Rethinking Structure and Agency in Democratization: Iranian Lessons (original) (raw)
This paper examines the complex and dialectal interactions between structural and agential factors and how they help or hinder democratization in contemporary Iran. The paper provides an operational definition of structure and agency by subdividing each into three levels of analysis. The structural factors are measured by the nature of the Iranian state (political level), Iran’s uneven development (socio-economic level), and the global structure of power (international level). The agential factors, both in the reform and the counter-reform movement, are examined in terms of the leadership capability (individual level), the organizational arrangements (institutional level), and the intellectual discourse (cultural-ideological level). The findings suggest that Iran’s future prospects for democratization equally depend on the structural “causes ” and the socio-political “causers”. Iran’s process of democratization is surrounded by a number of international and domestic obstacles. These...
Sign up for access to the world's latest research.
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.