Is Iran Democratizing? Reform at an Impasse

Issue Date October 2000
Volume 11
Issue 4
Page Numbers 114-128
file Print
arrow-down-thin Download from Project MUSE
external View Citation

Read the full essay here.

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.

About the Authors

Ladan Boroumand

Ladan Boroumand is a historian and the cofounder and senior fellow at the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran. She is currently writing a book on the tectonic social changes taking place within the Islamic Republic of Iran.

View all work by Ladan Boroumand

Roya Boroumand

Roya Boroumand, a historian from Iran with a doctorate from the Sorbonne, is a specialist in Iran’s contemporary history and has been a consultant for Human Rights Watch.

View all work by Roya Boroumand

Further Reading

Volume 29, Issue 2

Iran’s Exclusionary Republic

A review of Democracy in Iran: Why It Failed and How It Might Succeed by Misagh Parsa.

Volume 31, Issue 1

Iranians Turn Away from the Islamic Republic

Iran is in the midst of an ideological crisis. Growing numbers of Iranians are rejecting the religious underpinnings of the Supreme Leader’s rule, and turning their backs on the Islamic…

Volume 26, Issue 2

The Authoritarian Resurgence: Iran Abroad

The Iranian regime has sought to recast conventional principles of human rights and political participation by forging alliances with like-minded regimes and by broadcasting its narrative to an international audience.