The Constitutionalist Revolution and Its Impact on Iran’s Political Development

Abstract

One of the most important periods in Iran's contemporary history is the Constitutional Era with its considerable effects on economic, political, and socio-cultural changes. The present study reviews the constitutional revolution's formative factors and players, including clergymen, elitists, and merchants, as well as the ideals upon which it was based. The resultant evaluation poses questions regarding its impact on political development. Our hypothesis is that Iran's constitutional revolution failed to achieve the political goals imagined in the West as to the establishment of a functional democracy and parliament, which were processes that later followed the revolution as a continuum of social transformation. Iran did not achieve meaningful political development after the initial constitutionalist revolution. After Reza Khan took power, Iranian constitutionalism abjectly failed and despotism prevailed. After reviewing the term constitutional, we investigate its introduction to Iran, along with various political crises and constitutionalist upheavals. The approach utilizes descriptive-analytics and a literature review.