Pahlavi Iran and the Politics of Occidentalism: The Shah and the Rastakhiz Party

This study analyses the politics of Occidentalism in the late-Pahlavi period, focusing on the clash between the pro-Western Shah and the anti-Western Islamic forces which eventually led to the Islamic Revolution.
Zhand Shakibi presents a new interpretation of the political and social dynamics of the last decade of the Shah’s rule by moving away from the binary view of the westernizing Shah and the Islamist, anti-West Ayatollah. Instead, he draws attention to the Pahlavi state’s reaction to societal backlash against cultural and political Occidentalism in its last decade. Revising the dominant historiography of the Pahlavi in regard to the West, the book draws attention to the changes in the attitude of the Shah, the Empress and state intellectuals towards the authenticity of Iranian national culture and the position of the West. Drawing on archival sources, this book presents the multi-faceted relationship of the Pahlavi state to the West and the institutions that were created to manage this such as the Rastakhiz Party. This study proposes forward that the Pahlavi state, having recognized the popular backlash against Western influence, attempted to limit the threat to its legitimacy by reformulating intellectual discourses of anti-West Occidentalism and incorporating them into the ideology of the Rastakhiz Party while playing a critical role in exacerbating societal worries about the spread of Western influence.