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Genesis of Party in Iran: A Case Study of the Interaction Between the Political System and Political Parties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

G. Hossein Razi
G. Hossein Razi*
Affiliation:
University of Houston, Texas
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Extract

Identification and analysis of environmental conditions associated with the emergence and development of political parties in generals and different types of parties in particular, are important to an understanding of the problems and prospects of representative government in emerging nations. This paper presents a study of the genesis and development of political parties, their possible prototypes, and their functional substitutes in Iran.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , Spring 1970 , pp. 58 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1970

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the Sixty-sixth Annual Meeting of The American Political Science Association, Los Angeles, California, September 8-12, 1970.

References

Notes

1. Schlesinger, Joseph A. and Eckstein, Harry, “Parties, Political,” Inter-National Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 1968 ed., vol. II, p. 430.Google Scholar

2. For the influence of various environmental factors upon political parties see: Lavau, George E., “Partis politiques et réalités sociales: Contribution a une étude réaliste des partis politiques,” Cahiers de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, no. 38 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1953);Google Scholar Duverger, Maurice. Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State, trans. Barbara, and North, Robert (London: Methuen; New York: Wiley, 1955);Google Scholar Ostrogorskii, Moisei I., Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties, trans. Clarke, Frederick (London and New York: Macraillan, 1908), 2 vols.;Google Scholar Hermens, Ferdinand A., Democracy or Anarchy? A Study of Proportional Representation (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1941);Google Scholar Lowi, Theodore, “The American Political Science Science: The Case of Innovation in Party Systems,” The American Political Science Review, vol.57 (1963), pp. 570-583;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Schlesinger and Eckstein, op. cit., pp. 447-450; Epstein, Leon D., Political Parties in Western Democracies (New York: Praeger, 1967);Google Scholar Eldersveld, Samuel J., Political Parties: A Behavioral Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956);Google Scholar and Lipset, Seymour M. and Rokkan, Stein, eds., Party Systems and Voter Alignments : Cross-National Perspectives (New York: The Free Press; London: Collier-Macmillan Limited, 1967).Google Scholar

3. Lowi, op. cit., pp. 572-573; Schlesinger and Eckstein, op. cit., pp. 432-435; 451-452; and Key, Valdimer O., Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups (5th ed., New York: Crowell, 1964)Google Scholar, ch. 8.

4. Duverger, op. cit., pp. xiii-xxxvii; and Schlesinger and Eckstein, op. cit. pp. 450-451.

5. An extensive discussion of parti is available in Binder, Leonard, Iran: Political Development in a Changing Society (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964).Google Scholar

6. Ibid., and Duverger, op. cit., p. xxvi.

7. The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 (Cambridge, England: The University Press, 1910), pp. 167-168.Google Scholar

8. Britain, Great, Correspondence Respecting the Affairs of Persia, December 1906 to November 1908 (Cmd. 4581) Accounts and Papers, vol. 105, (London: H.M.S.O., 1909), p. 28.Google Scholar

9. Avery, Peter, Modern Iran (New York: Praeger, 1965), pp. 139-162.Google Scholar This work contains the best account available in English of the earlier party movements. See also Malekzādeh, Mehdi, Tarikh-e Enqelāb-e Mashrutiyat-e Irān (The History of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran), in Persian (Tehran: Soqrāt and Ibn Sinā, 1949-1954), 7 vols.Google Scholar

10. Churchill, Roger P., Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 (Cedar Rapids Iowa: Torch, 1939).Google Scholar

11. Shuster, Morgan W., The Strangling of Persia (New York: The Century. 1912), pp. 157-167.Google Scholar

12. Avery, op. cit., pp. 185-188, and Malekzādeh, op. cit., vol. 4.

13. For a comprehensive account of these movements see: Lenczowski, George, Russia and the West in Iran? 1918-1948: A Study in Big-Power Rivalry (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1949);Google Scholar Zabih, Sepehr, The Communist Movement in Iran (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966);Google Scholar Avery, op. cit., pp. 212-220; and Gorgāhi, Manucher, Siāsat-e Dowlat-e Showravi dar Irān (The Policy of the Soviet Government in Iran), in Persian (Tehran: Mazaher, 1947).Google Scholar

14. Tārikh-e Enqelāb-e Mashrutiyat-e Irān (The History of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran), in Persian (Tehran: Mazaher, 1945-1946); vol. 2, pp. 337-339Google Scholar; vol. 3, pp. 4-10.

15. Duverger, op.cit., pp. 212.

16. According to this electoral law, the membership of the Majles was set at 150 (with the maximum constitutional limit of 200), of which sixty members were allocated to Tehran and the rest to the provinces. The electors were divided into six classes: (1) Princes and the Qājār tribe, (2) doctors of divinity and students, (3) nobles and notables, (4) merchants, (5) land proprietors and peasants, and (6) trade guilds. Each class voted separately for its representatives to the Majles. Elections in Tehran were direct and in the provinces through the college of electors. The actual division of votes reflected the triumph of the middle and upper-middle classes/ especially the business class. The following was the distribution for the 60 representatives allocated to Tehran: Princes and members of the Qājār family, 4; doctors of divinity and students, 4; merchants, 10; landowners and peasants, 10; trade guilds, 32 in all. The third of the above six categories was not defined or represented.

17. Wilber, Donald, Contemporary Iran (New York: Praeger, 1963), pp. 68, 77.Google Scholar

18. For the best available accounts of the various parties in this period see: Ellwell-Sutton, L.P., “Political Parties in Iran: 1941-1948,” The Middle East Journal, vol. 3 (1949), pp. 45-61;Google Scholar Cottam, Richard W., Nationalism in Iran (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964),Google Scholar and “Political Party Development in Iran,” Iranian Studies, vol. 1 (1968), pp. 82-94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Binder, op. cit.,; Lenczowski, op. cit.,; Avery, op. cit.; Wilber, op. cit.; and Zabih, op. cit.

19. Lenczowski, op. cit.; and Zabih, op. cit.

20. Elwell-Sutton, op. cit.

21. Binder, op. cit., pp. 216-221; Cottam, Nationalism in Iran, pp. 267-281.

22. For the best account of the Toilers and the Third Force see: Binder, op. cit., pp. 212-215; Cottam, , “Political Party Development in Iran,” pp. 89-91Google Scholar, and Nationalism in Iran, pp. 264-265, 293-294; and Wilber, op. cit., pp. 93, 148.

23. See Razi, G.H., “The Press and Political Institutions of Iran: A Content Analysis of Ettelā'āt and Keyhān”, The Middle East Journal, Vol. 22 (1968), pp. 471-474.Google Scholar

24. Ettelā'āt, January 30, 1963.

25. Ibid., July 30, 1963.

26. Cf., Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 417-419.Google Scholar

27. Ibid.

28. Op. cit., p. xxvii.

29. Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 22-24.Google Scholar

30. The importance of the electoral process for political parties was first expounded extensively by Hermens, op. cit. See also Duverger, op. cit., pp. 216-228; and Schlesinger and Eckstein, op. cit., pp. 438-439.