Democracy and Secularism in Iran: Lessons for the Arab Spring?

Abstract

The Iranian 2009 massive anti-regime protests in the wake of the contested presidential elections and the Arab Spring have taken the scholars of Middle Eastern Studies and the international community by surprise. It seems that, despite the very diverse outcomes of the uprisings in Iran and across the Arab world, Middle Eastern societies are in the very middle of what has been called an 'unfinished revolution' (Sakbani 2011). Despite the confusion that affected the academic community following the surprising events of the past few years, a great amount of studies have been produced in order to identify the roots and make sense of the uprisings. For the most part, however, explanations for the events refer to and are based on well-known theoretical debates and paradigms. In the case of the Arab world, the fall of long-standing authoritarian regimes has revived scholarly interest for the transition to democracy paradigm, whereas studies on the resilience of authoritarian regimes are now perceived as overestimating authoritarian rulers' grip on society. In addition, the electoral success of Islamist parties has re-ignited scholarly enthusiasm for the rather trite debate on the compatibility between Islam and democracy. In the case of Iran, similar debates centred on democratization versus authoritarian persistence and on the relationship among Islam, democracy and modernity have been animating academic discussions for the last two decades. The 2009 crisis strengthened

EU–MENA Relations from the Barcelona Process to the Arab Uprisings: A New Research Agenda

“…Finally, the Arab Uprisings challenged a number of preconceptions about Arab politics and societies that experts of EU external relations should consider. What has found confirmation in Middle Eastern Studies is that the neo-liberal economic reforms have been rejected by the new social movements and political actors in the region, with implications for the EU and the relationship between neo-liberalism and democracy in the wider region (Rivetti 2013). Especially in the case of marginal political and social groups, contentious politics emerged precisely because of the failure of neo-liberalism.…”