Analytical framework of the Islamic Revolution; Multi-causal conceptual model

In the last four decades, domestic and foreign writers have published various studies on why the Islamic Revolution of Iran took place. Now, in the fortieth anniversary of the revolution, this issue still has research appeal. Scholars and analysts in the field of the Islamic Revolution have each emphasized an aspect of it and presented a different narrative according to their intellectual and political perspectives. The present study seeks to review the existing literature on the causes of the Islamic Revolution, to provide an analytical framework based on a multi-causal approach, and based on it, to draw a conceptual model of revolutionary change in Iran in 1978. Accordingly, the three elements of tyranny, dependence, and corruption and discrimination are considered as fundamental weaknesses of the Pahlavi regime, which became unresolved crises due to the inefficiency of the regime and the strength of the rival discourses. In the meantime, religious ideology, due to its historical advantages and social advantages, was able to present itself in a position of hegemonic superiority by presenting an alternative model, and to offer freedom and republic, independence and justice as the elements of its desired model.