Islamic Republic of Iran’s national governing structure

Islamic Republic of Iran’s national governing structure.

Iran is universally acknowledged to be an authoritarian state, despite its holding of elections for parliament and the executive administration of the state. The snapshot of Iranian government in figure 2 is provided here to help make sense of the complex political landscape that the Iranian people are protesting and fleeing into exile from. In terms of the elected part of the Iranian government that the population has input into, there are three available ideologies available to choose from and only these three ideologies are permitted. They are Reformist versus Principalist with a middle space for Independent, commonly a balance of power between the two poles. The struggle between reformist and ‘principalist’ ideas dominates legal political discourse and Iranians must use those concepts to articulate their grievances. Reformist and principalist ideologies are described differently by the target audiences and even within target audience segments, these concepts mean different things.

The principalist ideology is that of the Shi’a clerics supported by the IRGC: Human beings are inherently sinful and must be carefully guarded and controlled by Islamic jurisprudence. The Reformist ideology is based on the modern realities of keeping the population from outright rejection of the Shi’a Theocracy and open revolt: Human beings may be inherently sinful and must be carefully guarded by Islamic Jurisprudence, but much of the work of commerce, business, science, trade, require a psychosocial space for market forces and creativity. These two legal political ideologies are a sort of relief valve for populace anger that gives them some avenue of discourse that does not lead to arrest and punishment. The seats reserved for Jewish, Zoroastrian, Assyrian, and Armenian, are rewards for compliance with the regime and not real signs of multipartisan approaches to law making. The methodology of authoritarian control under the guise of democracy lies in the Islamic constitution that derives its authority from one interpretation of Shi’a Islamic thought specific to the current line of Ayatollahs and their structures of propagation. These structures of propagation of this line of thought include an “Assembly of Experts,” the “Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom,” the “Combatant Clergy Association,” and the “People’s Experts” organisation, all of which are controlled directly by the Supreme Leader, the current Ayatollah.