A Revolution for Equality ;Analyzing the Iranian Revolution based on Tocqueville`s Thoughts

Document Type : علمی - پژوهشی

Authors

Abstract

The present research maintains that Alexis de Tocqueville`s reflections on the French Revolution and the American Revolution might provide an innovative approach to analyze revolutions , including to understand  some significant aspects of the Iranian Revolution (1979) . Tocqueville, highlighting the “equality of conditions”, In addition to explaining the causes of the developments of the new age, opened a new horizon for analyzing the modern revolutions. In a discussion on freedom- equality relations, he introduces the American Revolution as a typical example of “the revolution for freedom”, and the French Revolution as “for equality”. Accordingly revolutions can be categorized in two groups, revolutions for freedom and those for equality, based on the cause to which is given priority by revolutionists. Investigating Tocqueville`s thoughts , the present paper seeks to, in the first stage , index a tree-factor model consisted of “the equality of conditions” , bureaucratic centralism, and the literates` dream-making ; then, put this three-dimensional conceptual apparatus to the test through focusing on Iranian Revolution . On this basis, in the new Age, the desire for equality of conditions in the Iranian society has been significantly expanded. Along with that, the administration of affairs in a centralized manner by the Pahlavi government had devastating effects on Iranian society and provided the conditions in which “the poet's intellectuals " launched a revolutionary mobilization. At the end, In addition to explaining the revolution in discussing its results the paper suggests that Iranian Revolution might be considered as a “revolution for equality” due to what occurred to it in the aftermath of the victory.

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