The Local in the Global: Agriculture, State and Revolution in Iran

Examines state & class restructuring in late-19th-century Iran in connection with the reorganization of world agriculture under the "Second Colonialism." Seeing the local within the global & vice versa, & linking economy, polity, & culture, an alternative interpretation of the nature of nationalism is provided. It is shown that the relations of the Iranian state & the mercantile classes with the world market led to contradictory developments. Export cropping opened new opportunities for expanding merchants' economic horizons. As they gained financial strength, they articulated & asserted their interests. At the same time, however, the Iranian state was being internationalized, as it increasingly represented the political & commercial interests of colonial powers. The domestic "contraction" of the state & the "expansion" of national commercial classes created tension between the state & the merchant bourgeoisie who, in the course of their struggles for state representation, merged with the rising pan-Islamic reaction against European colonialism. Pan-Islamism, by its capacity for articulating the economic nationalism of the mercantile classes in ethical terms, mobilized the masses to struggle for the nationalization of the state. Hence, nationalism & modernity in Iran took a nonsecular character. 2 Tables, 39 References. Adapted from the source document.