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Democracy and Iran


Overview Articles Discussion Links  

Iran embodies 21st-century world politics: a geriatric, Islamic, post-revolutionary, nuclear state with a youthful, idea-hungry, proto-democratic, networked society. Iranians - from Tehran to Los Angeles via Berlin - rethink their country’s identity and future on openDemocracy.

Lead Article

Iran's road to democracy




Iran’s road to democracy


The Islamic Republic of Iran’s presidential election of June 2005 will be a vital moment for the country. But, says Mohsen Sazegara – a former regime loyalist turned vocal critic – even more important is that Iranians campaign to make their constitution democratic and secular.

David Hayes introduces the debate.

Iran Scan 1384: Iranian bloggers report and debate the election

Responses

Ali Akbar Mahdi reads the electoral runes and comes up smiling

Fred Halliday puts the result in the context of a century's revolutions

Hossein Derakshan witnesses a fractured society open to a convincing reformism

Mehrdad Mashayekhi describes the secular opposition's long road to renewal

Pirouz Azadi says the Iranian diaspora will be vital in creating democracy

Shahram Kholdi calls the Islamic Republic's constitution a weapon against democracy

Mehrangiz Kar explains why the referendum is an idea whose time has come

Roya Boroumand says that Iran's opposition has at last matured

Bahman Kalbasi says a referendum is the wrong way to bring democracy to Iran

Bezhad Yaghmaian asks how Iranians' social dissent can become political action

Farideh Farhi says overnight solutions
won't work

Kaveh Ehsani calls the referendum movement a fantasy solution

Mansour Farhang scorns the mullahs and praises their dissident challenges

Afshin Molavi evokes the anger and fear Iran's regime provokes among students

From our archives

Nazila Fathi, “Shirin Ebadi and Iran’s women: in the vanguard of change” (October 2003)
The human rights lawyer's Nobel prize as a landmark for Iranian women

Hossein Derakshan, “Censor this: Iran’s web of lies” (January 2004)
How the mullahs are making enemies of Iranian blogs and websites, by the "Hoder" pioneer

Charles Grant, “Iran between worlds” (February 2004)
How do Iranians see the world? A vivid portrait of Iranian politics and society

Paul Rogers, “Confident Iran” (March 2005)
Tehran is sanguine over Iraq and nuclear politics, finds openDemocracy's global security columnist

Iran: a digest

  • Official name: Islamic Republic of Iran

  • Capital: Tehran

  • Region: south-west Asia; borders Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and (across Persian Gulf) Kuwait

  • GDP per head: $1,941 (2003)

  • State: Supreme Leader (since death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989) Mohammad Ali Khamenei, heads Guardian Council of Shi'a Islamic clerics; President Mohammad Khatami (elected 1997, re-elected 2001) heads government

map of Iran