Informality as Form: How Islamists Captured the Iranian State after 1979

• In Event: New Political Elites: Formation, Consolidation, and Contestation

Abstract

Why do the radicals, commonly lacking organizational and political experience, tend to capture the state successfully after major revolutions? To propose a possible explanation, this paper engages in a micro-level study of elite interactions in post-revolutionary Iran. Shortly after the February 1979 revolution, the least organized group of activists, retrospectively known as the Islamists, emerged as victors of the postrevolutionary powerplay. I study this future revolutionary elite’s day-to-day concerns, experiences, thought processes and actions to observe how they outmaneuvered more experienced political rivals. The paper focuses on the period between the formation of the Revolution Council (October 1978) to the premature termination of the Interim Government (October 1979). Although Islamists’ hold on power was not consolidated for another 2 to 4 years, the 1-year period, covering significant political events, provides a window into the daily operations of the Islamists. I rely on archived interviews, published memoirs, meeting minutes, and newspaper reports collected in Iran. I find that in this case, the very informality that radical revolutionary factions operate with assisted them in outmaneuvering more experienced and better organized political rivals. The elite rivalry, it can be said, is not just about ideological frames, but also about operational forms.

Author

• Maryam Alemzadeh, University of Oxford