Milani, Abbas. "Iran's Paradoxical Regime". Journal of Democracy, Vol.26, No.2 (2015): 52-60.

Milani, Abbas. "Iran's Paradoxical Regime". Journal of Democracy, Vol.26, No.2 (2015): 52-60.

• Almost 11% of the Iranian population took part in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, compared to roughly 7% and 9% of citizens in the French and Russian revolutions (52).
• Ayatollah Khomeini explicitly rejected the liberal notion of popular sovereignty that had circulated in Iranian politics since the late 19th Century. Instead, he supported a notion of legitimacy stemming from God and being interpreted by a 'supreme leader', with the people accepting divine dictates (53).
• Ayatollah Khomeini combined this criticism of democracy with a belief that every generation should have the right to pick its own form of government. This has translated into a popular democratic element of governance alongside the Islamist theocracy (53-54).
• Whereas previous Shia theocrats, such as Sheikh Nouri, had advocated for the establishment of a government on the basis of Sharia, Ayatollah Khomeini expanded on that belief to advocate the election of a 'faqih', a single man chosen to rule the country on the basis of his excellent knowledge of sharia (55).
• The victory of the Islamist forces after the 1979 revolution led to the exodus of between 6 and 7 million refugees, mainly either liberal democrats or supporters of the Shah. Prominent opposition groups remaining in Iran include Azeris, Kurds, and the Bahai community (54).
• Between 1905 and 1907, Iran experienced a revolution against the Qajar monarchy by a coalition of liberal intellectuals, Shia clergy, and merchants; the same groups that came together to oppose the Pahlavi monarchy in 1979. The liberals won the 1907 revolution, however, establishing a democratic constitutional monarchy and executing the main Shia zealot, Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri (54).
• Ayatollah Khomeini's particular beliefs about the necessity of supreme leadership by the faqih created dissent even within the clergy. At the time of his death in 1989, he expressed doubt about the longevity of this system of government and noted its dependence upon cooperation between Ayatollah Khamenei and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (55).
• While the activities of the Supreme Leader are supposed to be checked by the Assembly of Experts, composed of eminent Islamic scholars, the supporters of Ayatollah Khamenei have been increasingly deriding this body and asserting the supreme authority of the Ayatollah (55).
• Ali Rafsanjani has spoken out against the power wielded by the Supreme Leader and suggested that when Ayatollah Khamenei dies, the powers of Supreme Leader should fall to a council of clerics instead of another individual (56).
• The Supreme Leader has the power to appoint the heads of the national television and radio networks, as well as the head of the judiciary. This expansive influence has been utilized against reformist politicians, including both Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, who have seen their membership arrested or campaigns shut down on judicial initiative (56).
• Ayatollah Khamenei also exercises extensive power through the appointment of all clerics responsible for Friday prayers and sets the topic of those prayers. This combined with domination of the media and command of the committee responsible for overseeing higher education, means that the Ayatollah dominates public discourse (56).
• The Revolutionary Guard, and its paramilitary subsidiary the Basij, retain immense military and economic power. The Basij in particular patrols events to ensure Islamic moral standards and organizes mass rallies in support of the Ayatollah to disrupt any opposition organization (56-57).
• The Supreme Leader also appoints at least half -- and possibly more -- of the members of the Guardian Council, which approves all candidates for public office in Iran. This acts as an important barrier that limits certain kinds of politicians from even running (57).
• Iran has a robust civil society and public sphere that frequently challenges the democratic government and some of the Ayatollah's policies, often in relation to its support for an unpopular democratic government (57).
• The Iranian government is intensely censorious and has tried to severely restrict access to the internet, in particular to social media. These efforts have been mixed, however, with social media still flourishing as an opposition platform. Internet censorship is the scene of a particular divide in the government, between conservatives who want to continue censorship and reformists who claim that such attempts are pointless (58).
• Although the Iranian government occasionally cracks down on dissent in the public sphere, it has remained unable to control civil society or generate widespread support for its most conservative policies (59).
• Women in recent decades have increasingly challenged the strict laws on gender, flaunting commands to dress modestly and other social mores. This has also appeared in rising rates of divorce, as women do not feel as obligated to remain in unhappy relationships (59).