Civil Society, Democracy, and Colonialism: A Query About Iran's Political future

Abstract

The article discusses the genealogy of civil society and democracy within the nation-state frame of reference and suggests the following: 1. The development of civil society has been a precondition of Western democracy. 2. Civil society came into existence, among other things, as a result of processes that led to the subjective and objective precedence of the social system over the political system. 3. Colonial conditions (whether direct or indirect) invariably causes the precedence of the political system over the social system, thus reversing the democratic process. 4. Colonialism is the natural state of relations among high-tech and lowtech countries under conditions of relatively advanced technology. Hence, neither revolutions nor political positioning change the essentials of colonial relations. 5. The historical context for the political imposition of colonial relations is the nation-state. Concurrently, nation-state is the framework for fighting against colonialism. All Third World countries, including Iran, have gone through several historically determined stages of anti-colonial struggle. 6. Recently, technological requirements in the developed countries have come into conflict with nation-state's traditional economic, cultural, and political boundaries. Since major concepts dealing with political structure and process in the Third World are results of the colonial experience, it is likely that the weakening of the aforementioned boundaries in the West will lead to their weakening in the Third World as well. Given the demise of Marxism-Leninism and historical alienation of various types of religious fundamentalism, the (perhaps mandatory) weakening of nation-state problematizes the theoretical bases of many concepts that in recent times have been developed and materialized within the nation-state framework, including freedom, equality, justice, social welfare, human rights, and the like. Furthermore, the possible weakening of nation-state may cast serious doubt on the efficacy of anti-colonial struggle. 7. Any serious analysis of the political future of Iran (and perhaps other Third World countries) should at least consider the implications of these questions critically.