Uprisings, Mobilizations, and Social Movements in Iran

Abstract The study of popular uprisings, mobilizations, and social movements is central to the scholarship on contemporary Iran, given the impact of events like the 1979 revolution and successive cycles of mobilizations. Scholars have approached contentious politics in Iran through diverse disciplinary vantage points and by adopting different frameworks of analysis, creating a rich body of knowledge. The scholarship has morphed under the influence of the transformation of Iranian politics and society, such as the cultural and generational change after the end of the Iran–Iraq war and the limited political liberalization and authoritarian retrenchment between the early 2000s and the 2010s. The scholarship reflected these changes in the frameworks utilized to examine contentious politics and the themes discussed. Mobilizations have been examined through the analytical frameworks of dispersed acts of everyday resistance and social movements studies, and by adopting structural approaches that have emphasized distinct aspects of the uprisings, social movements, and non-movements in Iran. Themes have also changed, and scholars have taken interest in specific actors such as the clergy right after the revolution and, since the 1990s, in the youth, the women’s movement, and students’ organizations. The 1979 revolution features prominently in the scholarship as a theme, along with thematic (and teleological) interpretations of Iranian history as an unfinished struggle for democracy led by liberal and anti-authoritarian social movements. This body of knowledge about mobilizations, uprisings, and social movements in Iran would benefit from foregrounding intersectional analysis and how it structures alliance-building and the internal division of labor and roles, and from paying attention to the connection between imperial aspirations, war, and opportunities for mobilizations.