Middle East Review of International Affairs

Volume 8, Number 2, June 2004

 

Iran's Struggle for Democracy Continues: An Evaluation of Twenty-Five Years after the Revolution
by Ali Abootalebi ^*

 

Abstract

The disqualification of thousands of reformist candidates by the Council of Guardians for the seventh parliamentary elections on February 20, 2004 has resulted, according to most observers, in Iran's most serious political crisis in the past twenty-five years. But is this the end of the reform movement? Even from the regime's standpoint, trying to block change altogether will lead to a build-up of problems and opposition that could eventually bring down the Islamic Republic.

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Note *: Ali R Abootalebi, an Associate Professor of Global and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, is the author of Islam and Democracy: State-Society Relations in Developing Countries, 1980-1994 (Garland Publishing, 2000). Among his other publications are "Islam and Democracy," in Barry Rubin (ed.), Revolutionaries and Reformers: Contemporary Islamist Movements in the Middle East (SUNY Press, 2003). His latest article, "Political Islam, Governance and Democracy" is forthcoming in Turkish Policy Quarterly. Back