This book investigates the development of contemporary Iranian civil society and the role of public intellectuals, looking in particular at how different reformist public intellectuals used civil society to craft their vision of Iran's socio-political future.

The election of Mohammad Khatami as President, the prospect of renewed dialogue between Tehran and Washington, and the display of popular rejoicing that greeted the nation's football team's qualification for the 1998 World Cup have shed light on aspects of everyday life in post-revolutionary Iran which have often been overlooked in the West. Through the Iranian example, this text reviews the debate not merely about political Islam, but also about democratic transition and its relation to social change.

Both Turkey and Iran consider themselves modern Islamic states—though with radically different status in today's social and political world. In Multiple Modernities, Civil Society and Islam, Masoud Kamali explores the historical factors that have shaped such dissimilar Muslim states, including the continued influence of Europe and the United States. Kamali's assertion that the "Muslim world" is far more multifaceted and pluralistic than generally portrayed is a message particularly relevant today. Multiple Modernities is critical reading for those interested in the history—both ancient and modern—of Islamic movements around the world.

This book investigates the development of contemporary Iranian civil society and the role of public intellectuals, looking in particular at how different reformist public intellectuals used civil society to craft their vision of Iran's socio-political future.

Iranian women tell in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. The Islamic revolution of 1979 transformed all areas of Iranian life. For women, the consequences were extensive and profound, as the state set out to reverse legal and social rights women had won and to dictate many aspects of women's lives, including what they could study and how they must dress and relate to men. Reconstructed Lives presents Iranian women telling in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. Through a series of interviews with professional and working women in Iran—doctors, lawyers, writers, professors, secretaries, businesswomen—Haleh Esfandiari gathers dramatic accounts of what has happened to their lives as women in an Islamic society. She and her informants describe the strategies by which women try to and sometimes succeed in subverting the state's agenda. Esfandiari also provides historical background on the women's movement in Iran. She finds evidence in Iran's experience that even women from "traditional" and working classes do not easily surrender rights or access they have gained to education, career opportunities, and a public role.

This book traces the patterns of capital accumulation and the changes in class and state formation emanating from it in Iran during the global neoliberal era. It demonstrates how there are inner connections between the nature of contemporary development in Iran, the form of the state, the ongoing sociopolitical transformations in society and the geopolitical tensions with the West. Simultaneously, it highlights that these issues should be explored in terms of their internal relations to the motions and tendencies of neoliberal global capitalism and resulting geopolitics. Accordingly, the book demonstrates that Iranian neoliberalisation has brought about new contested class dynamics that have fundamentally reconstructed the Iranian ruling class, aggressively shaped and reshaped the working class and the poor, and drastically impacted the state form and its foreign policy.

The Constitutional Revolution of 1906 launched Iran as a pioneer in a broad-based movement to establish democratic rule in the non-Western world. In a book that provides essential context for understanding modern Iran, Fakhreddin Azimi traces a century of struggle for the establishment of representative government. The promise of constitutional rule was cut short in the 1920s with the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty. Reza Shah, whose despotic rule Azimi deftly captures, maintained the façade of a constitutional monarch but greeted any challenge with an iron fist: “I will eliminate you,” he routinely barked at his officials. In 1941, fearful of losing control of the oil-rich region, the Allies forced Reza Shah to abdicate but allowed Mohammad Reza to succeed his father. Though promising to abide by the constitution, the new Shah missed no opportunity to undermine it. The Anglo-American–backed coup of 1953, which ousted reformist premier Mohammed Mosaddeq, dealt a blow to the constitutionalists. The Shah’s repressive policies and subservience to the United States radicalized both secular and religious opponents, leading to the revolution of 1979. Azimi argues that we have fundamentally misunderstood this event by characterizing it as an “Islamic” revolution when it was in reality the expression of a long-repressed desire for popular sovereignty. This explains why the clerical rulers have failed to counter the growing public conviction that the Islamic Republic, too, is impervious to political reform—and why the democratic impulse that began with the Constitutional Revolution continues to be a potent and resilient force.

On the eve of World War I, Russia, not known as a nation of joiners, had thousands of voluntary associations. Joseph Bradley examines the crucial role of voluntary associations in the development of civil society in Russia from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century.

In this timely, informative edited volume, major Iranian scholars and civic actors address some of the most pressing questions about Iranian civil society and the process of democratization in Iran. They describe the role of Iranian civil society in the process of transition to democracy in Iran and offer insight about the enduring legacy of previous social and political movements—starting with the Constitutional Revolution of 1906— in the struggle for democracy in Iran. Each contributor looks at different aspects of Iranian civil society to address the complex nature of the political order in Iran and the possibilities for secularization and democratization of the Iranian government. Various contributors analyze the impact of religion on prevailing democratic thought, discussing reformist religious movements and thinkers and the demands of religious minorities. Others provide insight into the democratic implications of recent Iranian women’s rights movements, call for secularism within government, and the pressure placed on the existing theocracy by the working class. The contributors address these and related issues in all their richness and complexity and offer a set of discussions that is both accessible and illuminating for the reader.

A masterfully researched and compelling history of Iran from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first