In addition to ensuring its military and security protection through the IRGC and the Basij, the Islamic Republic employs a number of other institutional means to protect itself from un-Islamic influences, potential opponents in society, and the possibility of systematic problems and internal obstacles. Of these latter group of institutions, three stand out for their compound effects in helping the system maintain itself. They are the Guardian Council, the Expediency Council, and the judiciary. Each institution in its own way contributes significantly to maintaining the system. The Guardian Council performs a pivotal gatekeeping function by ensuring that only the legislation it approves becomes the law of the land, and only the candidates it vets get a chance at holding elected office. When the Guardian Council and the Majles reach a deadlock over legislation, the Expediency Council is meant to determine what is in the ultimate interest of the system so that its overall performance is not undermined. And, the judicial branch protects the system from political opponents and sees to the Islamization of Iranian society. The Islamic Republic system, in short, has devised a number of institutional means to guarantee its long-term resilience.

Far from undermining it, factionalism actually keeps the Islamic Republic state flexible and dynamic, therefore helping its resilience. States, authoritarian or otherwise, preside over societies in which a majority of the population is politically ambivalent. Among those who are politically aware, and even among those only tangentially interested in politics, factionalism allows the state to expand the scope of its ideological appeal. It also prevents political elites from taking for granted their hold on power, forcing them to forge and maintain bonds with intended constituents. In Iran, political power is held among a relatively small group of elites. But this elite is far from static. It circulates from office to office, and groups within it often change their doctrinal inflections, factional positions, and coalition partners. The ensuing dynamism helps the system endure.

There is a direct and important relationship between elections, clientelism, and the system’s legitimacy. Urban Iranians may be skeptical toward the efficacy of their vote. But rural Iranians seem to view their electoral rights differently. The fact that participation levels in remote and comparatively underdeveloped provinces has been consistently high shows that at least among the less privileged, the system enjoys continued legitimacy. Local elections help further enhance the system’s legitimacy. This is particularly the case in voting districts outside of the major metropolitan areas, in places where the local elites who get elected to the city council or the Majles serve as critical links between the system, the nezam, and the local population. In the smaller cities and towns, elections tend to be more vigorously contested because the rewards are more immediate. Legitimacy and system effectiveness are different matters altogether. One of the biggest consequences of electing clan and tribal leaders has been the apolitical marginalization of technocrats and other professionals and their diminished chance of getting into elected office.

Elections for the presidency, the Majles, and the city councils perpetuate the politics of hybridity, which in turn has left each of these institutions with conflicting legacies. Hybridity has left them neither democratic nor authoritarian, neither paragons of the people’s political will nor symbols and symptoms of an unresponsive and repressive state. Hybridity perpetuates the politics of ambivalence. It renders presidents and parliamentarians and city councilors ineffective if they cross amorphous, undefined redlines. But it also makes them exciting symbols of the popular will if they speak the people’s language, voice their complaints about prices, and promise to better their lives. Hybridity makes normal a neither-here-nor-there routine of the politics of voting and going along with the system, and, on occasion, breaking into protest out of frustration that rituals like voting matter little. Hybridity and ambivalence go hand in hand, reduce the costs of conformity, increase the price of rebellion, and make possible occasional bouts of protest and violence. Like elections, institutions such as the presidency and the parliament entail risks for the authoritarian core of the state, affording potential wildcards institutional platforms and resources to further their own agendas.