Even before the death of Mahsa Amini triggered mass protests in Iran last year, the role of Iran’s reformist movement was in jeopardy. The group, which reached its apex during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, has lost ground ever since and was barred from contesting 2021 presidential elections.
Reformists are the heirs of the Islamic leftists who participated in the 1979 revolution. Although their initial focus was justice, they increasingly prioritized the issues of freedom and political development.
The movement rose in part as a result of the growth of the middle class after the Iran-Iraq war. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, president from 1989-1997, focused on economic development. His successor, Khatami, promoted freedom of the press, civil society, and political parties but faced a strong counterreaction from conservative currents.
The top-down view of reformists towards ordinary people laid the ground for the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was able to attract the lower social classes with populist slogans. Ahmadinejad introduced himself as a “third stream” — neither left nor right — although he had the support of hard-liners. A relative political unknown when he was first elected in 2005, he campaigned against corruption and tried to marginalize the middle class as the engine of political and social change.
After Ahmadinejad’s controversial re-election in 2009, hard-liners increasingly began removing reformists from the political structure. Surviving reformists turned to pragmatists such as Hassan Rouhani, who was considered a “surrogate womb” and “quasi-reformist” while still acceptable to the power structure. Rouhani, who was elected president in 2013, focused on achieving the landmark 2015 nuclear deal and gaining relief from Western sanctions. But that achievement was snatched away by the Donald Trump administration, which withdrew unilaterally from the deal in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions.
A poll taken in early 2021 showed that support for the nuclear agreement plunged from 80 percent when it was first reached to less than 50 percent.
Saeed Hajjarian, a noted reformist theorist, faults his movement for joining with “quasi-reformists” and abandoning its original slogans of strengthening civil society, human rights, free elections, an independent judicial system, free speech, and an end to the existence of parallel institutions in Iran. Rouhani, who was re-elected in 2017, notably failed to lift the house arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi Karroubi (reformist leaders in 2009) and could not neutralize the impact of sanctions reimposed by the U.S.
Reformist fortunes have declined along with that of their natural constituency, Iran’s middle class. This cohort has been on an economic roller coaster since 2011 and in 2022, average per capita expenditures in Iran were back where they had been in 2001. Since 2011, the middle class has shrunk by an estimated 8 million people.
To the extent that the reformists distanced themselves from society and were more interested in retaining political power than representing peoples’ concerns, they not only lost their former base but were unable to attract new generations.
According to Hossein Bashiriyeh, an Iranian political sociologist, if there was a “quasi-democracy” in Iran before, now there is a “pseudo-democracy.”
Mohammad Reza Tajik, a political advisor to Khatami and reformist theorist, believes that Iran needs a new political movement. “Reformists are unable to have an understanding relationship with the masses of people,” Tajik says.
This is particularly the case when it comes to younger Iranians. The new generation has been educated by parents who are themselves disillusioned with reformists. Tajik calls the current situation “unsettled.”
Hajjarian also considers Iranian society to be in a kind of “suspension.”
The protests following the death of Mahsa Amini showed the absence of political leadership and were light on theory and heavy on action. The protestors, many of them schoolgirls, did not wait for a leader to tell them what to do.
Iranian sociologist Maqsood Farastkhah says that the authority of “intellectuals” has ended for this young generation as the gap between tradition and modernity has grown. According to a recent survey, the social influence of previous reference groups — be they intellectuals or clergy — has decreased, while that of artists, athletes and other celebrities has grown thanks to social networks.
Some reformist theorists warn that if change in Iran comes, it is likely that the system will become more authoritarian in the short term. Tajik believes that in the current situation, if there is a shift in political power, this shift will not be democratic or civil.
A number of former reformists and civil society advocates have called for fundamental changes to the system of clerical leadership in place in Iran for four decades.
Mir Hossein Mousavi has advocated “holding a referendum on the necessity of changing or redrafting the constitution,” establishing a constituent assembly for this purpose and then holding a referendum on the resulting document. However, Khatami warns that it will be difficult to change the current system and that even the slogan of regime change can create more excuses for those in power to limit political freedom.
Therefore, the task of intellectuals and theoreticians is to create a new conceptual framework and to embed it in the soul and body of Iranian society. The history of Iran has proven that unless a new order emerges from crises, protest movements eventually fail, and the old order re-emerges.
Javad Heiran-Nia directs the Persian Gulf Studies Group at the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies in Iran. He is currently working on a book about Iran’s middle class. Follow him on Twitter: @J_Heirannia.
Reformists Struggle to Adjust to Iran’s Post-Mahsa Reality
By Javad Heiran-Nia
Middle East & North Africa
Even before the death of Mahsa Amini triggered mass protests in Iran last year, the role of Iran’s reformist movement was in jeopardy. The group, which reached its apex during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, has lost ground ever since and was barred from contesting 2021 presidential elections.
Reformists are the heirs of the Islamic leftists who participated in the 1979 revolution. Although their initial focus was justice, they increasingly prioritized the issues of freedom and political development.
The movement rose in part as a result of the growth of the middle class after the Iran-Iraq war. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, president from 1989-1997, focused on economic development. His successor, Khatami, promoted freedom of the press, civil society, and political parties but faced a strong counterreaction from conservative currents.
The top-down view of reformists towards ordinary people laid the ground for the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was able to attract the lower social classes with populist slogans. Ahmadinejad introduced himself as a “third stream” — neither left nor right — although he had the support of hard-liners. A relative political unknown when he was first elected in 2005, he campaigned against corruption and tried to marginalize the middle class as the engine of political and social change.
After Ahmadinejad’s controversial re-election in 2009, hard-liners increasingly began removing reformists from the political structure. Surviving reformists turned to pragmatists such as Hassan Rouhani, who was considered a “surrogate womb” and “quasi-reformist” while still acceptable to the power structure. Rouhani, who was elected president in 2013, focused on achieving the landmark 2015 nuclear deal and gaining relief from Western sanctions. But that achievement was snatched away by the Donald Trump administration, which withdrew unilaterally from the deal in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions.
A poll taken in early 2021 showed that support for the nuclear agreement plunged from 80 percent when it was first reached to less than 50 percent.
Saeed Hajjarian, a noted reformist theorist, faults his movement for joining with “quasi-reformists” and abandoning its original slogans of strengthening civil society, human rights, free elections, an independent judicial system, free speech, and an end to the existence of parallel institutions in Iran. Rouhani, who was re-elected in 2017, notably failed to lift the house arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi Karroubi (reformist leaders in 2009) and could not neutralize the impact of sanctions reimposed by the U.S.
Reformist fortunes have declined along with that of their natural constituency, Iran’s middle class. This cohort has been on an economic roller coaster since 2011 and in 2022, average per capita expenditures in Iran were back where they had been in 2001. Since 2011, the middle class has shrunk by an estimated 8 million people.
To the extent that the reformists distanced themselves from society and were more interested in retaining political power than representing peoples’ concerns, they not only lost their former base but were unable to attract new generations.
According to Hossein Bashiriyeh, an Iranian political sociologist, if there was a “quasi-democracy” in Iran before, now there is a “pseudo-democracy.”
Mohammad Reza Tajik, a political advisor to Khatami and reformist theorist, believes that Iran needs a new political movement. “Reformists are unable to have an understanding relationship with the masses of people,” Tajik says.
This is particularly the case when it comes to younger Iranians. The new generation has been educated by parents who are themselves disillusioned with reformists. Tajik calls the current situation “unsettled.”
Hajjarian also considers Iranian society to be in a kind of “suspension.”
The protests following the death of Mahsa Amini showed the absence of political leadership and were light on theory and heavy on action. The protestors, many of them schoolgirls, did not wait for a leader to tell them what to do.
Iranian sociologist Maqsood Farastkhah says that the authority of “intellectuals” has ended for this young generation as the gap between tradition and modernity has grown. According to a recent survey, the social influence of previous reference groups — be they intellectuals or clergy — has decreased, while that of artists, athletes and other celebrities has grown thanks to social networks.
Some reformist theorists warn that if change in Iran comes, it is likely that the system will become more authoritarian in the short term. Tajik believes that in the current situation, if there is a shift in political power, this shift will not be democratic or civil.
A number of former reformists and civil society advocates have called for fundamental changes to the system of clerical leadership in place in Iran for four decades.
Mir Hossein Mousavi has advocated “holding a referendum on the necessity of changing or redrafting the constitution,” establishing a constituent assembly for this purpose and then holding a referendum on the resulting document. However, Khatami warns that it will be difficult to change the current system and that even the slogan of regime change can create more excuses for those in power to limit political freedom.
Therefore, the task of intellectuals and theoreticians is to create a new conceptual framework and to embed it in the soul and body of Iranian society. The history of Iran has proven that unless a new order emerges from crises, protest movements eventually fail, and the old order re-emerges.
Javad Heiran-Nia directs the Persian Gulf Studies Group at the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies in Iran. He is currently working on a book about Iran’s middle class. Follow him on Twitter: @J_Heirannia.
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