Structure versus Ayatollah: Theda Skocpol's social revolution theory applied on the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran

Abstract

An examination of Theda Skocpol's social revolution theory published in her 1979 book 'States and Social Revolutions' in relation the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the same year. Although Skocpol's theory, which leaned heavily on structuralist principles, received heavy criticism in the wake of the seemingly agency-inspired Islamic revolution, her theory has remained one of the more influential theories on revolutions. For Iran's 1979 revolution, her theory has become a sidenote in the choice of theories for analysis. In this paper, it is argued that the social revolutions theory is a very good tool for analysing the Iranian revolution, and leads to insights that other theories might ignore.