Mass Political Culture, Failure States and the Problem of Political Development in Iran

One of the main concerns of political Sociology of Iran is how to enter the path of political development. In other words, it means by which way we can achieve the political development: from the top and by the dominant political elites (reformation), from the bottom and by the presence and entrance of masses into the political realm (revolution) or from the outside (international organizations/human rights agencies)? The explanatory claim of this research is that political development is hard to achieve without considering the nature of the political culture of Iran’s mass. In this regard the main concern of the present research is to explain and analyze the effect of the mass political culture on the process of political development in Iran. Considering this important fact, the research is aimed to explain nature of the relation of political development and political culture and the effect of the mass political culture on political development in Iran. The question of the research is what effect the mass political culture has on the process of political development in Iran. In order to answer the question of the research the following hypothesis is evaluated: because of the lack of the required contexts and opportunity due to the State the mass political culture has a deterrent effect on the process of Iran’s political development. The research method is descriptive-analytical on the basis of the framework of historical sociology and collective psychology.