Author ORCID Identifier:
Date of Graduation
8-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Political Science (MS)
Degree Level
Graduate
Department
Political Science
Advisor/Mentor
Saeidi, Shirin
Committee Member
Mitchell, Joshua
Second Committee Member
Abedini, Vahid
Keywords
Despotism; Iran; Islamic Republic of Iran; Massacre; Sovereignty; Suppression
Abstract
Abstract Legality is a modern infrastructure, but when it is combined with the jurisprudence, which is very interpretive and subjective, an amorphous content is merged, which can be shaped for utilitarian purposes; and this is how the arbitrary legal system of Islamic Republic is staged. This unshaped legal system, courts/trials and penal codes, especially political charges are ambiguous contents, baffling the mindsets. This unclear setting is deterministically vague to scare the victim, and the audience with the stagecraft of the court. Sovereignty is defined both in the international affairs regarding the capability of one state ruling a country, but it is also defined in the context of the internal dissents as well. And this work is focusing on the latter, studying Islamic Republic’s capacity and autonomy: as the first is undermined by the erosion of the political dissenters, the second is rising. So now, let us add up the variables of amorphous legality, ambiguous content, and decreasing capacity, and we come up with the outcome that legality is morphed with ambiguous procedure and pattern, but paired with autonomy (to compensate for the lack of capacity). And here comes the stagecraft of courts, as judges subjectively give sentences in accordance with the situation the state is facing. Penal charges are intensified with the tension of statehood: the more erosion in the regime’s capacity, the more coercive it becomes toward dissent. This whole process should be performed with all the possible tools, like TV broadcasts, or showtime courts, so the theatrical legality of the still sovereign Islamic Republic not to be underestimated by any dissenting potency; a way to prevent, before coercive action is needed.
Citation
Maziar, N. (2025). Exercising Sovereignty in the Theater of Court: How Performative Punishments has substitute law implementation in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/5965
