Ousting the “Final 45”

Many critics of democracy promotion assert that the rule of law and a well-functioning state should be in place before a society democratizes, but this strategy of "sequencing" is based…

The history of many of today’s established democracies shows that “out-of-sequence” democratization can lead to eventual success.

Once again, a reformist electoral victory has been followed by political setbacks. The key to understanding this paradoxical pattern lies in the unique theocratic constitutional structure of the Islamic Republic.