Suchergebnisse

THIS PAPER FOCUSES ON THE INTERNAL CAUSE OF THE LONGSTANDING CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST--AUTHORITARIAN, ANTI-DEMOCRATIC, "NEOPATRIARCHAL" POLITICAL REGIMES AND STATE SYSTEMS. FOLLOWING A BRIEF DICSUSSION OF THE SALIENT ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL FEATURES OF THE CRISIS, IT ELABORATES ON THE NATURE OF POLITICAL REGIMES AND STATE SYSTEMS TO UNDERSCORE THE ARGUMENT THAT THEY INHIBIT GENUINE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ECONOMY AND OF SOCIETY.

THIS ARTICLE IS A REVISED AND EXPANDED VERSION OF A PAPER PRESENTED AT THE SOCIALIST SCHOLARS CONFERENCE IN APRIL 1989. THE PAPER REPRESENTS A TRANSITION IN SAMIR AMIN'S WORK FROM A CONCENTRATION ON ECONOMIC RELATIONS AND STRUCTURES TO A NEW FOCUS ON CULTURAL, INTELLECTUAL, AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS. IT OFFERS A REVIEW OF AMIN'S BOOK AND AN EXTENDED ARGUMENT OF MOGHADAM'S ON PROBLEMS ARISING FROM THE INDISCRIMINATE REJECTION OF MODERNITY, SECULARISM, AND MARXISM

Chronicles the defeat of the Iranian Left in the period following the overthrow of the Shah, which issued into a wholesale repression that decimated a generation of socialist militants. Shows, however, that the Left's own reduction of politics to a schematic anti-imperialist agenda--with little purchase on the complex reality of modern Iran--disarmed it in the face of Shiite fundamentalism and actually helped the builders of the Islamic Republic to hegemonize the urban and rural poor. (Abstract amended)