This paper focuses on the extra-economic aspects of progress and planning in the post-coup era (1954-1979), when progress was translated into economic development, to discuss the 1979 Revolution and the present moment in Iran. This era is marked with the (extra-)discursive domination of Modernization Theory, the White Revolution (1963), and comprehensive development plans which introduced massive economic and social reforms in Iran and influenced, framed and limited the post-revolutionary politics and policies. The paper argues for a continuous tension in pre- and post-revolutionary Iranian state, which is crystallized for the first time in the post-coup era around the idea of progress and its temporal implication. The Pahlavi state in pre-revolutionary Iran and in particular in the 1970s carried this tension between the two rival state projects, namely, ‘Imperial Iran’ and ‘Iranian national state’.
The 1979 Revolution transformed this duality to a tension between the ‘Islamic Revolution’ and the ‘Islamic Republic’ in the post-revolutionary era. The ‘Imperial Iran’ and ‘Islamic Revolution’ are based on a messianic time that understands Iran at the most critical moment of its history. In contrast, the pre-revolutionary ‘Iranian national state’ and the post-revolutionary ‘Islamic Republic’ work with a homogeneous empty time manifested in the Development Plans. The Development Plans in pre- and post-revolutionary era rest on a linear historical narrative that regards progress as forward movement on the road to modernization. The Plan Organization and the rise of oil revenue in the post-coup era, institutionally and discursively, influenced the idea of progress in the Islamic Republic. Thus, in contrast to conventional accounts of the 1979 Revolution in Iran that often emphasize discontinuities more than continuities, this paper rejects the ruptural assumption of 1979 as a general reference point to account for the present moment.
