Welcome to this week's episode of the series "Find Out More About the Islamic Revolution." Today, we study the impact of Iran's Islamic Revolution on the University of California's professor of sociology, John Foran.

John Foran is one of the best known theorists on revolutions. He is one of the thinkers that upon the victory of Iran's Islamic Revolution, termed the existing views on revolutions as inefficient and made efforts to prepare a new theoretical framework for the analysis of the developments that took place in Iran. the most important fact that he pointed out was that the then theories, otherwise known as the third generation of theories, were under the impact of the structuralism standpoint, and were incapable of analyzing the actual developments which unfolded in Iran.

Throughout the discussions that were carried out by the third generation of theorists, gradually two new pivotal topics were taken into consideration which were namely the role of the individuals who participate in revolutions and the coalition which forms among them; and the role of ideology and culture in the revolutions. Based on these two new pivotal factors, and especially upon emphasis on the role of culture and ideology in revolutions, Foran, in a fresh categorization of revolutions, made efforts to found the 4^th generation of theories about the revolutions.

In his view, revolutions occur for a number of reasons. Hence, in his theories, Foran has paid attention to the political, economic, and cultural factors behind the emergence and culmination of revolutions. Foran refers to Iran's Islamic Revolution as the first case in the Third World which is an actual manifestation of his model.

He points out that the governments in Iran during the reign of former despotic regime of Pahlavi were dependent on foreign powers. The theory of dependent development argues that the dependent social structure of the Third World countries has taken shape based on the interaction of foreign capitalist production approach and the internal pre-capitalist production approaches. As times passes, due to the interaction of these two foreign and internal factors, a complex system of social strata emerges that is a blend of capitalism and pre-capitalism phases. Dependent development is a process of economic growth that due to reliance and dependence on one or a number of capitalist states is faced with particular limitations. Dependent development brings about negative results for a wide range of social strata such as high rates of unemployment, and inflation, and the inefficiency of the service sector across cities.

In the view of John Foran, when the model of dependent development emerges, usually there is a need for a suppressive government to control and contain social forces.

In Foran's standpoint, one of the conditions for materialization of revolutions, which has also been evident in Iran's Islamic Revolution is the formation of the opposition cultural framework. He points out that the suppressive government and the foreign powers which support it are forced to give way to an opposition front; which considers the existing political cultures in the community as its backbone. In other words, the political cultures of resistance can form a bond between the actual dissatisfactory conditions and the ideal conditions by carrying out a series of practical and political measures, while a combination of suppression and opposition to repression sets the stage for the formation and culmination of the revolution. These conditions existed in Iran in the pre-revolution era.

In regard to relations between Iran and the US in the pre-revolution era, and the impact of these relations on Iran's Islamic Revolution, Foran states that: The US, after the 1953 US-led coup in Iran, appeared as a foreign power in Iran, replacing Britain. American officials rendered unwavering support for the Pahlavi despotic regime. However, upon the emergence of the waves of Islamic Revolution in Iran in the years1978-79, the US dithered in supporting its then regional suppressive ally, raising a short-term opportunity to opponents, which ceased upon the instatement of Ronald Reagan as the then US president in the year 1981.

One of the important criticisms which is leveled by analysts against the viewpoint of John Foran on Iran's Islamic Revolution is that he doesn't pay sufficient attention to the role of domestic factors and conditions which paved the way for emergence and culmination of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, while baselessly claiming that the US played a passive role in regards to Iran's Islamic Revolution. Foran makes this unfounded claim while many of the American sources, such as the memoirs of American statesmen, point out that the US administration always rendered unwavering and unceasing support for Pahlavi despotic regime.

Based on the documents which were released by the US State Department in June 2017; the US involvement in the 1953 coup in Iran against Dr. Mohamad Mosaddeq government is confirmed. Meanwhile, if the US-led 1953 coup had not taken place in Iran; the suppressive regime of Mohammad Reza Shah would have been ousted in the year 1953.

MR/MG