TY - BOOK ID - 85900258 TI - Presidential elections in Iran : Islamic idealism since the revolution AU - Pargoo, Mahmoud AU - Akbarzadeh, Shahram PY - 2021 SN - 1108993435 1108999336 1108999115 1108834507 PB - Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, DB - UniCat KW - Presidents KW - Islam and politics KW - Presidential candidates KW - Elections KW - Election. KW - Iran KW - Politics and government KW - Candidates for president KW - Nominees for president KW - Presidential nominees KW - Political candidates KW - Presidency KW - Heads of state KW - Executive power KW - Election UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:85900258 AB - The dominant narrative of Iranian society and politics heralds the reformist movement as the epitome of Iran's transition to secularity, while conservative political forces are positioned as advocates of Islamization and a bulwark against secularization. Examining all the presidential elections since the revolution, Mahmoud Pargoo and Shahram Akbarzadeh argue that in contrast, political and cultural imagination and expectations in Iran have actually secularized regardless of the reformist/conservative divide. Exploring the evolution of campaign discourses from the 1980s elections which brought Abolhassan Banisadr, Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Ali Khamenei to power, to the more recent campaigns of Mohamad Khatami, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Rouhani, this book suggests that current debates in Iranian domestic politics are not between secularists and their opponents, but rather, between different kinds of secular forces. ER -