Tracing the Roots of the First Pahlavi's Discourse from the Views of the Modernists in the Constitutional Era

This study aims at illustrating the roots of Reza Shah's discourse especially in the years 1921 to 1926 in the constitutional modernist's viewpoints. The writers believe that westernism, secularism, tendency to a strong government and nationalism are the most prominent common contexts between the modernist's and Reza shah's discourses. The actions of these modernists provided the social and intellectual grounds for accepting the first Pahlavi's discourse. Reza shah's discourse was not an accidental and rootless thing but had deep contexts in the social domain and especially among the elite of the constitutional era's society. The fall of the constitutional revolution in the lap of authoritarianism and dictatorship has many reasons. This study aims at finding its intellectual roots, and bases its data on this era's modernist's thoughts and ideas. In this reading, Reza shah's discourse was a product of the mixture of the absolute traditional monarchy discourse and the modernist intellect of the constitutional era that appeared in a modern but authoritative way as following a period of insecurity and frustration.