The path dependent nature of factionalism in post-Khomeini Iran

Abstract

The main claim of this paper is that the anti-party system in Iran, or what is known as factionalism, is subject to a path dependent process. The political system in post-Khomeini Iran is not based on political parties. The authoritarian regime in Iran has not developed into a ruling party system as in Egypt under Mubarak. Instead, through its different stages of institutionalisation, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has gradually degenerated from what looked like a single party system during the ascendancy of the Islamic Republic Party (IRP) in the first and second Majlis (the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran), to an anti-party, factional system that has continued to the present. My contention is that the institutionalisation of a ‘factional system’ in Iran is subject to ‘path dependency’ and consequently difficult to undo due to a self-reinforcing feedback loop which is in place and because of the considerable amount of money, as well as other resources, invested on the path of factionalism over an extended period of time.