Abstract:
It has been a while since such terminology as civil society has become common and its application has permeated through the realm of the press as well as social communities from the realm of theoretical university discussions. The amazing point is that the background for its formation throughout the contemporary history of Iran has been faced with tough obstacles and has even reinforced its implacability with developing history in a way that today the Iranian society is having a hard time establishing a civil society. This paper aims to study the pathology of the formation of a civil society in contemporary Iran. After giving a specific definition for civil society and dividing it into pre- and post-modernism, this paper attends to the Iranian structure. Then, mentioning the gravest obstacles on the way to reach and develop a civil society in Iran, the existing opportunities and bases on the way to develop a civil society have been discussed.
Machine summary:
The amazing point is that the background for its formation throughout the contemporary history of Iran has been faced with tough obstacles and has even reinforced its implacability with developing history in a way that today the Iranian society is having a hard time establishing a civil society.
4. Civil society in the sense of the intermediary institution between people and the state views it as a collection comprising individuals who form groups and communities with their intentions and options independently from the state, and considers it as a host of institutions and unions which exist independent from the interference of the dominant political power3.
In Iran, too, before the formation of the modern state, due to the eastern totalitarianism, non- government institutions in its new sense did not play any roles, although certain traditional institutions such as guilds, the clergy, bazaar, and mystic groups were active in society and played the intermediary role between people and the state.
During these years civil associations enjoyed a remarkable growth, but the conflicts among the political groups and the new resistances of the power structure endangered the development of the civil society.
In today’s situation also the political aura is moving toward the more concentration of power which is a big obstacle on the way of the development of a civil society .
e. the traditional patrimonial one, modernism and traditionalism as the three dominant discourses on the structure of power in contemporary Iran we have to say that these ideologies never allow a civil society in themselves (Bashirieh, 2002).