About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

15 Brown J. World Aff. 25 (2008-2009)
Democracy and the Politics of Parliamentary Elections in Iran

handle is hein.journals/brownjwa15 and id is 25 raw text is: Democracy and the Politics of Parliamentary Elections in Iran ABBAS MILANI MICHAEL McFAUL Research Fellow Senior Fellow Hoover Institution Hoover Institution TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IS AN intricate process, entailing a complicated set of internal and external, mental, and material conditions. It minimally requires a ruling class that is bereft of legitimacy and lacks the requisite resolution to rule-one beset with chronic division in its ranks. This division and irresolution must be accompanied by unity and resolution amongst the ruled. Indeed, a crucial political prerequisite for transition to democracy is a citizenry that is dedicated to the rules of a democratic polity and to an opposition leadership that offers a coherent plan of action. There has been something of a consensus amongst social scientists that democratic 25 transition demands a vibrant and viable middle class with a certain level of education and income.1 Some social scientists, for example, suggest $7,000 as the minimum necessary annual income for such a class. Democracy needs the rudiments of a civil society and a network of autonomous institutions capable of performing a dual set of interrelated functions. It must be able to socialize the citizens in the rules of a demo- cratic social contract, while protecting the same citizenry from the excesses of the often overreaching power of the state. Even a cursory look at Iranian society on the eve of the 14 March 2008 parlia- mentary elections shows a discordant image of a society dangling in the long limbo of warranted but unrealized change, a society where most of the conditions for a transi- tion to democracy-save a cogent leadership in the opposition-have been realized but no such transition has taken place. Not only is the country still in the grip of a despotic elite, but in the aftermath of the March 2008 parliamentary election-the 28th electoral ritual in the 29-year-old history of the Islamic Republic of Iran2-when ABBAS MILANI is the Director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University where he is also a Research Fellow at Hoover Institution. MICHAEL McFAUL is the Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford where he is also a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Copyright © 2008 by the Brown Journal of World Affairs FALL/WINTER 2008 - VOLUME XV, ISSUE i

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most