Chapter one presents the views of the Sunni scholar Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. Fūrak (d. 406/1015) in his Précis of the Doctrines of Abū ’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (Mujarrad maqālāt Abī ’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī). In this work, Ibn Fūrak discusses the teachings of the famous Sunni theologian, Abū ’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935−6), and quotes him directly from writings that are not extant. The Précis provides a brief overview of traditional Sunni views on the imamate. Ibn Fūrak and al-Ashʿarī interpret the history of succession after the Prophet Muhammad in a way that is charitable to the Companions and downplays the conflicts among them. This approach reflects the Sunni view of the first four caliphs as individuals who possessed all of the requisite qualities of an ideal ruler.

On the eve of victory in the 1979 revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini and his Islamists followers discussed blueprints for a new system of Islamic government. Integral to these plans was an emphasis on the new institutions of Islamic shura (local councils) to replace the secular anjumans (local associations) that existed in town and cities. The chapter details Khomeini’s call to establish elected local government in early 1979, months before the new constitution delineating the shape of the new state had been ratified, indicating the significance of the shura. I examine the tensions between the competing visions of shura within the theocratic Islamist camp, by contrasting the views of Khomeini and Mahmoud Taleghani. This chapter also discusses the aborted attempt to hold the first local government elections in the fall of 1979, a factor contributing to the new regime’s reluctance to decentralize government for another decade and a half. The chapter details the multiple and conflicting perspectives on shura during the deliberations leading to the first constitution. The ratified constitution subordinated local and national government (shura and the Majles) to the velayat-e faqih and established a settlement that shaped and constrained the future possibilities and limitations of decentralization in the ensuing decades up to the present day.

Chapter 2 describes the launching of the first nationwide local government elections amidst political contention in 1999 in Tehran, Khorasan, Fars, and Kurdistan and the institutionalization of elected local government within the parameters of the velayi regime. The chapter documents the rapid institutionalization of the new city councils throughout the country and in cities of different sizes. It reports on the impressive efforts of newly elected local representatives to carry out their new responsibilities within the limited legal powers afforded the new councils as well as depending on the social capital and trust of the local societies. Tehran City Council, for example, was initially marred by turmoil and dissolved by the central government, but stabilized over time. It has been an important bellwether of political trends elsewhere. The chapter documents the frustration of many councilors with what they perceived to be the narrow range of local powers defined by the local government law, patterns that would remain in place, part of the success of electoral authoritarianism in Iran.

Our theory can explain why governments do not define and enforce property rights. The political history of Afghanistan illustrates the persistence of non-emergence of legal property rights. We also seek to explain why the Hobbesian account of the world in which there can be no sense of justice and no concept of property without a state is mistaken. According to our theory, self-governance would substitute for the state as a source of property rights when organizations have local monopolies, when they possess the capacity to resolve conflicts over land disputes, when their key decision makers face constraints, and when the institutions for local collective action are inclusive. Chapter 5 investigates this claim. Using original evidence from fieldwork, we show that self-governance of property works well in rural Afghanistan because customary governance satisfies the above criteria. Our theory can also explain why the formal property regime remains ineffective nearly two decades after state building commenced in 2001. Importantly, the property institutions in rural Afghanistan are typically private property rights, not unlike property rights in Western contexts. The difference is that customary private property rights in Afghanistan are effective despite not having any legal recognition.