We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 August 2023
Elections for the presidency, the Majles, and the city councils perpetuate the politics of hybridity, which in turn has left each of these institutions with conflicting legacies. Hybridity has left them neither democratic nor authoritarian, neither paragons of the people’s political will nor symbols and symptoms of an unresponsive and repressive state. Hybridity perpetuates the politics of ambivalence. It renders presidents and parliamentarians and city councilors ineffective if they cross amorphous, undefined redlines. But it also makes them exciting symbols of the popular will if they speak the people’s language, voice their complaints about prices, and promise to better their lives. Hybridity makes normal a neither-here-nor-there routine of the politics of voting and going along with the system, and, on occasion, breaking into protest out of frustration that rituals like voting matter little. Hybridity and ambivalence go hand in hand, reduce the costs of conformity, increase the price of rebellion, and make possible occasional bouts of protest and violence. Like elections, institutions such as the presidency and the parliament entail risks for the authoritarian core of the state, affording potential wildcards institutional platforms and resources to further their own agendas.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
