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On Shaky Ground: Concerning the Absence or Weakness of Political Parties In Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Fakhreddin Azimi
Fakhreddin Azimi*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Connecticut, Storrs
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Extract

Why have large scale and durable political parties, representing broad socio-economic interests and seriously concerned with assuming political power through democratic constitutional means, not emerged in Iran? And why have even State-sponsored parties failed? These important questions have received virtually no serious scholarly attention. What follows is a preliminary attempt to address them by considering the configuration of those groups or collectivities normally identified as political parties, exploring their inadequacies, and highlighting the main factors which have accounted for the failure of party politics in twentieth-century Iran.

The Early Years

With the introduction of constitutional arrangements in Iran in 1906, the newly established National Consultative Assembly (Majlis) became the major arena for public debate among constitutionalists on how best to identify, consolidate, build upon and institutionalize the new political achievements. The difficulties of reconciling political order and constitutional accountability provoked pronounced differences of opinion and discord.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 1-2 , Spring Winter 1997 , pp. 53 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1997

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Footnotes

*

This essay was first presented to a seminar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University and, in a different form, to the First Biennial Conference of the Society for Iranian Studies in Washington, D.C. in May 1993. I would like to thank the participants on both occasions for their comments.

References

1. For details on various political parties and groups see Bahar, Muhammad Taqi, Tārīkh-i aḥzāb-i siyāsī, vols. 1 & 11 (Tehran, 1357 Sh./1979, 1363 Sh./1984)Google Scholar; Ettehadieh, Mansureh, Paydāyish va taḥavvul-i aḥzāb-i siyāsī-yi mashrūṭlyat (Tehran, 1361 Sh./1982)Google Scholar; idem, Aḥzāb-i siyāsī dar majlis-i sivvum (Tehran, 1371 Sh./1992); Safaɔi, сAbd al-Sahib, Tārīkh-i mukhtaṣar-i aḥzāb-i siyāsī (Tehran, 1327 Sh./1948)Google Scholar; see also Elwell-Sutton, L. P., “Political Parties in Iran, 1941–1948,” Middle East Journal 3, no. 1 (January 1948): 45–62Google Scholar; Cottam, Richard, “Political Party Development in Iran,” Iranian Studies 1, no. 3 (Summer 1968): 82–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; D'Erme, G., “I partici politici in Persia del 1941–1944,” Oriente Moderno 50, no. 3 (March 1979): 213–35Google Scholar; Tabriznia, Husayn, с;Ilal-i nāpāydārī-yi aḥzāb-i siyāsī dar Īrān (Tehran, 1371 Sh./1992)Google Scholar. The latter is a superficial account which, despite its title, does not deal with the failure of political parties.

2. Ahmad Maid al-Islam Kirmani blamed these societies for the decline (inḥiṭāṭ) of the Majlis. See his Tārīkh-i inḥilāl-i majlis, ed. M. Khalilpur, 3 vols. (Isfahan, 1347–51 Sh./1968–72), 42, 46, quoted in Adamiyat, Firaydun, Majlis-i avval va buḥrān-i āzādī (Tehran, 1370 Sh./1991), 141Google Scholar; Adamiyat himself considers “lack of discipline” (bī-inzibāṭī) as primarily accounting for the fragility of the very foundation of associations in “Iranian political life” (ibid., 142).

3. See, further, Afary, Janet, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism (New York, 1996), 264–83Google Scholar.

4. Abul-Qasim Nasir al-Mulk, Yāddāsht bih Majlis, text in Mansureh Ettehadieh, Paydāyish va taḥavvul, 353–56.

5. Ettehadieh observes: “Perhaps it was in the Third Majlis that, for the last time, ideological differences still mattered, because, from the Fourth Majlis onwards, ideological party differences gave way to conflict between factions (firāksiyūn) formed around renowned individuals” (Aḥzāb-i siyāsī, 103); elsewhere the author goes as far as to argue that by the time the Third Majlis was convened, “ the foundation of party government had been consolidated,” several political leaders had learned from the past, and had there not been foreign involvement and the plight brought about by the First World War, “they may have succeeded in finding solutions to all problems, thereby saving Iran from the bitter experience and frustrations of the Pahlavi dictatorship” (Paydāyish va taḥavvul, 236–37).

6. Ettehadieh, Aḥzāb-i siyāsī, 107–11. The author characterizes the с;ilmīyah group, consisting of around fifteen deputies and led by Sayyid Hasan Mudarris, as “radical right wing” (rāstgarā-yi tundraw).

7. Bahar, Tārīkh-i aḥzāb-i siyāsī 1:26–28.

8. Ibid., 30.

9. Ibid., 59, 130–35.

10. Ibid. 2: 21–23.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid. 1:293.

13. Ibid. 2:23.

14. Ibid., 23–30.

15. Ibid., 30.

16. Ibid., 33. On Ahmad Shah Qajar, see al-Islami, Javad Shaykh, Sīmā-yi Aḥmad Shāh Qājār, 2 vols. (Tehran, 1368, 1372 Sh./1989, 1993)Google Scholar.

17. Taqizadah, Sayyid Hasan, Zindagī-yi tūfānī, ed. Afshar, I., 2nd ed. (Tehran, 1372 Sh./1993), 232–34Google Scholar.

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19. Khalсatbari, Arsalan, “Masɔalah-yi ḥizb dar Īrān,” Āyandah 3, no. 5 (Bahman 1323 Sh./January-February 1945): 306Google Scholar, 7; further on Davar see сAqili, Baqir, Davar va сadlīyah (Tehran, 1369 Sh./1990)Google Scholar.

20. Matindaftari, Ahmad, “Mājarā-yi intikhābāt dar Īrān,” Sālnāmah-yi dunyā 12 (1335 Sh./1956)Google Scholar.

21. Sulayman Bihbudi, Khāṭirāt-i Sulaymān Bihbudī (Tehran, n.d.), 239. According to another account, in early 1934 (late 1312 Sh.), in a weekly audience of Majlis deputies with Reza Shah, “the Majlis Speaker (Husayn) Dadgar (сAdl al-Mulk) extolled the virtues of political parties and their necessity in a constitutional government. The Shah then sought the views of the deputy (Hasan) Muhtashim al-Saltanah Isfandiyari (future Majlis speaker), who asserted, ‘This obedient servant (chākir), in view of his long experience of national and governmental service, has always considered parties to be detrimental to the efficient accomplishment of tasks (muzāḥim-i pīshraft-i kārhā); present-day Iran, under the leadership of His Majesty, does not need parties.’ This opinion was favored by the Shah and the idea of forming parties was henceforth completely abandoned.” Safaɔi, Tārīkh-i mukhtaṣar, 3.

22. On the conceptual development of the party in the English political culture, see Ball, Terence, “Party”, in Ball, T., Fair, J. and Hanson, R. L., eds., Political Innovation and Conceptual Change (Cambridge, 1989), 155–76Google Scholar.

23. Hidayat, Mahdi Quli, Khāṭirāt va khaṭarāt (Tehran, 1344 Sh./1965), 497Google Scholar.

24. The party did its utmost to undermine efforts for the creation of independent trade unions. See Bayat, Kaveh and Tafrishi, Majid, Khāṭirāt-i dawrān-i siparī-shudah: khāṭirāt va asnād-i Yūsuf Iftikhārī, 1299–1329 (Tehran, 1370 Sh./1991)Google Scholar.

25. Rahbar, 27 Murdad 1323/18 August 1944.

26. Further on the Iran Party, see Sanjabi, Karim, Umīdhā va nawmīdlhā: kāaṭirāt-i siyāsī (London, 1368 Sh./1989), 71–83Google Scholar.

27. Electoral rigging provoked protests, including an unsuccessful sit-in in the royal Court. Criticism was also voiced in the press. See, for instance, “Nāmah-yi Duktur Muṣaddiq” in Nabard-i imrūz (jibhah), 7 Azar 1325/28 November 1946; “Nāmah-yi sargushādah-yi jibhah-yi muɔtalif-i aḥzāb va maṭbūсāt,” ibid., 10 Azar 1325/1 December 1946.

28. Qavam, speech in the Majlis, Muẕākirāt-i majlis, 18 Azar 1326/9 December 1947; Dimukrāt-i Īrān, 19 Azar 1326/10 December 1947.

29. On Fatimi see Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Ḥosayn Fāṭemī” (F. Azimi).

30. Musaddiq, , “Intikhābāt dar Urūpā va Īrān,” Āyandah 2 (1305 Sh./1926): 122–30Google Scholar, 219–30, repr. in Afshar, I., ed., Muṣaddiq va masā'il-i ḥuqūq va siyāsat (Tehran, 1358 Sh./1979), esp. 88Google Scholar.

31. Bākhtar-i imrūz, 15 Bahman 1328/4 February 1950.

32. Ibid., 17 Isfand 1328/8 March 1950.

33. Buzurgmihr, Jalil (ed.), Duktur Muḥammad Muṣaddiq dar dādgāh-i tajdld-i naẓar-i niẓāmi (Tehran, 1365 Sh./1986), 368Google Scholar.'

34. Muẕākirāt-i majlis, 25 Farvardin 1336/14 April 1957.

35. Stevens to Riches, 23 July 1957, FO 371/127075. Strong reservations about State-sponsored parties would also be expressed by other politicians. See, for instance, сAli Amini, Khāṭirāt-i сAlī Amīnī, ed. H. Ladjevardi, Iranian Oral History Project, Harvard University, 1995.

36. Stevens to Selwyn Lloyd, 20 August 1958, FO 371/133006.

37. Westwood, Andrew, “Elections and Politics in Iran,” Middle East Journal 15, no. 2 (1961): 159Google Scholar.

38. Raɔin, Ismaсil, Farāmūshkhānah va firāmāsunirī dar Īrān, 3 vols. (Tehran, 1348 Sh./1969)Google Scholar.

39. Ibid. 3:236. Raɔin promised that details concerning seventy-two such individuals would appear in a forthcoming volume which, he claimed, was in press in Italy; to my knowledge, this has never materialized.

40. сAlikhani, сAli (ed.), Yāddāshthā-yi сAlam, vol. 1 (Tehran 1371 Sh./1992), 142–43, 179Google Scholar, 282. See also Muɔassasah-yi Mutalaсat va Pazhuhishha-yi Siyasi, “Ibhām dar tārīkhnigārī-yi firāmāsunirī-yi Īrān,” Muṭalсāt-i siyāsī. Book 1 (Tehran, 1370 Sh./1991), 41–69.

41. The shah's misgivings about freemasonry went back to the beginning of his reign. See Intizam, Nasrullah, Khāṭirāt-i Naṣrullāh Intiżām, ed. сAbbasi, M. R. and Tayarani, B. (Tehran, 1371 SL/1992), 177, 180, 181Google Scholar.

42. See, for instance, Mahmud, Mahmud, Tārīkh-i ravābiṭ-i siyāsī-yi Īrān va Ingilīs (Tehran, 1357 Sh./1978), 5:219Google Scholar; Iqbali, Hasan, Naft va Baḥrayn yā сAbbās Iskandarī dar khidmat-i majlis-i pānzdahum (Tehran, 1331 Sh./1952), 355Google Scholar; Nafisi, Saсid, Nimah-rāh-i bihisht (Tehran, 1332 Sh./1953), 41Google Scholar; Katiraɔi, Mahmud, Firāmāsunirī dar Īrān (Tehran, 1347 Sh./1968), 148Google Scholar. On similar attitudes to freemasonry elsewhere in the Middle East, see Landau, Jacob M., “Muslim Opposition to Freemasonry,” Die Welt des Islams 36, no. 2 (July 1996): 186–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on the political role of European freemasonry, see Koselleck, Reinhart, Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), 70–97Google Scholar, 130 ff.; see, also, Jacob, Margaret C., Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth Century Europe (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar.

43. This was conveyed to the U.S. embassy by Manuchihr Shahquli, Hovayda's health minister (1965–73), Amembassy to Department of State, 26 January 1979, text in Imam, Danishjuyan-i payruv-i khatt-i, Asnād-i lānah-yi jāsūsī (Tehran, n.d.), 27:101–2Google Scholar.

44. Amembassy Tehran to Department of State, 10 July 1975, text in ibid., no. 7, 184–94.

45. According to a U.S. embassy report, “ … the Shah, in a typically Persian maneuver, has created an organization with built-in conflicts: its constitution militates against one-man control and this tendency is reinforced by the inclusion of such high-ranking personal rivals as Hovayda, cAlam, Amuzgar, Minister of Economy and Finance Ansari and Tehran University Chancellor Nahavandi” (ibid., 193).

46. Arsalan Khalсatbari, “Masɔalah-yi ḥizb dar Īrān,” Āyandah 3, no. 4 (Azar 1323 Sh./November-December 1944): 222–25 and no. 5 (Bahman 1323 Sh./January-February 1945): 306–311, esp. 308–310. See also Sadiq, Sadiq (al-Dawlah, Mustashar), “Chirā aḥzāb-i Īrān baqā nadārand?” ibid. 2 (Mehr 1323 Sh./September-October 1944): 72–76Google Scholar.

47. Adamiyat, F., Fikr-i āzādī va muqaddamah-yi nahżat-i mashrūṭīyat (Tehran, 1340 Sh./1961), 319–20Google Scholar.

48. Khalil Maliki, ‘“Jibhah-yi buzurg-i millī’ yā dastah-yi kūchik-i khudamāni,” Rahbar, 11 Khurdad 1323/1 June 1994; idem, “Taḥavvul-i ijtimāсī va aḥzāb-i siyāsī,” Rahbar, 8 Murdad 1323/30 July 1994. Also in his memoirs, Maliki characterizes the post-1941 parties primarily as “job-procuring institutions” (Maliki, Khalil, Khāṭirāt-i siyāsī, ed. Katouzian, M. A. H. [Tehran, 1358 Sh./1979], 335–36Google Scholar).

49. Shafaq, Sadiq Rizazadah, Khāṭirāt-i majlis va dimukrāsī chīst (Tehran, 1334 Sh./1955), 58Google Scholar.

50. Afshar, I. (ed.), Taqrīrāt-i Muṣaddiq dar zindān, recorded by Buzurgmehr, Jalil (Tehran, 1359 Sh./1980), 136–37Google Scholar; see also Maliki, Ahmad, Tārīkhchah-yi jibhah-yi millī (Tehran, 1332 Sh./1953), 7Google Scholar.

51. Bākhtar-i imrūz, 25 Day-4 Bahman 1332/15–24 January 1953.

52. Letter to сAli Shayigan, 12 Shahrivar 1341/3 September 1962, text in Mukātabāt-i Muṣaddiq, talāsh barāy-i tashkīl-i jibhah-yi millī-yi sivvum (n.p., 1975), 103.

53. He uses both English and French terms in his text.

54. Afshar, I. (ed.), Maqālāt-i Taqīzādah, vol. 1 (Tehran, 1349 Sh./1970), 395–401Google Scholar.

55. Azimi, Fakhreddin, Iran: The Crisis of Democracy, 1941–1953 (London & New York, 1989)Google Scholar.

56. For E. E. Schattschneider, American political parties were “a loose confederation of state and local bosses for limited purposes“; they were “instruments for extraction of patronage” (Party Government [New York, 1942, 1958], 132–33).

57. The political arrangements that followed the revolution of 1978–79 proved no more congenial to party politics. The eventual disappearance of the Islamic Republican Party, created to consolidate clerical hegemony to the detriment of rivals, indicates a strong undercurrent of continuity in the Iranian political culture which defies the otherwise crucial rupture with the past. The survival of traditional assumptions about party political activity is clearly revealed in the pronouncements of government officials in charge of investigating and approving applications for the formation or official recognition of parties. See, for instance, сAli Yusufpur's interview in Risālat, 8 Mihr 1374/30 September 1995.

58. Shapur Bakhtiar, the pro-Musaddiq activist and the shah's last prime minister, considers the relentless opposition to and suppression of authentic (aṣīl) civic-nationalist organizations, parties and movements as significantly contributing to the revolution. See Bakhtiar, S., Khāṭirāt-i Shāpūr Bakhtiār, ed. Ladjevardi, H., Iran Oral History Project, Harvard University, 1996, 36Google Scholar, 127–28.

59. Bobbio, Norberto, Democracy and Dictatorship (Minneapolis, 1989), 25Google Scholar. S6