Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 PhD Student, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran.
2 Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
The Constitutional Revolution (1906–1911), as the most significant manifestation of political modernity in Iran, introduced concepts such as popular sovereignty and the rule of law. However, it failed to create stable political structures. This research addresses the central question: Why did the institution-building project of political modernity during the Constitutional era lead to a contradictory and crisis-ridden structure, rather than an efficient order?
Adopting a conceptual framework of the "universal and particular aspects" of modernity, this article employs a two-level, qualitative-interpretive comparative analysis. The study compares the idealized "understanding" of three key components—self-foundational rationality, individual rights, and popular sovereignty—as held by prominent intellectuals, with the concrete "institutionalization" of these concepts within the text of the Constitution and its supplement.
The principal finding is that political modernity in Iran manifested as a "contradictory synthesis." The root of this phenomenon was an unresolved "epistemological tension" between the foundations of modern "self-foundational rationality" and "traditional-religious authority," a tension directly institutionalized within the Constitution. The research concludes that this inharmonious and contradictory order was not a "failure" of modernity, but the "particular aspect" and the concrete form of its realization in Iran, which became the source of future structural instabilities in Iran's political sphere.
Keywords
- Political Modernity
- Constitutional Revolution
- Popular Sovereignty
- Political Rationality
- Individual Rights
Main Subjects
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