An Analysis of the Attitude of Mohammad Reza Shah-e Pahlavi toward Governance, Classes and Influential Social Movements (From 1953 to 1977)

Abstract

Introduction Second Pahlavi’s era, due to its unique role in providing the context for the Islamic Revolution of Iran, is very important in contemporary history of Iran. According to the studies on this era, we can say that formation of the Islamic Revolution had a close interrelationship with policies which were adopted in the period. In describing the nature of the state at Pahlavi’s era, different researchers have expressed their views derived from different perspectives. Among them, we can see three different groups: the first group sees the state as a dependent capitalism and the second group sees it as a rentier state and the third group sees it as an absolutist state or despotism. Despite of differences between these groups, they all agree that the nature of the state at Pahlavi’s era is essentially different from previous periods in which government was under the dominance of tribal systems. First Pahlavi with proceedings such as formation of national boundaries, promotion of nationalism, reviving of ancient traditions, debilitation of pre-modern classes, the use of new ways of taxing, unification of clothing and education and creation of modern army and bureaucracy, fulfilled his absolutist power by using naked force (Kasraai, 2013). However, the process continued during the second Pahlavi era, which is the focus of this article, but during this time the 1953 Iranian coup, 28 Mordad coup, was a critical turning point. The occurrence of this coup was an important indicator showing that the king’s attitude toward the governance had changed. Since the Mohammad Reza Shah’s political positions had a significant effect on the social and political transformations of the period, we attempted to study the king’s attitude toward governance, classes, and influential social movements in the period following the 1953 Coup. Materials & Methods In this research, we studied the Mohammad Reza Shah’s attitude toward governance, classes and influential social movements in the period following the 1953 coup by content analysis of the shah's speeches, messages and interviews during two main periods: before and after the White Revolution (1963). In this content analysis, the recording unit is subject, which is defined as a single expression about things, and the context unit is paragraph. Besides, we adopted indicators that in the Iranian Despotism Theory are brought up for dictatorship and arbitrary rule concepts and then tried to answer two main questions: 1) was the attitude of Mohammad Reza Shah toward governance, classes and influential social movements during the period before White Revolution (1342/1963) totalitarian? And 2) was the attitude of Mohammad Reza Shah toward governance, influential social classes and movements during the period after White Revolution (1342/1963) arbitrary? Analyzed texts include all speeches, interviews and messages of the Shah in the period after the 1953 Coup, which were collected from a ten-volume book named “ Writings, Speeches, Messages, Interviews And Expressions Of Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Shah-E Pahlavi” published by Keyhanak Publication Company. The texts selected by using purposive sampling. Discussion of Results & Conclusions In the post period of the 1953 coup, with The White Revolution, a noticeable turn happened in the Shah’s attitude toward governance, classes and influential social movements, religion, the constitution, the West and global order. This era can be divided into two main periods: before and after the White Revolution (1963/1342). Thus, this event was a turning point which facilitated Shah's change from a totalitarian king to an arbitrary one. The findings show that the transformation in the attitude of Shah depended on three elements: 1) existence or nonexistence of independent and influential individuals or groups in the political sphere, 2) condition of oil incomes and 3) the U.S protection policies of the Shah. However, none of the periods were smooth and flat. To put it in a nutshell, all findings support the ideas of the Iranian Despotism Theory, proposed by Homa Katouzian, which shares some features with three approaches on the nature of state in Iran that mentioned above, as its emphasis on dependent development, rentier nature of modern Iran’s state and its historical despotism.

Keywords

• Attitude
• Arbitrary Rule
• Dictatorship
• content analysis