Ayatollah Khomeini and Ali Shariati are seen as twin pillars of revolutionary Islam in contemporary Iran. This article contextualizes and compares these radical discourses in three sections. It first problematizes the transformation of Khomeini as a quietist cleric into a revolutionary ayatollah. While Khomeini’s theory of velayat-e faqih was a radical departure from the dominant Shiite tradition, its practice has contributed to a new era of post-Khomeinism. Second, it examines Shariati’s discourse and a new reading of his thought in the post-revolutionary context. Third, it demonstrates that these discourses differ radically on the three concepts of radicalism, public religion, and state. The conclusion sheds some light on the conditions of Khomeinism after Khomeini, and Shariati’s discourse three decades after the revolution. It suggests that Iran has gradually entered into a new era of post-Islamism.

In 1979 Islamic Revolution human agency triumphed over structural constraints to overthrow the Shah’s autocratic regime. But such a triumph was full of contradictions. The Revolution brought a new regime with a new constitution founded on the exceptionalism created by politics, personality, and perspectives of Ayatollah Khomeini. Under this polity the rule of law is not universal since the office of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of jurist) stands outside the constitution. The struggle within the Islamic Republic in Khatami’s reformist government (1997-2005) represented the efforts of the in-system reformists to bind the office of velayat-e faqih by the constitution. But the reformists failed and the conservative-hardliners consolidated their autocratic rule in June 2005. Paradoxically, the 2005 reversal turning point was coincided with the centennial anniversary of the 1905 Constitutional Revolution, a revolution that divided Iran into a pre-modern and modern era and marked Iran’s f...

This article researches the socio-political roots of the 2009 protests in Iran and the ensuing crisis by looking at the contradictory nature of the state-society relations of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Drawing on Laclau’s concept of populist discourse and Gramsci’s ‘national–popular collective will’, and using the case of Iran, this article puts forward the idea of the legacy of subalternity in the context of post-revolution governments. The concept of ‘national–popular collective will’ facilitates an understanding of how the popular subject is constructed and the meanings embedded in that process. It is argued that Islamic Republic elites articulate a populist discourse that constructs the ‘self’ (the Islamic Republic) as synonymous with ‘the people’. Embedded in this discursive construction is a legacy of subalternity that goes back to the 1979 Revolution’s populist discourse.

This article examines the role of corporate identity in Iran’s foreign policy making. Drawing on interviews with Iranian stakeholders and an analysis of Iran’s political developments, this article surveys the three key elements of Iranian nationalism that shape Iranian foreign policy: Iranism, Islam and Shi’ism. This article finds that each of these is crucial in explaining the apparent contradictions in the approaches of several significant Iranian leaders, especially in cases where Iranism collides with religious values. By highlighting how each component is at once unique but still intrinsically linked to the others, this article demonstrates how Iran’s foreign policy choices can be understood in relation to its corporate identity.

On resurgent state nationalism and the question of ethnic minorities in post-revolutionary Iran.