Teaching Comparative

Informal power politics

On Friday, the RFE/RL web site posted an article by Vahid Sepehri that to me was confusing. It was vague and offered little explanation of the specific events it described. That might, in part, be a result of my own ignorance. It might also be a result of the limitations placed on those writing for a U.S. government-sponsored organization.

And the use of the term "pressure groups" might be a literal translation from Farsi, but it's not a good translation into the jargon of comparative politics.

The article was Iran: 'Pressure Groups' Maintain Role In Politics

"There are recent indications in Iran of a resurgence of what some politicians have ominously dubbed the 'pressure group.' It is a reference to an ill-defined set of people with radical political ideas and intransigent religious beliefs who have in the past exerted their 'pressure' by beating people or disrupting meetings.

"Their shadowy nature makes it difficult to discern a resurgence in a systematic way, but their activities arguably mirror the existence of perceived or actual political tensions between right-wingers and their critics...

"But the persistent trait of these lawless elements remains a surreptitious and sporadic nature. The culprits must maintain a relatively low profile in order to avoid public scandal or publicity that could force authorities to recognize their existence and act..."


I was confused by Sepehri's article. Was he talking about the basij or rouge elements of the Revolutionary Guard? Are the "pressure groups" violent low-level clerics? Who are these shadowy groups?

I went looking for more information and found an "executive summary" of Michael Rubin's 2001 book Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy web site. Even if it's a few years old, the book offers some specifics that helped me make sense of Sepehri's article. (This is one way we learn new things.)

"Hardline vigilante groups, generally referred to as 'pressure groups' (guruh-i fishar) in popular Iranian parlance, have long influenced Iranian politics and society during times of political tension... Seeming to operate with impunity, their actions threaten... to undercut Iranian domestic reform...

"Iranian pressure groups cannot be considered a part of the 'opposition' camp because, in reality, they act on behalf of various hardline factions within the government. Rather than attempt to overthrow the regime, pressure groups instead use violence, intimidation, and assassination as tools to affect government policy when they may not have the numerical strength or the power to do so through legal or legislative means.

"Several vigilante groups are operating in the Islamic Republic today. The three most prominent are listed below:

• Ansar-i Hizbullah (Defenders of the Party of God) is best known for its involvement in the July 1999 storming of a Tehran University dormitory, an incident that sparked the worst rioting in the Islamic Republic in two decades.
• The "Sa’id Imami Gang," composed of Intelligence Ministry operatives and named after the former deputy minister of intelligence, stands accused of murdering a number of Iranian intellectuals and dissidents during Khatami’s administration.
• Fida’iyan-i Islam (Devotees of Islam) attacked a busload of visiting American businessmen in November 1998. They also appear to be linked to the Sa’id Imami Gang."

The summary of Rubin's book notes: "But hardline pressure groups are not a new phenomenon in Iran. They were also active during the period of tension that followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution, as vigilante actions contributed toward the shaping of policy on many issues in the nascent Islamic Republic."

The first of those early groups Rubin identified was "Students Following the Line of the Imam," the group that President Ahmadinejad might have been associated with after the revolution.

Rubin also describes these characteristics of these "pressure groups:"

• Vigilante groups are small... yet they have an impact on Iranian policy that is disproportionate to their size
• Vigilante groups have official patronage... the pressure group is convenient to those in government who are interested in advancing certain goals outside of official channels... pressure groups have a history of surviving government crackdowns and re-activating after years of dormancy
• Vigilante groups are operationally organized in cells based on informal networking. They mobilize quickly through both telephone alert and intelligence given by high-ranking individuals within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Ministry of Intelligence, and other security services.
• The primary targets of vigilantes are those advocating reform in Iran...

Rubin also notes that "Vigilantes attack and intimidate writers, intellectuals, and reformers according to two possible scenarios.

"In the first scenario, the pressure groups precipitate an attack, suffer no adverse consequences for that action, and thereby win a battle against reform.

"In the second scenario, vigilante actions spark a crisis—as with the July 1999 Tehran University dormitory attack—and effectively create an excuse for the traditionally hardline IRGC, Basij volunteer forces, Law Enforcement Forces, and Intelligence Ministry to crack down on reform. Either way, the vigilante groups and their hardline supporters win, and the reformists lose."

Rubin's book was about the resurgence of the vigilante groups after the 2000 Majlis elections in which reformists did very well. Perhaps, Sepehri's article is describing another resurgence of vigilantes in response to Ahmadinejad's political troubles.

In any case and whatever we call them, the violent, extra-legal, "pressure groups" are an important element of Iranian politics, and our students should know about them.

---

Labels: Iran, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 11:29 AM