Book contents
- The Psychology of Radical Social Change
- The Psychology of Radical Social Change
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword
- 1 Toward a Psychology of Revolution
- Part I Roots of Revolution
- Part II Evolution and Involution in Social Transformations
- 6 Social Engineering and Its Discontents
- 7 Political Plasticity and Revolution
- 8 The Velvet Revolution of Land and Minds
- 9 Wordsworth's Insurgency
- 10 Between the Guillotine and the Velvet Revolution
- Part III Representations of and in Revolution
- Index
- References
7 - Political Plasticity and Revolution
The Case of Iran
from Part II - Evolution and Involution in Social Transformations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 April 2018
Book contents
- The Psychology of Radical Social Change
- The Psychology of Radical Social Change
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword
- 1 Toward a Psychology of Revolution
- Part I Roots of Revolution
- Part II Evolution and Involution in Social Transformations
- 6 Social Engineering and Its Discontents
- 7 Political Plasticity and Revolution
- 8 The Velvet Revolution of Land and Minds
- 9 Wordsworth's Insurgency
- 10 Between the Guillotine and the Velvet Revolution
- Part III Representations of and in Revolution
- Index
- References
Summary
Why did Iran go from dictatorship to revolution to dictatorship? This question is at the heart of not only the 1979 revolution in Iran, but also most other revolutions – from Russia in 1917 to the recent ‘Arab Spring’. Although psychological research has neglected macro-level change, neuroscientists have studied brain plasticity. The concept of ‘political plasticity’ is used to explore the failure of revolutions to bring about democratic change, with Iran as the case study. Seven rules that regulate political plasticity are introduced: (1) change processes are of two basic types, within and between systems (2) the characteristics of collective processes are more than the sum of smaller units (3) smaller units can only bring about change by acting as part of a larger collective (4) change at macro levels does not necessarily bring about change at micro levels (5) lack of change at the micro level can limit or even reverse change at the macro level (6) political plasticity is regulated by embeddedness, the depth of connections holding a bit of cognition or action in place (7) the depth of embeddedness is dependent on the resiliency and quantity of connectivity. Low political plasticity in areas such as leader-follower relations was a major factor preventing change toward democracy in Iran. Fundamentalist Muslims intent on replacing the dictatorship of the Shah with the dictatorship of the mullahs took advantage of this situation to gain monopoly power.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Psychology of Radical Social ChangeFrom Rage to Revolution, pp. 122 - 139Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018
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