The Material Foundations of the Modern State and the Rationalization of Iran's Politics and Government in Contemporary History

This article seeks to answer the basic question of how the expansion of the material foundations of the modern state in Iran caused Iran's politics and government to be on the path of rationality for the first time. To answer this question, Max Weber's rationalization theory and descriptive-analytical method have been used. This theory indicated four basic components for the rationalization of politics and government. These components include capitalist economy, modern absolutist government, modern bureaucracy and formal legal system. By applying these components, we found that the government system in Iran was irrational until the renewal, and power was exercised by individuals and was not bound by any contract, organization, or hierarchy. In fact, the power was formed based on personal expediency and profitability and emotional norms. The salient point here is that the necessity of rationalizing Iran's politics and government emerged when the process of modernization in Iran was started by elites from within the government system to obtain a new civilization and harmonize with the evolution of the modern world to establish order in the country which was in line with compensating its backwardness compared to the west. According to this fact it can be said the patterns of the rationalization of Iran's politics and government which are also part of the overall process of modernization. According to the mentioned materials, it can be suggested that Iran's politics and government can become rational when it finds the rationalization components of its real formulation in the sphere of Iranian politics and provides the basis for the transition of Iran's politics and government from autocratic and despotic formulation.