Clerics and the Decline of Their Social Influence in Iran: A Sample for Examination

The examination of the decline of cleric's social influence specified in some researches and reports as a realized event needs to be studied on a comprehensive pattern including all direct and indirect effective factors involved in the decline in various levels and in combination with each other and the method of their examination separately. To expand upon this pattern, this paper endeavors first to describe the concept of "social influence" to find out its creative factors by detecting its characteristics. Then, taken that a part of this decline results from weaknesses and feebleness in providing its formative factors, the paper offers the efficient factors developing the clergy social influence in an paradigm fashion and finally, expanding it in the three levels: the people, social structure, and the clergymen, gains access to the detailed model of the decline of the clergy social influence in Iran. It also answers the question that weather the establishment of a religious government in Iran and entering political power can decisively explain the decline of their social influence or not?