TITLE:
The Ruling Elite Political Culture in Contemporary Iran
AUTHORS:
Mohammad Ali Khosravi, Shohreh Shahsavari Fard
KEYWORDS:
Political Culture, Iran, Ruling Elite, Allegiance and Non-Participatory Culture
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Political Science,
Vol.6 No.3,
July
7,
2016
ABSTRACT: History has showed us that development in every society depends on the elite political roles; hence, their viewpoints regarding socio-political programs and individuals’ needs have played a vital role in determining the fate of a specific society. Also, the elite political culture is considered as an effective factor in political development within the realm of political sociology. To this end, the current study sets out to put forward a precise definition of the political elite culture. In this respect, political elite is not defined in a general sense1 because 79 million Iranian people out of 80 million may regard themselves as elites. Rather, this term was used in a specific sense which was the term “Ruling Class” (Aron, 1991). Also, Moska utilized “the Ruling Class” and Lasswell employed the concept of “the Political Elite” (Badi, 2006). It is claimed that a non-participatory political culture rather than a participatory political one has been considered as one of the main serious reasons for the political underdevelopment; moreover, the elite political culture or ideology in the contemporary era has not been significantly influenced by the new tendencies and developments. Hence, such a culture has been regarded as the continuation of the old patrimonial culture. The present research employs the refined Gabriel Almondba’s model to answer the non-participatory political elite hypothesis during some specific periods of time.