Sociological Explanation of Distinctions in Political Violence before and after the Iranian Constitutional Revolution

Before the triumph of the constitution in Iran, collective identities were mainly based on family, tribe, clan, neighborhood, and religion, which can be called "ascribed identity." Power conflicts that led to political violence were manifested according to the social capacities of these identities. The fulcrum of this violence was the divine legitimacy of power, which ultimately led to violent conflicts that reproduced the existing social relations. After the establishment of the constitutional system in Iran, with the formation of modern organizations and the emergence of modernist organizational and "acquired" identities, as well as the growing trend of urbanization, the fulcrum of political violence shifted. On one hand, it became the law as a regulator of modern life, and on the other hand, it became the revolutionary ideals that manifested themselves in partisan, sectarian, and secretive organizations. This article, using the method of historical analysis, shows that political violence transformed from unwritten rules, ascribed identities, ascribed roles, personal will, tribal attribution, belief, continuity of existing order, arduous killing, and exclusion of specific people into political violence with written rules, acquired identities, acquired roles, organizational attribution, effortless killing, and the elimination of specific relationships to be replaced by new ideological relationships.