Iran’s 1907 constitution and its sources: a critical comparison

Scholars of Iranian constitutional history have long recognized the influence of the Belgian and Bulgarian constitutions on the Iranian 1907 constitution. The exact character and extent of these and other constitutional influences have remained unclear, however. This article provides an analytical comparison of the 1907 Supplementary Fundamental Laws with the 1831 Belgian, 1876 Ottoman and 1879 Bulgarian constitutions that served as models and sources of inspiration. We also provide an easily navigable annotated version of relevant constitutional provisions in the footnotes for scholars interested in tracing models for particular provisions and have provided a complete version of the 1907 Supplementary Fundamental Laws and its sources on our website. In doing so, this article and the accompanying materials hope to clarify where these influences begin and end, where they have been modified or ignored, and where Iran’s constitutionalists innovated by introducing more stringent separation of powers or new institutions. It is thereby demonstrated that Iran’s constitutionalists critically engaged with previous constitutional traditions, rather than merely copying provisions from earlier models. Thus, Iran’s 1907 Supplementary Fundamental Laws should be regarded as an organic engagement with and global extension of the European liberal tradition, rather than as a merely peripheral or derivative development.     

Deserters,Converts, Cossacks and Revolutionaries: Russians in Iranian Military Service 1800–1920

Russians entered Iranian military service in this period in two waves, each wave characterizing a specific period in Iranian–Russian relations. The first was subaltern in origin and came in the form of the deserters from the Russian imperial army who fled to Tabriz in the early nineteenth century and who made a significant contribution to Iranian efforts to build a modern army. The second took place in the late nineteenth–early twentieth century and consisted of representatives of the tsarist military elite, Russian Cossack officers, who came to Iran between 1879 and 1920 and formed the Iranian Cossack Brigade, and their opposites, Caucasian revolutionaries who joined the constitutional movement in order to continue their struggle against the Russian imperial regime. The article raises a series of questions, not only about the extent of Russian influence suggested by the presence of Russian soldiers, but also about its character. Why did Iran place such a high value on Russian military expertise? Who were the Russians who served in the Iranian military? How were they received in Iran? What effect did Iranian society exercise on them and to what extent did the changes transforming Russia affect the roles they played in Iran?     

Correspondence

For many years, Iranian views of Britain have been unfavourable. Yet, perhaps counter-intuitively, very positive impressions of Britain were formed by the first small group of Iranians to visit London, nearly two hundred years ago. They commented on everything; constitutional monarchy, politics, foreign policy, economics, society and social issues. In many cases their views of Britain contrasted with their unfavourable views of their own country, reflecting an eagerness to see Iran emulate Britain and embrace Modernisation/Westernisation. Yet their views were not uncritical and they were as accurate and as well-founded as the views of Iran put forward by British observers of Iran like Curzon.     

The Young Turk revolution: comparisons and connections

This article consists of a comparative analysis on the one hand, and an attempt to trace influences and connections, on the other. In the comparative part, it seeks to determine the place of the Ottoman constitutional revolution of July 1908 in the global wave of revolutions in the decade before the First World War. It accepts that there is a high degree of similarity in the liberal constitutionalist ideology of the revolutionary movements, but emphasizes the differences in the social bases of the revolutionary movements. In the part on connections, the influences on the Young Turks' ideology, organisation and revolutionary methodology are traced, as well as the influence they exerted on other revolutionary movements.     

Macedonians in Anatolia: The Importance of the Macedonian Roots of the Unionists for their Policies in Anatolia after 1914

The article looks at statements and acts of the core members of the Committee of Union and Progress in the run-up to the constitutional revolution of 1908 to determine whether these express ideas that later guided them in their policies in Anatolia. The main argument is that the Balkan War of 1912–13, in which the European provinces were largely lost, was an important catalyst that led to a radicalization of policies but that in fact the basic outlook of the Young Turks had been shaped years earlier, during their struggle to keep Macedonia Ottoman. Their relative ignorance of Anatolia led them to read the social and political realities there through a Macedonian prism.     

Interpretation and mutability: socio-legal texts of the Quran; three accounts from contemporary Iran

Since the advent of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, radical changes have taken place in the views of many Iranian scholars regarding the nature of religious belief. In particular, the issue of the compatibility or incompatibility of Islam's socio-legal precepts and the challenges of time and space have become a crucial matter for numerous Iranian intellectuals. This paper discusses how three prominent Iranian intellectuals of the post-revolutionary era, namely Mostafa Malekian, Mohsen Kadivar and Hasan Yousefi-Eshkevari, have put forward arguments in favor of the contingent nature of the Quran's socio-legal passages. The paper argues that these scholars challenge the notion of the immutability of the Quran's socio-legal texts, claiming that they could be applied differently depending on the specific time and place. In this sense, the paper establishes the groundwork for showing how these scholars have re-examined traditional understandings of religion in light of the new challenges that are arising in the modern world.     

Resistance to centralisation in the Ottoman periphery: the Kurdish Baban and Bohtan emirates

Modern Kurdish historiography, which examines resistance to provincial centralisation in Ottoman Kurdistan, focuses largely on Bedir Khan’s Bohtan emirate and his revolt in the 1840s, while ignoring the rest of the other Kurdish emirates such as Baban emirate. While both states, Qajar Iran and Ottoman Empire, were endeavouring to solve their conflicts in the 1840s (a process which culminated in the treaty of Erzurum in 1847) the future of the Baban emirate and its territories emerged as one of the major issues during the course of negotiations. The Baban emirate was the last emirate to give up its struggle against the Sublime Porte’s centralisation reforms. The legacy of the Kurdish emirates is important to understand better the relations between the centre of the Ottoman Empire and its eastern periphery, a much less studied subject in Ottoman historiography. This article will highlight the impact of the centralisation policies in Kurdistan, more specifically on territories of the Bohtan and Baban emirates. It will be demonstrated that the changes wrought by the Tanzimat reforms were partially successful in transforming the Kurdish notables, who later became a part of the state bureaucracy. However, the reform-minded officials, who were appointed after the Kurdish emirs were removed from the region, failed to persuade the locals in favour of the new administration thus transforming their lives.     

Mustafa Shu‘a‘iyan and Fada'iyan-i Khalq: Frontal Politics,Stalinism, and the Role of Intellectuals in Iran

This paper presents a glance into the life and times of the forgotten Iranian revolutionary and political theorist, Mustafa Shu‘a‘iyan, and his engagement with the orthodox and militant Iranian Left of the 1970s. A brief biographical sketch situates Shu‘a‘iyan in the context of the leftist groups of his time. In particular, the paper shows how upon his agonizing organizational relationship with the People's Fada'i Guerrillas, he set himself the unenviable task of launching the pathology of Stalinism that dominated the Iranian Left for decades. In this context, his bitter debate with the Fada'i Guerrillas on the role of the intellectuals in revolutionary struggle appears as a step toward unravelling the plagues that have won the Iranian Left its ill repute of being ideologically and organizationally undemocratic.     

Learning the Ropes: The Young Turk Perception of the 1905 Russian Revolution

This article analyses the topoi of the Young Turk reading of the 1905 Russian Revolution. It argues that the Young Turks considered the 1905 Revolution as a victory against autocratic regimes and as an edificatory example for the Ottoman constitutionalists. This example provided the Young Turks with a mirror in which they saw a model of revolution from below. As such, in addition to encouraging the Young Turks to formulate and re-assess their methods and means of establishing a constitutional regime in the Ottoman Empire, the 1905 Revolution helped them to transform their initially intellectual movement to an effectual political one.     

The alla franca dandy; modernity and the novel in the late 19th-century Ottoman Empire

ABSTRACT

In the late 19th-century Ottoman novel, an iconic character draws attention: the alla franca dandy; a man who admires the Western culture to the point of mindless imitation, and who stands aloof from his own society as he condemns the Ottoman/Islamic culture in aesthetical terms. He was born out of the Ottoman intellectuals’ ideas of and anxiety over Westernization, who sought to modernize the society without subverting the traditional foundations. As the Ottoman/Islamic and Western cultures collided, the alla franca dandy figure became the embodiment of Westernization gone astray and served the intellectuals’ objective to educate the masses by setting a bad example to be avoided. However, though the alla franca dandy figure was brought forth, in this manner, to circumscribe the proper limits of modernization, he ironically evolved, through the novels of different authors, to express individualistic attitudes, and put forth a modernist critique of the Ottoman/Islamic tradition as the intellectuals’ epistemological assumptions eroded and the society’s present is questioned and problematized as in need of intervention.     

Migration and Power Politics: The Settlement of Georgian Immigrants in Turkey (1878–1908)

This study is an examination of the relationship between migration and politics, focusing on the case of Georgian immigrants settled in the central Black Sea districts of Ottoman Turkey during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Based on the extensive use of Ottoman and British archival material as well as interviews conducted in the region, the study reveals insights into the intriguing power politics behind migration in the Ottoman Empire. Scrutinizing certain characteristics of the settlement process, it also demonstrates the complex imperial network of power that linked the most distant border districts of the Batum-Çürüksu (modern Kobuleti) region of Ottoman Caucasus directly to Istanbul via the Black Sea region of Ordu. The central argument of the study is that the leader of the immigrant group, namely Çürüksulu Ali Pasha, not only successfully managed the settlement process of his fellow Georgians but also masterfully manipulated all the stages of migration and settlement, making use of the conditions in his fierce power struggle against the appointed Ottoman governors as well as the native Muslim nobility of the region. The study thus shows how the personal agenda and the central position of a local Pasha in such a struggle for domination can dangerously destabilize life in an Ottoman province and sow the seeds of animosity between the immigrant community and the natives that eventually accelerated into warfare in the 1890s, creating a serious ‘Immigrant Problem’, the legacy of which lasted up to the early Republican period.     

Iran as a Peculiar Hybrid Regime: Structure and Dynamics of the Islamic Republic

This article is based on the assumption that the Iranian political system is a peculiar form of a hybrid regime and is based on two hypotheses. The first is that the originality of the Iranian political system depends on two main factors: a constitutional compromise between the secular and clerical components and the particular way in which presidential elections are held. The second hypothesis concerns the consequences of this institutional arrangement. On the one hand, in particular phases, presidential elections may play an inclusive function thanks to a certain degree of responsiveness of ordinary policies. On the other hand, they may instead raise the expectations and political demands for regime change that, if suppressed, could generate tensions and instability. The first part of this work will be devoted to a brief presentation of the concept of hybrid systems and to the collocation of the Iranian system in this category. The second part will examine some crucial political phases experienced by Iran which highlight the functioning of the regime, explaining its stability and vulnerability.     

The Social Function of Carlos Fuentes: A Critical Intellectual or in the ‘Shadow of the State’?

This article seeks to raise meaningful questions about the role, or wider social function, of the intellectual within state–civil society relations in Latin America characterised by conditions of socio–economic modernisation. It does so by pursuing such questions through a detailed examination of the social function of Carlos Fuentes as an intellectual in Mexico. Through a focus on the social function of Carlos Fuentes, it is possible to distinguish the role intellectual activity can play in the construction and contestation of hegemony in Mexico. Most crucially, the article prompts consideration of the social basis of hegemony and the agency of intellectuals organically tied to particular social forces functioning through state–civil society relations in the struggle over hegemony. Put differently, it is possible to grant due regard to the mixture of critical opposition and accommodation that has often confronted the intellectual within Latin America.     

Turkey and Iran: limits of a stable relationship

Throughout the twentieth century, Turkey and Iran have enjoyed peaceful, if not always cordial relations. The Cold War strategic orientations of these two neighbours solidified that relationship. The Iranian Revolution posed the first major challenge to the stability of the Turco‐Iranian relations. However, throughout the 1980s Turkish and Iranian officials adroitly managed their differences, though they did not succeed in resolving them. During the 1990s, the pressures and polarities impinging upon Turco‐Iranian relations have both multiplied and intensified. Ranging from the exertion of US influence on Turkey, to the changing political dynamics in Turkey and Iran, Turco‐Iranian relations today rest on unsteady ground. Although the exact course which Turco‐Iranian relations will take remains unclear, there is reason to be concerned about its current state. For, to a significant degree, the stability and prosperity of the Middle East region depends to a significant degree on maintaining the stability of Turco‐Iranian relations.     

Iran days in Egypt: Mosaddeq's Visit to Cairo in 1951

During Mohammad Mosaddeq’s tenure as the Iranian Prime Minister, the struggles for de-colonization took shape vis-à-vis the old superpowers, Britain and France, in Iran and the rest of the Middle East. Following the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Mohammad Mosaddeq became the first Middle Eastern Muslim leader that overcame Britain, albeit temporarily. Mosaddeq paid a price, overthrown in 1953 in an American and British-backed coup, but his struggle aroused interest around the world and received different interpretations, depending on the location. This article examines the way Mosaddeq was perceived in Egypt, where he visited in November 1951 for a highly significant four-day visit. The article examines the evolution of the anti-colonial struggle in Egypt and the emergence of a new vernacular framing of the struggles in the Middle East in one context.     

Driving Dangerously: Law,Culture and Driving Habits in Iran

Iran has the highest rate of road traffic accidents (RTAs) worldwide. Iranian studies of the growing levels of RTAs are often conducted by medical doctors, who view them in light of the increase in the production and ownership of cars and the changed lifestyle of many Iranians, and discuss them in terms of pathology, morbidity and epidemiology. This article argues that although the high levels of RTAs in Iran are new and reflective of the changing character of Iranian society, the habit of reckless driving is not. Using open and semi-structured interviews, it explores how Iranians describe their driving habits and experience RTAs. Placing the results of the interviews in the historical context of Iranian society, the article goes on to examine driving as a form of behaviour with legal and cultural dimensions indicative of how Iranians interact with each other and with the normative structures of the legal system, the state and society to create a form of social order. Being mediated through the use of automobiles, driving habits also throw light on how Iranians relate themselves to an aspect of modern technology. Thus, this study will treat Iranians' driving habits as an empirical manifestation of one aspect of their legal culture, which is mediated through the technology of the automobile.     

The Shi'a of Saudi Arabia: a minority in search of cultural authenticity

This article focuses on the transformation of Saudi Shi'a resistance from one which centred on military confrontation in the 1980s to one which invokes searching for cultural authenticity (al‐asala al‐shi'iyya) in the 1990s. Today the struggle of the Shi'a for equal status among the Sunni majority draws attention to the attempts of Shi'a intellectuals to write their own regional history. Shi'a intellectuals and opposition leaders deconstruct official representations of themselves and provide alternative historical narratives which anchor their community in Saudi history and society, thus dismissing suggestions that they are a non‐indigenous community. This article examines Shi'a historical narratives in an attempt to understand the transformation in their struggle against discrimination in Saudi Arabia.     

Half measures and incomplete reforms: the breeding ground for a hybrid civil Society in Ukraine

Abstract

In the space of 24 years, Ukraine has experienced three ‘revolutions’: the revolution for independence, the ‘Orange Revolution’ and the ‘Dignity Revolution’. On each occasion the event has been lauded as a triumph of democracy over authoritarianism and as evidence that Ukraine will soon be able to assume its rightful place as a free, democratic state in Europe. On two out of three occasions the reverse has occurred; while the people have taken to the streets to protest against flagrant corruption and abuse of power, the oligarchs have responded with only minor changes to the political system. The reins of political and economic power have remained firmly in their hands, and Ukraine’s prospects for political and economic development have deteriorated. The Dignity Revolution of 2014 is seen as different from preceding revolutions because civil society appeared to be much more active and it has succeeded, in part, in maintaining pressure on government for reform. It is important to understand, however, that despite periodic and dramatic demonstrations of outrage over the corrupt and authoritarian practices of the political elites, civil society has generally been classed as apathetic, weak and ineffectual. Thus, the current challenge for Ukrainian civil society is to overcome its own limitations so that it can better hold government to account.