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Social Science History
in 1978. But most of these changes escape the gaze of our research, the result
of either theoretical or methodological myopia.While recognizing the whole-
ness of history, I wish to focus heuristically on three factors that have been
identified in the literature on the Iranian Revolution as being theoretically
relevant.
This approach adopts John Stuart Mill’s ‘‘method of difference,’’ which
is common in social-scientific studies of a small number of cases (Mill 1949:
256–58; Smelser 1976: 142–43; King et al. 1994: 199–206). This method calls
for comparison of cases that are identical in all characteristics except for a
single precondition and a single outcome, allowing the attribution of causality
to the varying precondition. Naturally, no two cases match precisely, and
recent methodological reflections have emphasized the need to select cases
that match or differ in ways that are theoretically important, that is, in ways
that address the expectations of a particular explanatory approach. Accord-
ing to an economistic theory of revolution, for example, we would expect to
see economic conditions differ in cases where revolutionary outcomes differ.
If we do not find such a difference, the evidence may be said to disconfirm
the theory (Emigh 1997: 649–84; Mahoney 2000: 392–93).
In a world of imperfect matches, we approach asymptotic perfection with
the comparison of a single country at two points close in time, such as Iran in
1975 and 1978.
37
For this reason, other relevant comparisons—for example,
the Iranian protests of 1963—are not included in this study, as such cases
would multiply variation. This approach may appear to be ahistorical, in that
it disregards virtually all of Iranian history prior to the 1970s. I would like
to be clear, however, that this study examines only the timing of the revolu-
tion, not its underlying causes. In place of long-standing forces, this study
focuses on marginal shifts in these forces. This approach, known in social
science as a change model, seeks to understand whether marginal shifts in
the hypothesized causes are correlated with marginal shifts in the phenome-
non we wish to explain. The hypothesized causes, drawn from the literature
on the Iranian Revolution, are
•
economic changes, specifically the shattering of the high hopes generated
by the oil boom of 1973–74 in the recession of 1977, generating unrest
in 1978;
•
political changes, specifically the opening of opportunities for protest in
1977 due to pressure, actual or anticipated, from President Jimmy Carter
of the United States; and
The Qum Protests and the Coming of the Iranian Revolution
295
•
organizational change within the opposition, specifically the mobiliza-
tion of oppositional activity, in 1977.
These factors are not held to be isolated from one another, and connec-
tions between them are noted below. However, these factors lend them-
selves to distinct forms of evidence, and the following sections of this essay
adopt different empirical approaches: economic change is measured through
national-level data on gross domestic product, consumption, and inflation as
well as sectoral-level data on wages; political change is traced through the
state’s varying responses to incidents it perceived as challenges; organiza-
tional change is inferred from the activities, pronouncements, and retrospec-
tive accounts of the opposition. All have some evidence in their favor, but
only the organizational-change argument gets stronger on close examination,
especially with regard to the Islamist opposition.
Economic Change
A leading economic change explanation for the timing of the Iranian Revo-
lution argues that the oil boom of 1973–74 generated tremendous expecta-
tions, overheated the economy, and made Iran vulnerable to the subsequent
downturn in the oil market. The result may have been an increase in relative
deprivation.
38
But was economic distress more severe in 1978 than in 1975?
By all indicators, the basic economic condition of Iran did not change
between mid-1975 and early 1978. Iran continued to be a semi-industrialized
state with massive oil exports that dwarfed and skewed all other economic
activities in the country.The influx of oil revenue continued to generate infra-
structure bottlenecks, land speculation, and large-scale corruption. More-
over, in both 1975 and 1978 the economy suffered mild recessions after the
boom years of 1973 and 1976. The statistical evidence does not indicate that
economic hardship was decisively worse in early 1978 than in mid-1975.
Before we examine the data, let us note that statistics for Iran may not be
reliable. Unlike many other developing countries, Iran has suffered an over-
abundance of statistics. A British consul noted in 1848: ‘‘It seldom happens
in Persia that two statistical accounts on one subject, even when derived from
official sources, are found to correspond’’ (Issawi 1971: 20). A century later, a
U.S. economic advisor discovered the same phenomenon: ‘‘There is no dearth
of ‘statistics.’ Indeed, one can get statistical data on almost every conceiv-
able item of economic interest. This data may be published or may be freely
296
Social Science History
Table 1
Percent annual change in real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, Iran,
1963–77
Central Bank of Iran
International
Penn World
[Bank Markazi Iran]
Monetary Fund
Table
Year
%
%
%
.
.
− .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
− .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
− .
.
.
.
.
− .
− .
Sources: Jazayeri 1988: 171; International Monetary Fund 1980: 228–29; Penn World Table 1994.
offered verbally by a government department head. About the only certainty,
however, is that figures on the same subject from different knowledgeable,
even official, sources will be conflicting’’ (Benedick 1964: 256). The advent
of computers did not change this situation. Various state agencies kept dif-
fering sets of figures, and some sources were not consistent from year to year,
as categories shifted and earlier data were revised without explanation. Plus,
there is cause for concern about political manipulation of economic and social
statistics. As one report put it, authorities, ‘‘unwilling to reform the condi-
tion of life in Iran, kept reforming the data’’ (Parvin and Zamani 1979: 43).
For these reasons, the following statistics should be treated with skepticism.
Table 1 lists annual changes in per-capita gross domestic product (GDP)
of Iran, adjusted for inflation, for the decade and a half prior to the revo-
lution, according to three sources: the Central Bank of Iran [Bank Mar-
kazi Iran], the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Penn World
Table.
39
All three sources report strong economic growth from the mid-1960s
through the early 1970s (the only exception being the Penn World Table’s
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