Revolution and Constitution in Iran, Egypt and Tunesia
Spui 25-27 , 1012 XM Amsterdam
- The recent revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, and the Iranian 1979 revolution all produced new constitutions which show significant differences. In this lecture Saïd Amir Arjomand analyses the constitution-making processes of these three countries and explains their different outcomes.
Constitutions are the formalization of the political reconstruction that follow revolutions, and the patterns of constitutional politics and constitution-making are highly dependent on the type of revolution and its impact on the structure of power. The comparison of constitutional politics in Egypt and Tunisia, following the Arab Spring, and that of Iran, following the Islamic revolution of 1979, can therefore be centered on the character of the old states and their respective power structures as key determinants of constitutional change. Here, the types of authoritarian regime, their varying traditions of the rule of law and the attitude of their professional armies are of crucial importance. Furthermore, the major difference is between Egypt and Tunisia, where the old state persists and negotiates a new ruling bargain with the opposition, and Iran, where state was destroyed and the revolutionary power struggle among competing groups determine the outcome of the revolutionary process. Last but not least, the constitutional placement of Islam in Iran after its Islamic revolution in the 1979 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be compared with that in Egypt’s new Constitution of 2012 and the Tunisian constitutional documents.
This annual lecture is funded by The Dr Sadighi Research Fund which was established with support from the Centre for Iranian Documentation and Research (CIDR) at the International Institute of Social history. This Fund provides funding to scholars undertaking projects on the social history of Iran.
Saïd Amir Arjomand
Saïd Amir Arjomand is Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York and Director of the Stony Brook Institute for Global Studies. He is the founder and President (1996-2002, 2005-08) of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies, and Editor of its organ, Journal of Persianate Studies.
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