Kavian - TD

Transition to Democracy for Iran - Part I

Justice in an Institutional Democracy

What is exactly it that Iranians protesting against the Islamic Republic regime (IR regime) want — whichever group, region, leaning or ethnicity they belong to? And what is it that opposition political groups should want? What should our goal be? What should we work towards?

One hears “freedom”, “equality”, “distributing the oil income” and such, but none of these clearly describe a method of governing. In the end, all of these different answers that each person has, can be related to the simple idea that people want to have a healthy, prosperous and peaceful life, so that they can be happy. Happiness is subjective, it can mean different things for different people.

Be it stopping the lake of Oroumieh from drying up,
be it having enough drinkable water in Khoozestan,
be it the freedom not to wear a black veil in the heat of summer,
be it having the freedom to make political decisions for their hometown in Kordestan,
be it to protect the wildlife,
be it the opportunity to travel around the world,
be it access to free internet,
be it achieving justice for victims of the regime,
be it the freedom to go to a disco and dance.

The Four Pillars of Civil Life

The political system system cannot force any individual to be happy. What enhances the quality of life, depends on each individual's needs and preferences. But one can only be happy if one has the freedom to pursue one's objectives, fulfill one's ambitions and be a part of something bigger than oneself. The job of the political system is to provide the necessary infrastructure, the foundation and the basis for a society, so that every citizen has the fair opportunity to achieve a high quality of life.

Thousands of years of human civilization, over 250 years of experience with modern democracy and over 70 years of detailed research result in a simple general solution for this important issue: The permanent objective of a political regime must be to provide the most possible freedoms to everyone, while ensuring justice. This will lead to ensure a fair and just system of social cooperation among the people. This is how people will achieve a high quality of life. So far, the best tool that humanity has ever found for achieving this objective, has been liberal democracy. In order to enable a fair system of social cooperation, in order to provide citizens with the opportunity to thrive and have a good life, the state must develop and protect the four pillars of the civil life, which are

1) politics,
2) the economy,
3) the society, and
4) the environment.

But these pillars of civil life in Iran have been neglected or even intentionally diminished. Generally speaking, the situation in Iran is as such.

Politics: Currently no free or independent political party exists in Iran. They are either barred from being developed or are destroyed after inception. Opposition groups and personalities are exiled, jailed or even killed. There is no freedom of press, no freedom of opinion, and no freedom of speech. The regime not only doesn’t develop Iran’s politics, it notoriously crushes any attempt for it.

Economy: If the Islamic Revolution hadn’t happened, and assuming a stable trend, Iran’s economy would have been more than 8 times larger than it is today, it would have been as large as Spain’s (around 2200 bn. USD instead of just 240 bn. USD). The regime has completely failed in developing Iran’s economy, especially based on the immense potential due to access to cheap energy.

Society: Different social groups are discriminated against, most notably women, ethnic groups and religious minorities. The regime has completely failed in developing Iran’s society so that people can enjoy equality and fairness.

Environment: Iran’s natural resources and environment (wildlife, air, water and soil) are not being protected and developed, so that humans, animals and plants can live in harmony and benefit from each other. Instead they are actively misused for short term profit of a few. Many of Iran’s lakes and rivers are drying up, while criminal organizations develop water-intensive products for export. Pollution has reached such levels as to affect public health tens of millions.

This leaves to doubt that the IR regime is not only not legitimate in any political or social way, but an active hazard and menace to Iranians and to Iran, but also one of the sources of tensions in the region. The Part II it will be discussed how the lack of political development makes social and economic developments also impossible. It will also be shown that the reason for the lack of political development is to ensure a monopolistic access to natural resources, especially the petrochemical income.

A few examples:

Over 50 million Iranians have a low quality of life because they are poor. Around 10 million struggle to even have enough food. Wealth doesn’t mean money, it means having things of value to use for your life: sufficient food and water, a home to live in, clean clothes (a washing machine), etc.
A considerable number of young people (around 25%) in Iran are unhappy because they see no good job opportunities, and because of that, no hope for a better future. The situation is especially bad for young women. The IR regime has not developed the Iranian industry and job market to ensure that younger people can have fulfilling jobs.
Women in general see life as unfair because they are subjected to systematic discrimination. They are considered inferior to men in many aspects and denied proper possibilities of education, development and employment.
Many ethnic minorities can’t achieve their desired system of social cooperation because they have no power in political decision making, even in their own cities. Political decisions are made for them without paying attention to their customs, their traditions and their needs.
But the most important reason why most Iranians don’t feel happy is because they have very little freedom in any aspect. No political freedoms and very little social, economic, religious or personal freedoms. For a detailed report on the status of freedoms in Iran, refer to the website of Freedom House (linked under references).

The Idea of Good Governance

If we want to have freedoms, economic welfare, justice and quality, in short if we want to have a chance at a high quality of life, we need a government that develops the economy and the society and protects the environment. In order for that to happen, the government needs to develop politics. Of course, a dictatorship doesn’t feel it has to do that. Because a dictator does not require the approval of the population to rule. He wasn’t elected by the population and his access to power doesn’t depend on the next election. So he sees no reason to bother solving the problems of the population. This is especially true, if the dictator has access to resources that make him independent of tax income. In Iran’s case, this is the rent from the petrochemical industries. Worldwide experience has shown that most dictatorships do not work efficiently in developing and protecting the four major aspects of a nation. The longer they rule, the less they develop. And the only way it is guaranteed that the four pillars of civil life would be developed, is to have an institutionalized democracy.

Institutionalized Democracy

Freedom, especially political freedom, is required to achieve democracy. But freedom is not a matter of 0% or 100%, „have“ or „not have“. It can have values between 0% and 100%. The Freedom House uses 25 variables in 5 different categories to determine the health of the freedoms in a country. It has been doing this for decades and their database is a wealth of useful knowledge for any person. The 2023 report on Iran is a sad and dark piece, but it should provide us with a good idea, which types of freedoms are missing in Iran and what it takes to actually get to an institutionalized democracy, as a tool for achieving justice for all.

But what does “institutionalized democracy” actually mean, anyway? In 2021, the US military left Afghanistan after 20 years and the Taliban came back to power immediately. How did that happen and why? In 2020 Afghanistan had, at least on the surface, most features of an imperfectly democratic nation: voting, access to education for women, international banking, trade, relations with West, etc. How come the Taliban came directly back to power, the day the US left?

The reason is that the Afghans (and Americans) failed to develop the economic, social and especially political institutions, which would be able to protect the weak and fragile newly found freedoms. The Afghan „democracy“ was just on the surface, it wasn’t institutionalized. It existed only because the US kept it alive by spending resources on it.

As for the formal definition of an institutionalized democracy, we can use the one from the World Bank: „Democracy is conceived of three essential, interdependent elements.

The presence of institutions and procedures through which citizens can express effective preferences about alternative policies and leaders,
The existence of institutionalized constraints on the exercise of power by the executive,
The guarantee of civil liberties to all citizens in their daily lives and in acts of political participation.

Other aspects of plural democracy, such as the rule of law, systems of checks and balances, freedom of the press, and so on are means to, or specific manifestations of, these general principles“.

That means a system, where many kinds of institutions probe and review the system to ensure the health of the democracy. They check and balance the people in power. They probe and criticize mistakes, they scrutinize budget spending, they check the claims of the government and its activity and report them freely in the press. This is what a functional and institutionalized democracy looks like.

What is an institution in this sense? For a general description of institutions in political sciences, we can take a look at the webpage of Britannica:

“A set of formal rules (including constitutions), informal norms, or shared understandings that constrain and prescribe political actors’ interactions with one another. Institutions are generated and enforced by both state and non-state actors. Within institutional frameworks, political actors may have more or less freedom to pursue and develop their individual preferences and tastes.”

But why Democracy?

We can of course ask: who says that a democracy is the best way for ruling? Maybe someone thinks a monarchy is better or perhaps communism. This topic has been discussed thoroughly by many experts, thinkers and researchers. For an exhaustive discussion, see the article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy linked in the references.

Empirical studies on the quality of life and happiness among populations show that societies are happier, if they have developed all four pillars of their civil lives. And since these aspects are best developed under a democracy, that means directly that a democratic system is the best currently known solution to govern. This is why you see nearly every country in the world claiming to have some kind of a democracy. Even the IR regime claims to be a republic (a system in which the people (the public) has the power to make decisions).

For concrete examples, you can take a look at any Western European country’s profile on the website of the Freedom House. North Korea and South Korea also provide a good example: same country, same people, same heritage, same history, same culture, same language. But the North is non-democratic and the South is democratic. South Koreans are much healthier and happier. They have a stronger economy and can travel anywhere in the world.

Iranian migrants, who leave Iran, nearly always choose to live in countries that are more democratic than Iran. There are millions of Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Pakistanis and Indians also, who work hard on developing skills and learning foreign languages to find a job in Western Countries. Why not stay in their home country? It is not only a matter of income. With their skills they could have a good income in their homelands too. What they yearn for is a shot at happiness, which requires freedom and justice. This they don’t have that in their own country.

Self-Correction in Democracy

The main reason for democracy working better than other currently known systems is that you can find mistakes and correct them. Democracy is not free of fault. There will always be corrupt politicians, there will always be liars and thieves in governments. But in an institutionalized democracy, you can identify these problems, you can talk about them freely, you can point fingers at people responsible, you can maybe even force them to resign. Or as a last solution, you can kick them out at the next election.

When this important self-regulation and self-correction is coupled with deep and well-established ideas for morality, then the society can become better and better with time. And this is what you see in Western Europe. Sure, it is not perfect, but it gets better decade after decade. Some things get worse sometimes, but generally and in total, life is getting better there.

To conclude, we Iranians should today have a very clear goal in mind. What we want to achieve for ourselves and our country is an institutionalized democracy. This doesn’t decide the type or the leaning or the group of the next government. No matter what type of government, no matter what leaning, no matter what group, the core principle of the next regime in Iran should be that it is an institutionalized democracy. Of course, the details should be decided in an open and fair election, under the control of the UN. And then the majority of Iranians can decide what group or leaning they want.

The other articles of this collection:

2. The Structure of the IR Regime

3. Conditions for Regime Change

4. Dissolving the Regime

5. The Transition Process

6. The Missing Link — A Consolidated Leadership

7. Developing Leadership through a Parliament in Exile

8. Legitimacy

9. The Roots of Laws in Modern Societies

Select references:

Freedom House, (2022), Methodology, READ HERE

Freedom House (2022), Iran Report 2022, READ HERE