5 - Disillusionment and Mobility (1983–2001)

Summary

Chapter 5 “Disillusionment and Mobility (1983–2001)” argues that rational-legal administration did not exhaust the list of mezzo or organizational outcomes that resulted from RJ’s institutionalization. RJ’s rational-legal administration encountered six limitations that exposed and exacerbated the organization’s preexisting deficiencies, the IRI’s structural shortcomings, the shah’s neo-patrimonial legacies, and bureaucracy’s inherent flaws. These limitations included heightened centralization, intensified careerism, parliamentary entanglements, emerging corporatization, persistent redundancies, and dual executives. On a micro or individual level, these limitations and the inefficiency and stagnancy that they created caused some former RJ members to experience fatigue, apathy, and disillusionment. At the same time, RJ’s bureaucratization enabled other former members, particularly those who had lobbied for the organization to become a ministry, to experience political and social mobility as government officials, civil servants, and corporate executives – the very individuals whom former RJ members had initially despised as revolutionary activists in light of their anti-bureaucratic and anti-materialistic worldview.