The rule of law and the politics of reform in post-revolutionary Iran

This is a study of the jurisprudence of a political system in the throes of post-revolutionary reconstruction. For its analytical framework, it employs the emerging universal definition of the rule of law. It finds the main fault line for the instability of the Iranian system in the fissure caused by those who wish to reform the Islamic Republic. In the rule of law they have sought protection against the arbitrary exercise of power by the conservative clerical elite. Emboldened by electoral victories, the Reformists have pressed for the full implementation of the Islamic Constitution. That document, however, favors the hierocracy of the conservative clerics. Therefore, they too have come to employ the law as an instrument of politics. The conservative clerical jurisprudence is different from that of the Reformists. Both are rooted, however, in the unique political Islam bequeathed by Khomeini's radical revision of Iran's Shi'ism.