Factionalism and political discourse in the Islamic Republic of Iran:The Case of the Hujjatiyeh Society

The revolutionary Islamic government of Iran is dominated by clerical forces organised for the most part in the Islamic Republic Party. After defeating and banishing its secular opponents, notably the first President of the Republic, Bani-Sadr, the clerical party and regime developed factional struggles within their ranks. The issue of these struggles is what we consider to be the central dilemma of the revolutionary regime: the radical, populist slogans and policies of the revolution vs. routinised government maintaining order and protecting property. Khomeini's doctrine of Wilayat-i-Faqih which required the politicisation of religion and the sacralisation of politics has become closely associated with revolutionary populism. The radical forces, self proclaimed Maktabis, have insistently defended the original principles and policies of the revolution in the name of Khomeini and his ‘Imam line’ against the forces which they claimed to be infiltrating the regime to subvert the revolution and restore capitalist-imperialist control. The Maktabis with the vocal support of the Tudeh (communist) party, identified subversive forces with the Hujjatiyeh, a shadowy society, apparently with close connections to the clerical establishment

We examine the attacks upon and the defences of the ‘Hujjatiyeh’ to distinguish the styles, discourses and directions of factional struggles in relation to the central conflict between populism and order     

Iran's active neutrality during the Kuwaiti crisis: Reasons and ramifications

Abstract

Since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, Iranian foreign policy has become increasingly moderate. Iran's active neutrality during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait is symptomatic of this moderation. The policy of active neutrality became possible because Rafsanjani centralized the foreign policy decision‐making process before the start of the crisis and introduced his “new‐thinking” in the Persian Gulf. This new thinking was a part of his strategy to rebuild Iran's shattered economy and to improve relations with the West and with the Arabs of the Persian Gulf.

Without a single shot and without any casualty, Iran benefited enormously from the Kuwaiti war. Rafsanjani's domestic opponents were weakened. Iranian financial gains were significant. Iran's negative image improved. Relations improved with the West and with the Arab nations of the region. And the military and economic infrastructures of Iraq, Iran's archenemy, were seriously damaged, making Iran the region's most powerful indigenous force.

This article is partially based on interviews with Iranian policy‐makers conducted in 1991.     

An Analysis of Race Equality Policy and Practice in the City of Birmingham,UK

The city of Birmingham is home to a significant number of ethnic minorities. In 2004 it is estimated that almost a third of the city's one million people are of ethnic minority origin. How the city's institutions have responded to race equality issues is analysed in the light of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report (1999) and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. Based on secondary analysis of documentary evidence and interviews with key actors, it is shown that ethnic minorities are disadvantaged in education, the labour market, and in relation to health and housing. It is argued that the local authority has made some genuine efforts to ensure that all its citizens are provided equality of opportunity; however, given the diversity and socio-economic polarity of the ethnic minorities in Birmingham, we conclude that race equality policies remain ineffective and a great deal more is required to ensure that ethnic minorities are treated equally as full British citizens.     

What determines public health expenditures in Pakistan? Role of income, urbanization and unemployment

What determines public health care expenditures at the national level is an important policy question. Since the pioneering work of Newhouse (J Hum Resour 12(1):115–125, 1977) on the relationship between health expenditures and national income, this area of economic inquiry has received much attention. This paper seeks an answer to this question by estimating the factors affecting public health expenditures at the national level in Pakistan. This paper uses annual time series data from 1972 to 2009 and employing unit root and Johansen cointegration methods estimated the determinants of public health expenditures. It is estimated that all variables are integrated of order one and are cointegrated hence in a long run relationship. The income elasticity of public health care expenditures is estimated below unity (at 0.26) indicating health care is a necessity in Pakistan contrary to most of the industrialized countries. Furthermore, it is imperative that government have a larger role in allocating and directing public resources to health care in Pakistan. Urbanization and unemployment variables have elasticity values of ?1.33 and ?0.37 respectively, implying that it is costly to provide health care to residents of remote rural areas of Pakistan.     

Iraq: economic sanctions and consequences, 1990–2000

It is a well known fact, of course, that Iraq has been under a UN Security Council system of comprehensive embargo for the past 10 years. The consequences of the embargo have been catastrophic for the people and the economy of Iraq. Yet our understanding of the humanitarian emergency in Iraq will be enhanced if we examine the impact not only of the embargo but of other factors as well. This paper identifies four such factors: (1) the decision by the Iraqi government to initiate the 1980-88 war against Iran; (2) the militarisation of the Iraqi economy; (3) Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing 1991 Gulf war; and (4) the sanctions regime which has been in place since August 1990. The paper argues that, while all the non-sanctions factors played their different roles, it is, in the last analysis, the force of the intensity and the open-endedness of the sanctions regime which bears the major share of the responsibility for the current conditions in Iraq.     

Analysis of Frontal Sinuses for Personal Identification in a Chinese Sample Using a New Code Number

The study of frontal sinuses for personal identification is a considered approach in the forensic field. In Yoshino's system, the frontal sinus patterns of a given person were formulated as a code number (codY) obtained by arranging the class numbers in each classification item. The aim of this work was to use a new code number (codC) with eight digits that includes other two continuous variables obtained as ratios SOR₁ (left frontal sinus area/left orbit area) and SOR₂ (right frontal sinus area/right orbit area), comparing the results with that of Yoshino. Digital radiographic images of the skulls of 150 Chinese people were analyzed. Spearman's partial correlation coefficients were evaluated between variables characterizing frontal sinus patterns. We used a maximum-weight dependence tree for statistical analysis. Results demonstrated that codC significantly reduced the probability of having the same personal code number compared with codY. Our scientific approach results valid for personal identification purposes.