The formation of political modernity in Iran (1890-1908)

The subject of this article is the generation of political modernity in Iran. The sociological analysis of political modernity in Iran, due to lack of consistency between its consequences and Western political modernity. Has been a challenging issue. In order to overcome these challenges, political modernity in Iran is studied as one of multiple forms of modernity in the world, and therefore as a unique historical fact. The main problem of this study is the question of how the generation of political modernity in Iran occurred during the period of 1889-1909. The theoretical framework of the paper has formulated based on the theory of multiple modernities. The framework contains five analytical levels: world system, colonial confrontation, sociopolitical system, collective agency and individual agency. The research method used in this research was historical-narrative analysis. The results of the research indicate that the political modernity of Iran in this period of time has been the result of several elements at five levels of analysis: Competition and cooperation among the world powers at the level of world system, Confronting Russian and British threats at the level of colonial confrontation, Economic crises, lack of independence and inefficiency of the political system at the level of sociopolitical system, and the Iranian agents’ solutions for existing problems and answering the question of the ideal way of ruling the public life at the levels of individual and collective agency. The interplays of the above elements during 1890 to 1909 has led to the formation of the first Iranian parliament in 1906 and its temporary closure in 1908.