Iran’s Constitutional History from Below: Petitions, Taxes, and Democratization (1906-1911)

Constitutional revolution is imagined to be about freedom, legal-rationality, and formal democratic achievements such as constitution-making, legislative assembly, voting, and political parties. These goals were pursued by the elite but cannot explain the movement’s broad appeal. The large number of petitions received by the Assembly indicate the public was engaged in a tax revolt throughout Iran, a revolt that merged only eventually with the elite agenda. The blending of the two sustained the constitutional movement and managed also to deepen democracy in its own way. Bargaining over taxes brought the public many local victories with impact on daily lives, and petitions and associations constructed an alternative public sphere that gave voice to the public. These transformed the culture of politics and set the stage for mass movements of the next century. It also set in motion a decentralization drive that manifested itself in the next decade up to the present.