میثم قهرمان

In 19th century Iran, through the publication of travelogues, the expansion of capitalism, and familiarity with the governance methods of Western countries, a system of knowledge or grand discourse emerged that represented Iran's backwardness and illness. Within this system of knowledge (episteme), various discourses aimed at remedying this illness were formed, one of the vital being the discourse of modernist nationalism which served as a counter-discourse to the "Anti-autocratic Constitutionalist" discourse and sought to justify its propositions in response to it, was extensively exploited by the Pahlavi court and managed to become the dominant discourse of the court for a long time. The present study employs the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, focusing on the question of ‘What the semantic network of modernist nationalism discourse was and what function it aimed to achieve?’ The semantic coordinates of this discourse are examined. The results indicated that the most significant signifier of the modernist nationalism discourse was "Iranian nationalism," which, by outlining a semantic network composed of various elements such as superficial and top-down modernization, centralization (establishment of a dominant state), the necessity of reviving the monarchy and kingship, secularism and opposition to Islamism, and the strengthening of militarism, aimed to consolidate the power of the Pahlavi regime by providing a solution for Iran's backwardness.  

Governmentality is regulating and directing behavior with the aim of governing with the lowest possible cost. In efficient governmentality, subjects must relate to themselves in such a way (form their understanding and behavior) that they freely and creatively reproduce or update a certain order. Therefore, the basic question of the present article is as follows: How and in what way should efficient Islamic governmentality be established so that on the one hand, Islam and Islamic teachings play a significant role in shaping the understanding and behavior of the subjects, on the other hand, can the creativity and innovation of the subjects be used in order not to marginalize Islam in Muslim life? To answer this question, we must consider Islam as an immanent political force or political spirituality that is current in people's lives (not Islam as an epistemological system that should lead to the rule of law). Islam as an active political force in human life (as manifested in the Islamic Revolution) continuously shapes people's desire for change and resistance (as active forces that live on the limits), and turns them into efficient subjects who creatively apply Islam (as a social knowledge) in their daily lives and keep it efficient.