The encounter of Iranians with the invigorating process of globalization has entangled Iranians in the fierce struggle for rival models for development: affirmative idealism in favor of pluralist democracy, assertive bureaucratic authoritarianism and the utopian romanticism/and or militant extremism. The first reflects the cultural civility in approach, the second an exit strategy from the adverse impacts of globalization and the last two demonstrate entanglement in the instinctive reaction. Ironically, this entanglement has long involved Iranians in the Sorrel dialectic. Due to the diversity in values (defined in terms of Iran’s cultural civilization in contrast to the Western civic culture dominant over the process of globalization), Iranians have ended up with the inadvertent outcomes they had originally planned to avoid. Frustration with the hope for democratic pluralism has convinced most patriotic elites of the Constitutional Revolution and the religious elites of the 1953 to opt respectively for military and then bureaucratic authoritarianism of the Pahlavi dynasty. Similarly the bureaucratic authoritarianism of the 2nd Pahlavi monarch has been able to enfeeble the forces in favor of pluralist democracy but succumbed to the primary zeal for utopian romanticism and militant extremism he was eventually fighting against.
In his bid to present an exit strategy from this Sorrel “dialectic” to a sustainable discourse of “dialogue” for pluralist democracy, it is argued that Iran needs a renaissance of its own. This renaissance can be defined in terms of first a conceptual model of “protocol identity.” Based upon such self attempt to define the self at both individual and institutional levels, Iranians across the right-left/and cultural-structural spectrum can work out their own transformational strategies for democracy, defined in terms of an integrative pluralism. Inspired by Iranian moral pragmatism, this transformational strategy can best be devised, administered and implemented in terms of Iranian theory of “Shrewd Deconstructivism /bon fekani rendaneh.” In this respect, various mechanisms for accommodating pluralist democracy are also discussed.
(2011). Challenge of Utopianism,Necessity of a Conceptual,Theoretical Renaissance,and Pluralist Democracy Choices for Iran. Research Letter of Political Science, Vol. 3(no 4), -.
MLA
. "Challenge of Utopianism,Necessity of a Conceptual,Theoretical Renaissance,and Pluralist Democracy Choices for Iran". Research Letter of Political Science, Vol. 3, no 4, 2011, -.
HARVARD
(2011). 'Challenge of Utopianism,Necessity of a Conceptual,Theoretical Renaissance,and Pluralist Democracy Choices for Iran', Research Letter of Political Science, Vol. 3(no 4), pp. -.
VANCOUVER
Challenge of Utopianism,Necessity of a Conceptual,Theoretical Renaissance,and Pluralist Democracy Choices for Iran. Research Letter of Political Science, 2011; Vol. 3(no 4): -.
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