What Happens in-between Mobilizations? Building and Organizing Contentious Politics at the University of Tehran (2007-2017)


Abstract


This article investigates contentious politics in authoritarian contexts by looking at the case-study of student activism in the Islamic Republic of Iran. More specifically, the article asks 'how does the Iranian student movement "do" contentious politics?', and argues that a broader approach is needed when examining social movements and mobilizations in authoritarian countries, than one focused on visible mobilizations. In particular, interpersonal relationships, local histories of activism, and what happens 'in-between' episodes of contention should be valued as material carrying analytical gravity. Adopting this approach, the article looks at the continuities and ruptures that have characterized on campus political contention in Iran in the 2000s and 2010s, bringing to the fore the overlooked history of how the student movements have re-organized after major waves of state repression.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20356609v13i1p586

Keywords: Iran; Authoritarianism; Students; Activism; Green Movement; Protests; Social Movements

References


Abdelrahman, M. (2014), Egypt’s long revolution: protest movements and uprisings, Lon-don: Routledge.

Abdolmohammadi, P. G. Cama (2015), “Iran as a peculiar hybrid regime: Structure and dynamics of the Islamic republic”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 42(4): 558-578.

Bayat, A. (2010), Life as Politics. How Ordinary People Change the Middle East, Amster-dam: University of Amsterdam Press.

Bayat, A. (2018), “The Fire That Fueled the Iran Protests”, The Atlantic, 27 January. Re-trieved 25 August 2018 (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/iran-protest-mashaad-green-class-labor-economy/551690/).

Beinin, J., F. Vairel (eds. 2011), Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Bennani-Chraïbi, M., O. Fillieule (eds. 2003), Résistances et protestations dans les sociétés musulmanes, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

Biagini, E. (2017), “The Egyptian Muslim Sisterhood between Violence, Activism and Leadership” Mediterranean Politics 2(1): 35-53.

Camau, M., G. Massardier (eds. 2009), Démocraties et authoritarismes: Fragmentation et hybridation des regimes, Paris: Editions Karthala.

Cavatorta, F. (2010), “The convergence of governance: upgrading authoritarianism in the Arab world and downgrading democracy elsewhere?” Middle East Critique 19(3): 217-232.

Dabène, O., V. Geisser, G. Massardier (eds. 2008) Autoritarismes démocratique et démo-craties autoritaires au XXIe siècle: Convergences Nord-Sud, Paris: La Découverte.

Cheshmandaz-e Iran (1382/2003), “Dar Ku-ye Daneshgah chi gozasht? Goftogu ba Ezatol-lah Sahabi” (What happened at ku-ye daneshgah? A conversation with Ezatollah Saha-bi) Cheshmandaz-e Iran, 20: 6-9.

Della Porta, D. (2014) Mobilizing for democracy: comparing 1989 and 2011, Oxford: OUP.

Duboc, M. (2011), “Egyptian leftist intellectuals’ activism from the margins. Overcoming the mobilization/demobilization dichotomy”, in J. Beinin, F. Vairel (eds.) Social Move-ments, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 49-67.

Ebtekar, M., F.A. Reed (2000) Takeover in Tehran: The inside story of the 1979 US Embas-sy Capture. Vancouver: Talonbooks.

Ehsani, K., A. Keshavarzian (2018), “The Moral Economy of the Iranian Protests”, The Jacobin, 11 January. Retrieved 25 August 2018 (https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/01/iranian-protests-revolution-rouhani-ahmadinejad).

Elling, R. (2009), “Bring in the dead: martyr burials and election politics in Iran”, Middle East Report, 19 March. Retrieved 25 August 2018 (https://www.merip.org/mero/mero031909).

Fawcett, P., M.V. Flinders, C. Hay, M. Wood (eds. 2017), Anti-politics, depoliticization, and governance, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Golkar, S. (2010), “The Reign of Hard-line Students in Iran’s Universities. How the Student Basij Serve the Regime’s Purposes”, Middle East Quarterly, 17(3).

Hamdhaidari, S., H. Agahi, A. Papzan (2008), “Higher education during the Islamic gov-ernment of Iran (1979–2004)”, International journal of educational development, 28(3): 231-245.

Hanieh, A. (2013), Lineages of Revolt: Issues of contemporary capitalism in the Middle East, London: Haymarket Books.

Heydemann, S. (2007), Upgrading authoritarianism in the Arab world, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, 2007.

Honari, A. (1386/2007), “Jonbesh-e daneshjuy. Az Jame’e-ye ya bar Jame’e? Naqdi bar monasebat-e mian-e jonbesh-e daneshjiu, fazay ejtemahi va sakhtar-e qodrat-e siyasi (The student movement. For society or against society? Critique of the relationship be-tween the student movement, the society and the structure of political power)”, Goft-o Gu, 50: 165-179.

Honari, A. (2018), “Struggles for Revival: The Iranian Student Movement under the ‘Mod-erate’ Government, 2013–2017”, in R. Barlow, S. Akbarzadeh (eds.), Human Rights and Agents of Change in Iran. Towards a Theory of Change, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMil-lan, pp. 127-142.

Kalb, Zep (2019), “Corporatist Coalitions As Agents of Civil Society: The Politics of Student and Labour Unions in Iran”, Mediterranean Politics 24(4): 467-490.

Khatib, L, E. Lust (eds. 2014), Taking to the Streets: The Transformation of Arab Activism, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Kurzman, C. (1996), “Structural opportunity and perceived opportunity in social‐movement theory: The Iranian Revolution of 1979”, American Sociological Review 61(1):153‐170.

Kurzman, C. (2009), The unthinkable revolution in Iran, Harvard: Harvard University Press.

LeBas, A. (2011), From Protest to Parties: Party-building and Democratization in Africa. New York: Oxford University Press.

Levitsky, S., L.A. Way (2010), Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the cold war, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Linz, J., A. Stepan (1996), Problems of democratic transition and consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and post-communist Europe, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uuni-versity Press.

Lust, E., S.N. Ndegwa (2013), “Governance Challenges in the Face of Transformation”, Middle East Law & Governance, 2: 113.

Lust, E. (2016), “Why Now? Micro Transitions and the Arab Uprisings”, The Monkey Cage. Retrieved 25 August (http://themonkeycage.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Ellen_Lust_final.pdf).

Mahdi, A.A. (1999), “The student movement in the Islamic Republic of Iran”, Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis 15(2): 5-32.

Malekzadeh, S. (2016), “Education as a public good or private resource: accommodation and demobilization in Iran’s university system”, in D. Brumberg and F. Farhi (eds.), Power and change in Iran. Politics of contention and conciliation, Bloomington: Indiana University Press: 101-134.

Menoret, P. (2011), “Leaving Islamic Activism Behind. Ambiguous Disengagement in Saudi Arabia”, n J. Beinin and F. Vairel (eds.), Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contesta-tion in the Middle East and North Africa, Stanford: Stanford University Press: 68-85.

Meyer, D.S. (2004), “Protest and political opportunities”, Annual Review of Sociology 30: 125–145.

Meyer, D.S., D.C. Minkoff (2004), “Conceptualizing political opportunity”, Social Forces 82(4): 1457–1492.

Saghafi, M. (1373/1994), “Daneshjyu, Dowlat va Enqelab” (The student, the Government, and the Revolution), Goft-o Gu, 5: 9-26.

Punishing Stars: Systematic Denial of Higher Education in Iran

(2011), International Cam-paign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI).

Razavi, R. (2009), “The Cultural Revolution in Iran, with Close Regard to the Universities, and its Impact on the Student Movement”, Middle Eastern Studies, 45(1): 1-17.

Reisinezhad, A. (2015), “The Iranian Green Movement: Fragmented Collective Action and Fragile Collective Identity”, Iranian Studies, 48(2): 193-222.

Rezamand, A. (2018), “Justice Interrupted: The University and the Imam”, in P. Vahabza-deh (ed.), Iran’s Struggles for Social Justice. Economics, Agency, Justice, Activism, Ba-singstoke: Palgrave MacMillan: 127-144.

Rivetti, P., F. Cavatorta (2013), “ ‘The Importance of being Civil Society’: Student Politics and the Reformist Movement in Khatami's Iran,” Middle Eastern Studies 49(4): 645-660.

Rivetti, P., F. Cavatorta (2014), “Iranian student activism between authoritarianism and democratization: Patterns of conflict and cooperation between the Office for the Strengthening of Unity and the regime,” Democratization, 21(2): 289-310.

Rivetti, P. (2016), “Informal Activism and New Subjectivity in Authoritarian Settings: Iran’s New Activists”, Middle East-Asia Project (MAP) Series, 8 September. Retrieved 8 April 2020 (http://www.mei.edu/content/map/informal-activism-and-new-subjectivity-authoritarian-settings-iran-s-new-activists).

Rivetti, P. (2020), Political Participation in Iran from Khatami to the Green Movement, Ba-singstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

Rivetti, P., S. Saeidi (2018), “What is so special about field research in Iran? Doing field-work in religiously charged authoritarian settings”, in J. Clark, F. Cavatorta (eds.), Do-ing Political Science Research in the Middle East and North Africa: Methodological and Ethical Challenges, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 35-45.

Salehi-Isfahani, D. (2007), “On the Right Track? Iran Edges toward Education Reform”, The Brookings Institute (https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/on-the-right-track-iran-edges-toward-education-reform/).

Schwedler, J. (2018), “New Directions in the Study of Islamist Politics”, in H. Kraetzschmar and P. Rivetti (eds.), Islamists and the Politics of the Arab Uprisings: Governance, Plu-ralisation and Contention, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Schwedler, J., K. Harris (2016), “What Is Activism?”, Middle East Report, 281:2-5.

Shafshekan, R. (2017), “An Unfinished Odyssey: The Iranian Student Movement’s Strug-gles for Social Justice”, in P. Vahabzadeh (ed.), Iran’s Struggles for Social Justice. Eco-nomics, Agency, Justice, Activism, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan: 237-254.

Teti, A., A. Mura (2013), “Convergent (il) liberalism in the Mediterranean? Some notes on Egyptian (post-) authoritarianism and Italian (post-) democracy”, European Urban and Regional Studies, 20(1): 120-127.

Tofangsazi, B. (2020), “From the Islamic Republic to the Green Movement: Social Move-ments in Contemporary Iran,” Sociology Compass, 14(1): 1-16.


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.