The formation of civil society in modern Iran
Subtitle: public intellectuals and the state
By: Melody Mohebi
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2014
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 185
ISBN-13: 9781137401106
Subjects: Civil society; Iranians; Intellectual life; Islam and state; Politics and government; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Civics & Citizenship; POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory
Description: "Drawing on in-depth elite interviews and documents, this book investigates how and why the Iranian reformists used the language and concept of civil society to enhance the reformists' positions of power. Mohebi focuses especially on reformist public intellectuals as agents of change, especially effective because of the role they played in introducing new ideas to a wider constituency, and examines how different reformist intellectuals used civil society to craft their vision of Iran's socio-political future. Mohebi also examines how conservative figures with different underlying values and political agendas appropriated civil society for their own ends. The book argues that, although the concept of civil society may be deployed to serve conflicting objectives, its lasting legacy is pluralism and an opening up of the public sphere"--