Theorizing the Crisis of Partisanship in Iran: A Reinterpretation of the Thought of Martyr Beheshti through the Spragens Model

Partisanship in the Islamic Republic of Iran, despite the Constitution’s explicit recognition of its freedom and the revolutionary experience’s emphasis on the role of collective participation, faces a paradoxical phenomenon. The political reality of the country reflects a chronic crisis characterized by institutional weakness, inefficiency, and the absence of a stable social base for political parties. This issue—namely, why the institution of the political party has failed to become an effective pillar of political development—has led the present study to undertake a systematic reinterpretation of the thought of Martyr Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti as one of the principal architects of the political system. To this end, employing a qualitative approach and the method of thematic analysis, the thought of Martyr Beheshti has been formulated within the theoretical framework of Thomas Spragens’s theory of crisis. The findings of the study indicate that, from the perspective of Martyr Beheshti, the causes of the crisis of party politics in Iran are rooted in multidimensional factors such as structural weakness, the persistence of authoritarian tradition, the absence of a participatory political culture, and dependence on power. In contrast, the ideal model of the political party in his thought is an independent, people-based, accountable institution committed to Islamic values, which performs a mediating role between society and the structure of power. The innovation of the present study lies in theorizing the thought of Martyr and presenting an analytical–indigenous model for understanding and resolving the crisis of party politics, a model that can fill the gap existing in previous studies. Finally, this study argues that overcoming this crisis requires structural reforms, a functional redefinition of political parties, and the institutionalization of conscious political participation based on the proposed model.