The Comparative-Historic Analysis of the Modernization Experience in the Two Countries: Iran of the Pahlavi Period and Turkey of the Ataturk Era (With an Emphasis on the Causes of the Failure of the Modernization Project of the First Pahlavi Era in Iran)

Introduction

This research studies the reasons for the failure of the modernization project in Iran (Pahlavi era) and its comparison with the modernization process of Turkey. In fact, this research seeks to answer the question why a similar process in the two countries produced different results and outcomes; that is, the modernization project in Iran in the first Pahlavi era failed, and Turkey has made the path of modernization, with several ups and downs. This study, in a comparative historical context, attempts to present a scientific response to this historical failure. In this study, it is believed that the 1979 Islamic Revolution can be seen as a sign of the failure of the modernization project in contemporary Iran. Michel Foucault's theory has helped and guided the discussion of this research. According to Foucault, the Revolution of Iranian people’s movement in 1979 is the failure of the linear modernization based on modernity. He believes that the process of modernization and pattern development in Iran failed and Pahlavi regime failed to achieve its goals during the modernization process (Foucault, 2006: 28-25). This can be proved through citing the evidence before and after the Revolution. In other words, the Islamic Revolution defined its existence in the negation and dismissal of a regime, which based on theoretical models of imports especially the patterns of modernist development, and based on the style of the West, set its long-term strategy regardless of the indigenous and socio-cultural conditions of the society. It has sought to impose a kind of quasi-westernized and pseudo-modernist model on the economic, political, social and cultural affiliations of the country. The occurrence of the Islamic Revolution showed that the Iranian society will not endure such a process. By presenting these premises and assumptions, it can be said that the question here is why the two Iranian-Turkish societies, at the same period of time, sharing the same interests in the fields of geographical, cultural and civilization, took steps to develop and modernize, but reached different outcomes. To put it differently, why has Atatürk succeeded in promoting the development and modernization of the Turkish community, and Reza Shah and Pahlavi Dynasty did not achieve their ultimate goal? In other words, the pattern of modernization in Turkey did not faced inclusive social mobilization and all-round resistance, but in Iran, the modernization project failed in Pahlavi I and II government with the advent of the Revolution.

 The method of this study is comparative historical in nature. It is a qualitative method, the subject of which is a particular historical event (Saeed, 204: 2008). In this method, historical interpretive analysis and explicit (legal) analysis are present simultaneously (Sa'ei, 2011). In the historical interpretation analysis, the event is being studied in its own social context and analyzed with the help of the theory; but in analyzing the explanation that is causal, it is tried to analyze the case with the presence of causal conditions at the level of macro-social units. It should be noted that in this epistemological framework and the methodology of the variables is timely and cohesive and the names of countries and nations are important as variables or categories (in this study: Iran and Turkey are on a specific time). This analysis analyzes historical interpretation and explanatory analysis simultaneously and analyzes the reason and the explanatory level as a causal combination and a combination of different causal conditions. In general, this method is based on the assumption that events are complicated and it finds a methodological requirement to understand this historical method and the basic law of obligations. It should also be added that comparative historical analysis (based on historical epistemic propositions) receives interpretative sufficiency from the historical method and explanatory sufficiency from the method of the basic law.

Consequently, the result of these events is the emergence of the Islamic Revolution which, in the theory of thinkers such as Michel Foucault, can be regarded as a failure of the project of modernization (in Iran); something that did not happen in the same experience of Turkey and modernization did not face widespread social-political mobilization. Thus, the theory did not have the potentiality to illustrate this research. It is believed that modernization was achieved at the economic (modernization of industry and technology, agriculture, services and change in labor force) and cultural levels during Pahlavi I era, but it remained politically inferior. The study of the components of the types and forms of development mentioned in the theoretical part shows that development in Iran during Pahlavi era has a foreign policy and an external orientation and is not the result of an internal function of the social system. Therefore, this modernization has an imitating form which has developed unevenly. This disproportion is due to the disproportionality of cultural modernization with the traditional context of Iranian society. The cultural modernization has also activated social and cultural gaps in the society, which provided the context for the political transformations of the fifties. On the other hand, social modernization has been achieved through the concentration of power and tools and institutions of power. Modernization in Iran during first Pahlavi era has been as a project without political development including components such as political participation and competition, strong civil society, and accountability of the government. Pahlavi I reformations lacked inner logic and was from above. In fact, it was a kind of fake, inherently contradictory, discrete, and incoherent modernization. It was mentioned that this fake experience of modernity and semi-modernity was transmitted to other countries around the world and especially to Iran in an imperfect, superficial, and ideological way. Pseudo-modernization has also taken place within the framework of dependency relations and has not fundamentally changed the existing social, political, economic, and political structures in Iran. Consequently, not only it did not solve the crises and reached a modern and developed society, but also at the political level caused dissatisfaction and the occurrence of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the failure of the modernization program. In general, it can be said that the assumptions such as the lack of endogenous social contexts, the lack of political development, which implies the failure of the modernization project as westernizing the construction of the Iranian society is confirmed in an interpretative and explanatory framework in this research and these findings are consistent with the experimental findings of this study.