Iranian security forces have cracked down on protesters for the past two weeks, with at least 76 people reported killed and hundreds arrested. Iranians are protesting the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was reportedly beaten to death by Iran’s morality police, a unit within Iran’s national police (NAJA), for not wearing a proper hijab, or head covering. Under Iranian law, all women are required to wear a hijab.
For the past two weeks, just like previous protest waves in December 2017-January 2018, November 2019 and January 2020, Iran’s security forces have remained loyal to the Islamic Republic, indicating no sign of defection. The research suggests that a country’s armed forces are key to determining the outcome of social movements, if political elites show few signs of stepping down.
What do we know about Iran’s security forces and their loyalties?
Iran’s security forces include a complex web of interlocking agencies, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), regular police (NAJA), secret services and the standing army (Artesh). Iran has two militaries: Artesh, which was established under the rule of the Pahlavi monarchy, and the IRGC, established after the 1979 revolution.
Are Iran’s hijab protests different from past protest waves?
One important factor in determining the armed forces’ incentives to stick with the regime is whether they have economic incentives to remain loyal. In other words, they might have material interests that will be at risk in the absence of the current incumbents. That is very much the case in Iran.
My research suggests that many governments have granted their armed forces opportunities to make extra-budgetary profits as a way to co-opt the armed forces into being loyal agents. Business entities run by the armed forces are prevalent not only in Iran, but also throughout the Middle East/North Africa and other parts of the world. These businesses include the ownership/management of profit-making enterprises such as banks, consumer goods factories and construction companies.
Do business interests change incentives to repress?
Iran’s first military-run economic enterprise, Khatam-al-Anbia, was established in the late 1980s, following the end of the Iran-Iraq war, and placed under the control of the commander of the IRGC. Several factors drove this decision, including the need to decrease the military budget and to implement institutional changes within the IRGC and the army. But it was also a specific way to create a cohesive repressive apparatus.
Over the past four decades, Khatam-al-Anbia has become Iran’s largest contractor on many projects, from industrial ventures to mining, gas, oil and petrochemicals. My research shows that the IRGC directly controls or owns at least 275 firms today, across almost all sectors of the Iranian economy. And 54 of these firms are under the direct control of Basij, an armed wing of the IRGC that is among the first units deployed to control mass protests.
Iran’s police organization, NAJA, also directly controls at least 79 business entities, including the NAJA Cooperative Foundation, one of Iran’s largest holding companies. The Artesh, while heavily purged after the 1979 revolution, controls at least 30 entities including the Army’s Cooperative Foundation.
These business enterprises provide both officers and rank-and-file soldiers incentives to remain loyal to the government. Particularly for IRGC members, the prospect of regime change would probably put at risk millions of dollars worth of profits — as well as jobs and benefits that are generated through these entities.
Will Iran’s struggle for change succeed, given security forces’ business interests?
Many countries, including Venezuela, Egypt, Syria, Myanmar, Cuba and Yemen, have used this strategy of co-opting the armed forces through monetary incentives. This approach can prove a double-edged sword, however. My research shows that defection depends on how economically consolidated the armed forces are. Economic consolidation means first, whether the armed forces have created large economic webs throughout time, and second, whether they have been able to maintain those economic webs through leader transitions.
Armed forces tend to not defect when they are economically unconsolidated. But as the armed forces consolidate their economic power over time, they will have less incentive to protect those in power. Indeed, sometimes they have more incentives to defect, when sticking to the regime endangers their economic power.
The Iranian armed forces have not experienced any power transitions since becoming involved in the economy, which means they are not fully consolidated. This, along with ideological commitments to the core values of the Islamic Republic, can help explain why the continuation of the current Iranian regime is so vital to the IRGC.
Are there lessons from Egypt and elsewhere?
The scenario was quite different in Egypt in 2011. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces had to weigh its own economic concerns when deciding whether to allow the increasingly unpopular president, Hosni Mubarak, to be overthrown. Instability would have threatened millions of dollars the Egyptian military earned each year if the protests dragged the country into a civil conflict. As one commentator at the time noted, “People in the middle of violent political chaos don’t buy dishwashers.” The Egyptian military had heavily invested in various industries since 1952. Throughout the decades, the military expanded its business entities and weathered leader transitions in 1956, 1970 and again in 1981.
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The research suggests a consolidated military — like those in Egypt, Pakistan or Myanmar — will repress protests to avoid a scenario where protests target the armed forces themselves. Armed forces that are deeply invested in the civilian economies have incentives to intervene in any social, political and economic aspect of their societies that touches upon those interests. And armed forces on the path toward economic consolidation tend to be loyal forces.
The decision of the Iranian security forces, especially the IRGC, to remain a loyal force or refuse to crackdown on protests will depend greatly on what might happen to their grip on economic power. The deepening web of economic interests make it unlikely that they will join the protesters, or ease up on the crackdowns.
Iran’s standing army, Artesh, has less economic and political influence and hasn’t been used as extensively to suppress protests in the past. That might leave its rank and file more likely to defect in case they are deployed against the protesters. But, short of that, Iran’s military appears unlikely to defect from the regime in support of the current protests.
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Roya Izadi is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island and a nonresident research fellow at the Gender and Security Sector Lab at Cornell University.