Legitimacy, Resistance, and Regime Survival: Iran in 1979 and 2022

Elina Flinn

Introduction 

Authoritarian regimes often appear indestructible until the moment their authority collapses. Iran experienced this in 1979, when a popular revolution toppled Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, and again in September 2022, when nationwide protests erupted following Mahsa Jina Amini’s death in morality police custody. 

Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, was detained in Tehran for allegedly violating compulsory hijab laws, taken to a detention center for a “re-education session”, and died in a hospital three days later. Allegations that she had been physically abused in custody intensified public outrage, transforming her death from an individual tragedy into a symbol of the state’s broader control over women’s lives and freedoms. Additionally, the arrests of journalists Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloofar Hamedi, who reported on Amini’s funeral and hospital stay, further fueled anger over government repression. Her death galvanizes the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, bringing longstanding grievances over gender inequality and political restrictions into the streets. 

Although the 1979 revolution and the 2022 protests emerged under different political circumstances and pursued different goals, both exposed a widening divide between the Iranian state and significant segments of the population.

The Anatomy of Legitimacy

The Shah justified his rule through secular modernization, economic development, Western alliances, and appeals to Iran’s pre-Islamic imperial heritage. During the 1960s and 1970s, rising oil revenues funded industrial expansion, infrastructure, and education. His 1963 White Revolution introduced land redistribution, expanded literacy and healthcare initiatives, and granted women the right to vote. These reforms accelerated economic growth and modernized Iranian society; however, their benefits were unevenly distributed. Furthermore, the lavish 1971 celebrations at Persepolis, commemorating 2,500 years of Persian monarchy, embodied his attempt to connect his government with Iran’s imperial past. 

However, modernization coincided with political repression and growing inequality. Following the 1953 coup that restored him to power with British and American support, the Shah increasingly centralized authority and relied on SAVAK, his secret police, to suppress dissent. Limited political participation and uneven economic development fueled public frustration even further. The White Revolution’s land reforms also disrupted rural communities, while rapid urbanization strained housing and public services. Consequently, the Shah’s modernization agenda severely alienated diverse groups, including religious leaders, students, and workers, whose grievances eventually contributed to the growing opposition that culminated in the 1979 revolution.

The Islamic Republic, established following the revolution, instead grounds its authority in religious governance, revolutionary Islam, and resistance to Western imperialism. Under its system, Iran combines elected institutions, including a parliament and presidency, with unelected religious authorities who hold ultimate power over the state. The Supreme Leader oversees the military and judiciary, and exercises significant influence over national policy. The Guardian Council vets candidates and legislation to ensure compliance with Islamic principles. Its doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih, or guardianship of the Islamic jurist, grants ultimate political authority to a senior Shi’a cleric (Faqih). The doctrine continues to shape Iran’s post-Shah system today, allowing clerical leaders to override elected officials and justify restrictions on political opposition in the name of protecting the Islamic Republic’s religious foundations. Yet the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, prompted by the aforementioned death of Mahsa Amini,  demonstrated that this ideological foundation faces growing opposition, particularly among younger Iranians challenging compulsory hijab and restrictions on personal freedom.

The gap between the Islamic Republic’s claims to popular legitimacy and public dissatisfaction is clear in both electoral participation and resistance to state authority. In the March 2024 parliamentary elections, turnout fell to approximately 41 percent, the lowest since the 1979 revolution, amid widespread disillusionment with political repression and limited electoral choices. The scale of opposition was even more apparent during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests. The United Nations reported that Iranian security forces were responsible for the deaths of at least 551 protesters, including 49 women and 68 children, across 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces. They also documented widespread arbitrary arrests and the use of disproportionate lethal force against largely peaceful demonstrators. 

Both regimes faced declining legitimacy as ordinary Iranians experienced economic hardship, political repression, and growing frustration with limited opportunities to influence their government. Under the Shah, corruption, inequality, and SAVAK’s suppression of dissent fueled opposition; under the Islamic Republic, inflation, unemployment, restrictions on personal freedoms, and the enforcement of compulsory hijab have driven public anger. In both periods, dissatisfied citizens mobilized to challenge state authority. Yet, mobilization is not the same as revolutionary success: the Islamic Republic’s entrenched security apparatus presents a substantially different obstacle to converting public opposition into regime change.

The Shattered Social Contract

The erosion of the social contract, the expectation that governments should provide prosperity, security, or representation in exchange for political authority, helps explain opposition in both periods of Iranian history. In each case, the social contract weakened when the state’s promises of national stability and progress failed to outweigh citizens’ experiences of political exclusion and repression. 

The monarchy’s rapid industrialization and the White Revolution’s land reforms sought to transform Iran into a modern regional power. However, economic development was accompanied by political repression and limited opportunities for meaningful participation. SAVAK, the monarchy’s intelligence and security organization, became synonymous with the surveillance and suppression of political opposition through torture and interrogation. The Shah promoted national progress without establishing institutions through which citizens could meaningfully influence government decisions. The 1971 Persepolis celebrations further illustrated this contradiction. While the monarchy showcased imperial grandeur, many Iranians faced economic uncertainty and political exclusion. By 1979, opposition to authoritarian rule had united diverse social groups, and the military’s declaration of neutrality on February 11 helped bring down the government.

The Islamic Republic faces a similar contradiction. Its legitimacy rests on religious authority and the promise of protecting Iran’s moral identity and political independence, yet its enforcement of religious law has increasingly alienated citizens demanding greater autonomy. Compulsory veiling illustrates this breakdown in the social contract, as women who appear in public without headscarves can face arrest, fines, or prosecution. An Amnesty International investigation from March 2024 documented how authorities used surveillance cameras and license plate monitoring to identify women violating dress codes, confiscated women’s vehicles, and threatened them with imprisonment. Such enforcement extended state control into everyday activities, making women’s access to transportation conditional on compliance with government-imposed religious standards. 

The 2022 protests further transformed opposition to compulsory hijab into a broader challenge to the state’s authority. Rather than addressing the grievances driving the demonstrations, the government’s response reinforced perceptions that it prioritized ideological obedience over citizens’ rights and autonomy, underscoring the republic’s reliance on coercion to maintain authority. 

The Vanguard of Change

Iranian youth played an important role in challenging both regimes. Before the 1979 revolution, expanding universities and urbanization contributed to politically engaged student populations. Students, intellectuals, and young professionals participated in opposition networks influenced by nationalism, Marxism, liberalism, and political Islam. Although their political goals differed, many opposed authoritarian rule and the absence of meaningful representation.

Culture became a means of resisting the monarchy’s official national identity, which emphasized pre-Islamic imperial heritage while restricting opposition. Students and intellectuals circulated alternative political ideas through literature, universities, and social networks. Revolutionary art, in particular, drew on Shi’a religious symbolism, anti-imperialist imagery, and themes of social justice to communicate resistance beyond formal political institutions. These cultural networks helped different groups articulate grievances against the Shah, but the 1979 revolution depended on a broad coalition of students, workers, and leaders whose opposition converged on the monarchy despite significant ideological differences.

Contemporary Iran has experienced a comparable struggle over cultural identity. Following Mahsa Amini’s death, women and young people challenged compulsory hijab through publicly removing headscarves, cutting their hair, and joining in demonstrations challenging the compulsory hijab. These acts directly contradicted the Islamic Republic’s claim that enforcing religious dress codes was necessary to preserve the country’s Islamic identity. The slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”, which originated in the Kurdish women’s movement, articulated demands for personal autonomy and equality that directly challenged the Islamic Republic’s restrictions. Social media also helped circulate protest imagery and document the government’s response in real time despite state restrictions on communication, showing that cultural resistance could challenge the government’s authority to define public morality.

Both generations challenged individual policies and contested the identities their governments attempted to impose on Iranian society. Under the Shah, opposition united around the rejection of monarchical authoritarianism and foreign influence, coupled with unequal consequences of modernization. In January 1978, protests erupted in Qom following a newspaper article attacking Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and demonstrations spread to other cities over subsequent months. On September 8, 1978, security forces opened fire on demonstrators in Tehran during what became known as Black Friday, intensifying opposition to the monarchy. By October, strikes had spread across the oil industry, schools, transportation, and government offices. These demonstrations helped transform scattered grievances into one coordinated national challenge that ultimately contributed to the Shah’s departure the following January and the monarchy’s ultimate collapse. 

Economic Ruin as an Accelerator

Economic distress further undermined both governments. During the 1970s, Iran’s oil boom generated extraordinary revenue but also encouraged excessive government spending and inflation. In 1974, Iran’s oil revenues quadrupled to approximately $20 billion, equivalent to roughly half of gross national product at the time. Rather than absorbing this income gradually, the government quickly expanded spending and imports faster than the economy could accommodate. As a result, the average annual inflation rose from approximately 2.6 percent during 1963-1972 to 15.7 percent from 1973-1978. Rising prices and unevenly distributed prosperity weakened the monarchy’s promise that modernization would improve the lives of ordinary Iranians. By September and October 1978, oil workers’ strikes were directly threatening the government’s economic lifeline. Oil production sharply fell, which deprived the state of revenue while demonstrating that workers could use collective action to challenge the monarchy’s authority.  

Contemporary Iran faces a different but similarly destabilizing combination of economic hardship and political exclusion. World Bank data indicates that annual consumer-price inflation reached approximately 43.5 percent in 2022 and 44.6 percent in 2023, which erodes purchasing power and makes basic necessities increasingly difficult to afford. International sanctions have restricted access to foreign investment and financial markets, while currency depreciation and domestic economic policies have compounded these pressures. These pressures are contributing to public frustration, but economic hardship has not automatically produced a unified movement capable of displacing the government. 

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) adds another dimension to public perceptions of inequality, as the organization has developed extensive political and commercial influence. Its position within the state creates institutional interests in preserving the existing political order. Beyond its military and security functions, the IRGC has extensive commercial interests in construction, infrastructure, energy, and trade. Its engineering conglomerate, Khatam al-Anbiya, has operated across major sectors of the Iranian economy, giving the organization both financial resources and an institutional stake in preserving the existing political order. Consequently, the Islamic Republic’s survival depends on a network of security, political, and economic institutions with interests tied to the regime’s continued existence. 

A Fragile Army Versus a Survivalist IRGC

The most significant difference between the two periods lies in the relationship between revolutionary mobilization and the security establishment. In 1979, the Imperial Iranian Army was central to the Shah’s survival, but it ultimately declared neutrality as revolutionary pressure intensified.

The monarchy’s collapse resulted in part from a crisis in the security establishment’s willingness and ability to sustain the Shah’s rule. Despite possessing a large, well-equipped military and SAVAK’s extensive intelligence network, the government struggled to contain the growing combination of mass demonstrations, nationwide strikes, and defections from its political base. By early 1979, prolonged unrest had undermined the monarchy’s authority, while uncertainty over the Shah’s future and divisions among political and military leaders complicated the government’s response. On February 11, 1979, the military declared neutrality in the conflict between the government and revolutionary forces, effectively removing its support for the monarchy and accelerating its collapse. This raises the question of whether a similar breakdown in loyalty could occur within Iran’s contemporary security apparatus. 

The Islamic Republic developed a different institutional arrangement through the IRGC. The organization was established to defend the revolutionary system alongside the regular armed forces. The Basij, a paramilitary organization that recruits civilian volunteers, provides additional capacity for mobilizing supporters and suppressing internal dissent. The overlapping institutions make a government breakdown exceedingly more difficult than in 1979. The IRGC also has significant political and economic interests tied to the existing order. A revolutionary transition could threaten its influence and institutional privileges, making it much less likely that the security establishment would abandon the government simply because public opposition expands.

The regime, however, is not invulnerable. Security institutions can always fracture, particularly during prolonged political or economic crises. The crucial distinction is that public dissatisfaction alone does not guarantee defections within the security apparatus. 

Conclusion

The comparison between 1979 and contemporary Iran reveals a recurring vulnerability of authoritarian rule: governments can preserve their institutions long after losing the confidence of significant segments of the population. Both the Shah and the Islamic Republic of Iran have faced challenges that have been rooted in political exclusion, economic grievances, and younger generations rejecting state-imposed identities. 

The key difference between the two periods lies in how public dissatisfaction translated into political change. In 1979, opposition to the Shah expanded across religious, educational, and political groups, while strikes and growing uncertainty within the military weakened the monarchy’s ability to govern. The military’s decision to declare neutrality ultimately removed a crucial pillar of the Shah’s power. 

In 2022, the Woman, Life, Freedom movement similarly united people around demands for accountability and liberty, but it did not produce the same degree of institutional breakdown or a unified alternative capable of replacing the government. The Islamic Republic’s security forces remained largely loyal, allowing the state to contain protests through repression despite widespread public anger. This contrast demonstrates that a crisis of legitimacy can create the conditions for revolutionary change, but it does not guarantee it. 

What we must learn, however, is that history does not guarantee repetition. The Islamic Republic’s multilayered security apparatus, the IRGC’s institutional interests, and the decentralized structure of contemporary opposition distinguish the present crisis from the monarchy’s final months. The likeliest outcome cannot be predicted with certainty, but the regime faces a persistent contradiction–it may possess the physical force to suppress dissent while lacking the public confidence necessary for long-term stability. Its survival will depend not simply on whether opposition movements mobilize again, but on whether the government can continue to rule a society whose consent it can no longer safely assume.