emphasized in political systems. This research is an effort to explain the issue of viability of Islamic Republic of Iran’s political system in Imam Khomeini’s viewpoint. Therefore, we study his attitudes and thoughts in this regard, mentioning the concept of viability and its indices and mechanisms. We believe that since the formation of Islamic revolution and Imam Khomeini’s thoughts are based on religious beliefs, viability and its indices and mechanisms are based on Islamic pattern as well; indices and solutions like the rule of law, democracy, meritocracy, expediency and unity which have been mentioned in this research.

During history the concept of justice has always been brought up as a fundamental but general concept and is of different types. In this article, considering ”John Rawls” indices of political justice, we have tried to study the features of these indices in Imam Khomeini’s political discourse. The main question of this research is this: What is the position of political justice and what are its indices in Imam Khomeini’s political discourse? Based on this, he has considered “immunity for all”, “public participation” and “the right to choose” as universal indices of political justice.