The Triggering And Deterring Factors Of Recent Protests In Iran – OpEd
By Ramin Jabbarli
Starting from Thursday, Dec. 28. 2017, the widespread protests continued for a week in Iran. Based on the official reports, at least 21 protesters have been killed in across the country. Officials also have confirmed the death of arrestees in the prisons. The occurrence of the protests for many Iranians was unexpected.
For the first time after Islamic Revolution of Iran, in 1979, the protesters have questioned the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic in Iran by burning the posters of the supreme leader and chanting the anti-regime slogans. Now, both reformists and conservatives consider the protests as a threat to the regime. Although in the starting point of demonstrations, in the city of Mashhad, the protesters’ slogans against Rouhani had articulated the economic grievance, then the protests turned to anti-regime protests in consecutive days. The recent events in Iran and the dynamics of the protests in Iran show that causes of the protests cannot be diminished to merely the economic factors.
The Triggering Grievances
In order to understand the dynamics of protests sociologists like M. Hechter, S. Pfaff, and P. Underwood emphasize the importance of distinguishing between structural and incidental grievances. Structural grievances came from a group’s disadvantaged position in a social structure like oppressed ethnic groups, women’s position in a patriarchal society, and etc. Whereas incidental grievances arise from a wholly unanticipated or unexpected situation that puts groups at risk. While structural grievances are essential factors, these are incidental ones that push people to take collective and coordinated action like protest and demonstration. Being unexpected or unanticipated is a key in this issue because people may react differently to an event If that will happen gradually.
In the case of Iran, the people for a long time, have suffered from structural grievances such as inflation, environmental crisis, ethnic and gender discrimination, corruption, increasing unemployment rate, restricted social and political freedom, the monopoly of power, and etc. In the terms of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranians experienced high inflation and the sanctions against Iran have intensified some of the problems. However, the pattern of protests in Iranian shows that the protests always follow an incidental grievance. In 2006, Azerbaijanis in Iran took street as Iran Newspaper, an official organ of Iran unexpectedly published a racist cartoon. Three years later in 2009, people took street after unexpectedly winning of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a president.
In 2011, the mass protest did not occur until the parliament’s unexpected rejection of an emergency bill on August 17, 2011, to raise the water level of Lake Urmia. The people did protest without being exposed to the incidental grievances while they were aware of the problems. Knowing that all the incidental grievances did not end up with protests, implies that these kinds of grievances are a necessary but not sufficient condition to protest. So, this requires taking into account other factors such as organization, political opportunity, and identity.
To some extent, the occurrence of the current protests should be analyzed in the context of recent unexpected. Because these factors played essential roles in triggering the protests. President Hasan Rouhani, in both terms, was elected because of his promises such as improving the economic situation and living standard, softening political climate and giving more social and political freedom and so on. He failed, even after nuclear agreement people did not feel a considerable improvement in their lives. His second term has started with moving to conservative side by having a dominantly conservative cabinet. Most recently his budget draft was the topic of hot discussion among Iranians. These were incidental ones which made the people ready to protest.
Rouhani’s plan for increasing the fuel price, and cutting subsidies were unexpected plans from a president who had promised to improve living standard. These grievances were perceived as broken promises and along with sharp rising of food prices in the recent days formed a basis to interact with other factors, especially the perceived political opportunity.
The Perceived Political Opportunities
Participating in protests is an extremely costly action in an authoritarian state like Iran. There are some political situations which individuals may consider appropriate to participate in a contentious action. For instance, even in authoritarian states, as a result of political climate during presidential campaigns that candidates criticize each other people psychologically feel comfortable to express themselves. Another case could be when there are disputes among leaders and elites. People perceive these situations as opportunities for contentious actions. Sociologist Douglas McAdam calls these situations Perceived Political Political Opportunities. Indeed, in authoritarian states mostly these are not real political opportunities because follow brutal suppression by the state.
The pattern of protests in Iran reveals that a considerable number of protests happened after an election or coincided with disputes among leaders. The demonstrations after 2009 were held after election and South Azerbaijanis’ demonstrations in northwestern cities of Iran in 2011 are also a manifestation of this association. One of the significant factors which interacted with the grievances and finally has led to the protests is the critical political climate or the disputes among leaders. The current protests proceeded with two main disputes.
On the one hand, the intensifying disputes among the former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Larijani brothers, especially Saded Larijani, in the conservative wing of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Sadeq Larijani Head of Judiciary and appointed by the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei. On the other hand, the increased pressures and accusations of the conservative wing on president Rouhani. Conservatives blame him for the nuclear agreement and not improving the living standard of the Iranians. These disputes finally have led to the protest in the city of Mashhad, where Rouhani’s rival in the recent election, Ebrahim Raisi, is from. But after Mashhad, the protests have been expanded to the other cities. In fact, the incidental grievances together with the perceived political opportunities led to the protests across the country.
Organization: An Essential Deterring factor of the Protests
No doubt, suppression is one of important deterring factors in autocracies; however, it is not the only factor. Protest as a form of collective action requires a minimum organization to concert and coordinate the people. I use organization in the broadest sense, a way to lead people to a collective action, not necessary an institution or a party. There was no particular known physical organization such as fraction or party behind the protests. The protests had been organized essentially by using Telegram App. Telegram is a widely used app in Iran that based on Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, has approximately 25 million Iranian users. This was an Achilles heel for the recent protests because the protesters were primarily linked with the app, and blocking the app impaired the linkage among them.
The Iranian state blocked the access to Telegram and other social media apps to hinder the protests. As for me, the state had succeeded because the protesters were deprived of the required organizational mean to coordinate people. It seems that linkage or organizational problems could be solved by the support of the constituents of social movements that there is a real interaction with each other.
An alternative might be the participation of non-Persian ethnicities’ social movement in the protests. However, chanting slogans in favor of Pahlavi dynasty and few anti-Arab racist slogans by a group of protesters have primed some non-Persian ethnic groups. The slogans recalled the ultra-nationalistic and racist programs of Pahlavi dynasty for the oppressed ethnic groups in Iran. This was a factor which impacted negatively the rate of the oppressed non-Persian ethnicities’ participation in the protests.
In order to use the alternative organizational network and guarantee the participation of non-Persian ethnicities in any possible protest, their demands and the possible solutions should be addressed by political groups. Derived from Value Expectancy Theory, it is worthwhile to say that the oppressed ethnicities may join to protest if their goals are expected as a result of taking collective action. Currently, disregarding ethnic rights by major Persian political groups creates a barrier for interethnic collective action in Iran. The recent protests were also a manifestation of the barrier in Iran.
Source: This article was published by Modern Diplomacy
