Iranian Journal of Sociology

Abstract By reviewing the normative studies of the formation of the public sphere from a historical perspective, this paper represents the hypothesis that the public sphere emerged in Iran and in the West at the same time, particularly in Britain. But unlike the West in which the public sphere resisted the governmental pressure and developed every day, in Iran power networks were the main obstacles facing the development of the public sphere, especially in Safavid dynasty era. Therefore, the expansion of the social expressions of religion led to the circumstances in which the public sphere was dominated by religion. With the rise of religious authority, public institutions (like coffeehouses which were the seeds of the public sphere) were destroyed and replaced by religious institutions and rituals. Later on in Qajar dynasty era, the government destroyed the remnants of the public sphere. So unlike the West, in Iran public institutions could not resist the governmental power and censorship. Ignoring such historical backgrounds have led to studies in this area which are based on normative and prescriptive approaches, thinking that obstacles in the way of emerging public sphere are to be found in political structure and believing it to be a right to demand it from government and political structures. While in the West it was the other way around: democracy was born out of the public sphere. The author has extracted the signs of simultaneous emergence of public sphere in West and Iran and the backgrounds of changes in public sphere content towards religious rituals, based on the analysis of European travelogues in two periods. The final analysis of this paper is that the weakness of public sphere in Iran has a social content.

Abstract By reviewing the normative studies of the formation of the public sphere from a historical perspective, this paper represents the hypothesis that the public sphere emerged in Iran and in the West at the same time, particularly in Britain. But unlike the West in which the public sphere resisted the governmental pressure and developed every day, in Iran power networks were the main obstacles facing the development of the public sphere, especially in Safavid dynasty era. Therefore, the expansion of the social expressions of religion led to the circumstances in which the public sphere was dominated by religion. With the rise of religious authority, public institutions (like coffeehouses which were the seeds of the public sphere) were destroyed and replaced by religious institutions and rituals. Later on in Qajar dynasty era, the government destroyed the remnants of the public sphere. So unlike the West, in Iran public institutions could not resist the governmental power and censorship.    Ignoring such historical backgrounds have led to studies in this area which are based on normative and prescriptive approaches, thinking that obstacles in the way of emerging public sphere are to be found in political structure and believing it to be a right to demand it from government and political structures. While in the West it was the other way around: democracy was born out of the public sphere. The author has extracted the signs of simultaneous emergence of public sphere in West and Iran and the backgrounds of changes in public sphere content towards religious rituals, based on the analysis of European travelogues in two periods. The final analysis of this paper is that the weakness of public sphere in Iran has a social content