6 - Decentralization, Ideology, and Law in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Summary

In 1999, the Islamic Republic of Iran established elected local government by holding nationwide elections for city and village councils. Competing actors hoped it would support distinct outcomes: Islamization, administrative efficiency, and democratization. This chapter describes the underlying logic of these motivations and their outcomes over the two decades since: in the main, the triumph of Islamization and technocracy. It explores the regime’s use of local government and administrative law to undercut the democratizing potential of political decentralization through two arenas of local politics. The regime controlled the scope of local political participation through widespread disqualification of opposition individuals and political parties. The regime also severely restricted the autonomy of elected local government in passing legislation. This institutionalized elected local government as a subordinate administrative tier of the regime rather than a local partner in subnational governance. The chapter concludes that political decentralization in Iran is best interpreted through the theory of electoral authoritarianism and is best viewed historically as an integral part of building Iran’s authoritarian Islamic state.