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From Etelāʿāti to Eslāhtalabi: Saʿid Hajjarian, Political Theology and the Politics of Reform in Post-Revolutionary Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi
Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi*
Affiliation:
Oxford University
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Abstract

This article examines the importance of the political thought and praxis of politico, ‘reformist’ strategist and intellectual, Saʿid Hajjarian, and his rethinking of the post-revolutionary Iranian state’s sources and bases of legitimacy in the 1990s and 2000s. It also provides an exposition and assessment of a number of his recommendations for the realisation of ‘political development’ (towseʿeh-ye siyāsi) in the post-revolutionary order and their contribution to the discourse of eslāhāt during the presidency of Hojjat al-Islam Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005). Moreover, it attempts to situate Hajjarian within a broader spectrum of reformist political opinion and its proponents within the Islamic Republic of Iran’s political class.

Keywords

Saʿid HajjarianPolitical TheologyPost-revolutionary IranReformMohammad Khatami Administration1997–2005
Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 6 , November 2014 , pp. 987 - 1009
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 The International Society for Iranian Studies

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Footnotes

The author would like to express his deepest gratitude toward Homa Katouzian, Ali Ansari, Nasser Mohajer, Siavush-Randjbar-Daemi, and Faisal Devji for their comments on previous drafts of this piece of research.

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