The Outbreak of the Iranian Islamic Revolution: A Neoclassical Realism Perspective

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-577-5_111How to use a DOI?

Keywords

The Iranian Islamic Revolution; Neoclassical Realism; Foreign Policy

Abstract

The Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 represents a pivotal transformation in both Iran’s domestic political order and Middle Eastern geopolitics. Existing explanations often emphasize religious mobilization, socio-economic change, or foreign intervention in isolation. This article advances a neoclassical realist framework to explain the rapid collapse of the Pahlavi monarchy and the swift success of the Islamic Revolution by integrating international systemic pressures with domestic mediating variables. It argues that systemic changes in the 1970s—including the relative decline of U.S. hegemony, the strategic retrenchment embodied in the Nixon Doctrine, the Carter administration’s human rights diplomacy, and Soviet expansionism—constituted key external stimuli. However, these pressures shaped outcomes only through domestic filters, particularly deteriorating state–society relations, leaders’ perceptions, and Iran’s strategic culture rooted in anti-colonialism and Shi’a resistance. Through process tracing and historical analysis, the study demonstrates how the leadership’s misperception of both domestic opposition and U.S. commitment, combined with partial liberalization and elite fragmentation, eroded regime legitimacy. In contrast, Ayatollah Khomeini effectively interpreted systemic constraints, mobilized religious networks, and transformed external pressure into revolutionary momentum. This study extends the applicability of neoclassical realism to revolutionary and religious states, offering a cross-level explanation for regime collapse and foreign policy transformation in non-Western contexts.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Kaihan Yi
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/15
TI  - The Outbreak of the Iranian Islamic Revolution: A Neoclassical Realism Perspective
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 5th International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities and Arts (SSHA 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1085
EP  - 1092
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-577-5_111
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-577-5_111
ID  - Yi2026
ER  -