James Barry

State Identity in Iranian Foreign Policy

Abstract This article examines the role of corporate identity in Iran’s foreign policy making. Drawing on interviews with Iranian stakeholders and an analysis of Iran’s political developments, this article surveys the three key elements of Iranian nationalism that shape Iranian foreign policy: Iranism, Islam and Shi’ism. This article finds that each of these is crucial in explaining the apparent contradictions in the approaches of several significant Iranian leaders, especially in cases where Iranism collides with religious values. By highlighting how each component is at once unique but still intrinsically linked to the others, this article demonstrates how Iran’s foreign policy choices can be understood in relation to its corporate identity.

Negotiating Popular Mandate and the Sovereignty of God in Iran

Iran’s political system benefits from dual sources of legitimacy, which seemingly enables Iran’s ruling clergy to proclaim their system to be the ultimate representation of a perfect political system, one that brings Islam and democracy together. Questioning this propaganda-laden claim, we suggest that this duality has embedded an inherent contradiction between the theory and practice of an Islamic Republic. Indeed, it is for this reason that elected and appointed offices in Iran have been continually embroiled in tense relations since the inception of the Islamic Republic. Elaborating on the country’s electoral rules and procedures, it is suggested that despite the vetting of candidates by the appointed Guardian Council, Iranian elections are highly competitive and revolve around issues of national importance such as the economy and social issues. This chapter offers a detailed investigation of the challenges that have arisen from the inherited contradiction between divine and popular sovereignty, which has gained considerable credence during Hassan Rouhani’s presidency. This inherent contradiction at times appears to tilt in favour of popular sovereignty. However, that is only because the political elite are acutely aware of the fact that without the illusion of popular rule, the regime could very well be cast aside, mirroring the fate of the Pahlavi regime. It is argued that Rouhani’s achievements do not address the contradiction between divine and popular sovereignty, but rather illuminate the astute political calculations made in the top echelons of power in order to create a semblance of popular rule. This chapter argues that the Iranian system of government is based on a clear hierarchy of authority in which divine sovereignty in the form of velāyat-e faqih hovers over the empty shell of democracy.

Re-Ghettoization: Armenian Christian Neighborhoods in Multicultural Tehran

This paper incorporates a study of “re-ghettoization” among the Armenian Christians of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It focuses on how legal marginalization has led to the emergence of an entirely separate existence from the Muslim majority in Tehran among Armenians born after the revolution. By focusing on the spatial and social divisions of the hayashatner (Armenian neighborhoods) and the “social” ghetto of the Ararat Compound, this article addresses the question: what are the social implications for religious discrimination in the Muslim Middle East? This paper is based on three extensive blocks of fieldwork carried out in Iran from 2010 to 2015.

Brothers or Comrades at Arms? Iran’s Relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan

The significance of religion to the political identity of Iran is made obvious by its self-designation as an Islamic Republic. This is complicated further by instances where Iran appears to favor non-Muslim states in their conflicts with Muslim peoples, seemingly at odds with the core values outlined in the 1979 Constitution. The Caucasus is one area where this accusation has been leveled against Tehran. In appreciation of the sensitivity and fragility of the region, successive Iranian administrations have fashioned themselves as unbiased arbiters in their diplomatic engagements with these states. Rather than “spreading the Islamic Revolution,” the Islamic Republic has displayed pragmatism, not interfering in the Chechen and Dagestani conflicts, for example.1 In the oft-cited case of Armenia over Azerbaijan, both of which have been in a state of war over the Karabagh region for the past quarter of a century, Iran has long been understood to favor its only Christian neighbor over its (Shi’a) Muslim rival. Although Tehran has always denied the allegation, this interpretation is pervasive in both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and it is one of the issues that current President Hassan Rouhani and his foreign minister Dr. Mohammad Javad Zarif have had to address to reset relations with Azerbaijan during their first term in office.

Women fleeing Iran: Why women leave Iran and seek asylum in Australia

In recent years, increasing numbers of Iranians have arrived by boat in Australia seeking asylum. Differentiating them from many other groups has been a significantly higher proportion travelling as family groups. Based on interviews with 50 Iranian women who arrived in Australia by boat between 2010 and 2013, this article charts the reasons why the status of women in Iran and a range of gender-related practices are informing decisions to undertake irregular migration journeys, including seeking asylum. It suggests that the status of women and gender-related issues are critical to understanding decisions to make irregular migration journeys and are foundational to experiences of persecution and fear of persecution.

Instrumentalizing Islam in a ‘Secular’ State: Turkey’s Diyanet and Interfaith Dialogue

ABSTRACT This paper analyses how interfaith dialogue was interpreted by the Turkish state’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) over several administrations. Mirroring changes in attitude within the state, the Diyanet began promoting interfaith dialogue in mid-1990s. The Islamist-inspired AKP administration continued this stance after its election in 2002. However, as the AKP leadership adopted a more authoritarian and anti-western tone after 2011, they changed their policy on interfaith dialogue. Through a political analysis and a content analysis of Diyanet texts and Friday sermons, this paper will discuss policy on interfaith dialogue to show how Islam has been used for social engineering by the nominally secular Turkish state. This paper contributes to literature on secularism by examining how an aggressively secular state has instrumentalized religion to meet its political needs.

Liminality and racial hazing of Muslim migrants: media framing of Albanians in Shepparton, Australia, 1930–1955

ABSTRACT This article is a historical empirical study of the Albanian Muslim migrant community of Shepparton. Through analysing newspaper reports, the authors discuss how these migrants were portrayed as liminal between their first arrival and acceptance as Australians a generation later. This is characteristic of a practice which the authors term “migrant hazing”, where a migrant group is demonized as a threat to the society during the liminal phase. Migrant hazing occurs in public discourse, particularly the media, and ceases with the replacement of the group by newer migrants, who are subjected to the same process. Furthermore, migrant hazing remains present in contemporary depictions of Australian Muslims. In this longitudinal study, media reports on Albanian Muslims revolved around three persistent themes: their supposed criminality, the wrongful use of land and the threat of dual-loyalty. These three items constituted the main weapons of the media in hazing the first, liminal generation.

Iran and Turkey: not quite enemies but less than friends

Abstract The rise and subsequent erosion of friendly relations between Iran and Turkey was a result of their regional ambitions. While Turkey had long seen its secular system as presenting an alternative to Iran’s Islamic ideology, the alignment of their regional interests facilitated a rapport between the two states in the first decade of the twenty-first century. However, the Arab Spring proved divisive for this relationship as each state sought to advocate its model of government and secure a leadership role in the Arab world. The war in Syria widened the divide, as Iran’s long-standing support for the Bashar al-Assad regime could not be reconciled with Turkey’s desire to see President Assad out of office. Using a close reading of Persian and Turkish sources, the authors will analyse the Iran–Turkey divide, focusing specifically on how the Iranians have portrayed it as a clash of civilisations, citing Turkey’s so-called ‘neo-Ottoman’ ambitions as the primary cause.

The decline and resurrection of Turkish Islamism: the story of Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP

Abstract For decades, Turkish Islamists have failed to attract the votes of large sections of society and remained marginal. As a result of this failure to come to power, and due to domestic and international constraints and windows of opportunities, they have declared that they have jettisoned Islamism. Many Turkish Muslims whose religious disposition was shaped by the pluralistic urban Ottoman experience and small-town Anatolian traditionalism, and by the contesting currents of cosmopolitan pluralism and rural social conservatism, voted in favour of these former Islamists who have become “Muslim Democrats”. This paper elaborates on the genealogy of Turkish Islamists and their political trajectories and argues that when the forces and constraints of domestic and external social, political and economic conditions disappeared and the opportunities derived from being Muslim Democrats no longer existed, the former Islamists easily returned to their original ideology, showing that despite assertions to the contrary their respect for democracy and pluralism had not truly been internalised. This paper also aims to demonstrate that similar to other authoritarian populists, Erdoganists perceive the state and its leader as more important than anything else and as being above everything else, which has culminated in a personality cult and sanctification of the state. As long as Turkey’s economy continued to boom, almost everyone was happy that Turkey could readily market the “Muslim Democrats” story to the whole world for a long period as a major success story, or as an “exemplary Muslim country” or “model”. Yet, Middle Eastern elites and Western forces got carried away and learnt the hard way just how naive their view was in perhaps the first great transformation movement of the twenty-first century – the Arab Spring. Likewise, the Turkish Spring turned all too quickly towards autumn and then winter.

Pragmatic Dogma: Understanding the Ideological Continuities in Iran's Response to the Charlie Hebdo Attacks

ABSTRACT Ayatollah Khomeinis 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie cemented Irans space within Western discourses surrounding blasphemy and Islam. The fatwa has earned its place within the polarizing debate between free speech and religious tolerance, which fundamentally serves the political ambitions of those involved. This article therefore argues that, in order to understand accusations of blasphemy in Iran, one must address the political concerns in which the accusation takes place since these reveal Irans tendency towards pragmatic dogma – the practice of meeting the needs of the state in a way that accords with its religious ideology. The responses of Iranian officials to the Charlie Hebdo killings in 2015 provide a useful case study for the analysis of this pragmatic dogma, since the Islamic Republic pursued a different approach to the Charlie Hebdo “blasphemy” from that which it had followed with Rushdie. Instead of condoning the killings, Irans political and religious elite chose to condemn the actions of both the cartoonists and the gunmen, without outlining a punishment. The article will argue that this case demonstrates many of the continuing themes in Irans approach to blasphemy, since the Charlie Hebdo cartoons have largely been used to reinforce the Islamic Republics overall worldview.