The “Powerful Constitutionalist” Government in the Ideology of Malek al-Sho’ra’ Bahar

Abstract

Iran’s chaotic and critical condition as a result of war and political instability after Persian Constitutionalism made the idea of “powerful government” conspicuous. Realizing critical conditions back then, many political and intellectual elites followed the above idea, and by “enlightened absolutism” paved the way for the establishment of Reza Khan government. Malek al-Sho’ara’ Bahar was among those who proposed the above idea for the first time. In this regard, the present study aims to explore this subject using Skinner’s Hermeneutic Intentionalism. The purpose of this study is the realization of Bahar’s ideology of powerful government and its distinction with other common ideas within the last years of Qajar dynasty in that Bahar did not want to admit “powerful government” without basic principles of constitutionalism such as freedom, justice, and a powerful parliament. This study seeks to answer the following research questions: What was Bahar’s “motivation” for his tendency to the idea of “powerful government”? With regard to Bahar’s main “intention”, that is “anti-authoritarianism”, what was the difference between his perception of “powerful government” and the perception of society? As for the first hypothesis, the most important “motivation” of Bahar for tendency to the idea of “powerful government” was to fulfill “the expediency” of the country. Besides, Bahar followed the idea of “powerful constitutionalist government” with regard to the principle of constitutionalism in his intended powerful state.

Keywords

• : malek al-shoa’ra’ bahar
• powerful constitutionalist government
• enlightened absolutism
• reza khan
• powerful government