Comparative Analysis of Traditional Voluntarism in the Naseri Era and Modern Voluntarism

Abstract

From Naseri era until Constitutional Revolution because of lack of Rule of law as a symbol of modern government, voluntarism or king’s volition was one of the most important basis of legal rule validation that had deep roots in traditional and intellectual background of Iranian society. This volition received its legitimation from God’s will and people as peasants, by accepting this issue, considered this power transformation as a kind of charisma. However, because king’s volition came out of king’s characteristics, it was considered to have a variable basis and their derived rule had characteristics such as unpredictability, lack of equality element, uncertainty, lack of continuity and limitation. These features in contrast by modern legal paradigm could not have structure based on natural justice or legal justice and eventually led to the Constitutional Revolution. The major goal of this research is to analyzing the characters of traditional voluntarism frome the perspective of the modern voluntarism. Therfore, it would be possible to clarifing the structural challenges of the pre-revolutionary legal system.

Keywords

• traditional voluntarism
• modern voluntarism
• modern law
• legal rule
• naseri era