Part I. Launching local democracy. Reshaping the State : political decentralization comes to Iran in the 1990s -- Launching municipal government, 1999-2003 -- Part II. Arguing for local democracy. Reformists, local democracy, and civil society : carrying the torch of the Anjumans in the 1906 constitutional revolution -- Efficiency in governance : technocratic discourse -- The theocratic and Islamist discourse on the Shura -- Part III. Blocking local democracy. The rocky path from elections to democracy -- City planning and the challenges of democratic governance -- Financing local democracy -- Geopolitics and the limits of international municipal cooperation -- What of the future of local democracy?
Summary
An innovative study of the political decentralization of Iran and the failure of elected local government to democratize the authoritarian regime
