Identifying instances of civil disobedience in the context of contemporary Iran’s social movements

Civil disobedience is a complicated and multi-dimensional concept in political sciences. Features like political protest, publicity and consciousness, law-violation, and non-violence have been identified, by scholars, as the general features of civil disobedience. What is significant about the concept of civil disobedience, when analysed in the context of social movements, is the focus on ways of action, of which civil disobedience is the essence. The following research aims at tracing the concept of civil disobedience in the context of contemporary Iran’s social movements. It is defined based on the descriptive-exploratory method, and uses documentary-library resources for data collection. The authors have set to identify Iran’s social “movement repertoire”, with the aim of answering the question, “what are the instances of civil disobedience in contemporary Iran’s social movements?” Based on the findings of this research, the ways of action that have been most effective with respect to Iran’s social movements, i.e. boycotting, sit-in, striking, and street-protesting, all have the features of consciousness, publicity, and non-violence, which are features of civil disobedience. Meanwhile, from this perspective, striking is the way of action with the most correspondence to the concept of civil disobedience.