Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• hamidreza jalaee pour

Abstract

This paper attempts to provide an answer to two key questions: I) In general, what approaches to political change have been pursued by agents of change in different societies? What are the key features of these different approaches to political change? 2) How can one evaluate the political developments in Iran from the viewpoint of 'revolutionary' and 'reformist' approaches? Construction of ideal-types, library-based research and in-depth interviews have been the main methods employed in this study to categories the existing approaches to political change and to analyze the political developments in Iran during the past decade. In the first section of this paper, twelve approaches to change is discussed instead of the old threefold categorization (i.e., revolutionary, conservative and reformist). In the second section, it is argued why the reformist approach is the most effective and realistic way to promote democracy in Iran.

Keywords

• revolutionary approaches
• reformist approaches
• conservative approaches