After three weeks of unprecedented protest activity and bloody repression, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has entered a phase of contention that has revived a question rarely posed this openly since the Islamic revolution of 1979: have the cumulative pressures begun to threaten the regime’s political survivability? This Focus Paper investigates to what extent the current protest wave amounts to an organic crisis and what kind of political change it can plausibly compel short of regime collapse. The working hypothesis is that this episode is unusually consequential not simply because of its geographic scope, but also because it combines the core ingredients of earlier protest waves – acute economic shock, the accumulated legacy of repression, a deepening rupture between state and society – and unprecedented external pressures that now interact more directly with domestic dynamics. This study examines the root causes and reinforcing drivers of mobilisation, the degree and nature of regime weakening as well as, on that basis, the narrowing leeway available to the ruling establishment.
Download the Focus Paper 59(Available in English only)
Research lines: Middle East and North Africa; Non-Arab Muslim World
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Focus Paper 59
“If You Sow the Wind,
You Will Reap the Whirlwind.”
What to Expect from
the Protest Movement in Iran?