Modernization without westernization: An academic analysis of Iran's eastern civilizational identity and the Pahlavist historical misreading

Abstract

This paper examines the modernization policies of the Iranian Pahlavi dynasty through the concept of selective modernization. By distinguishing between instrumental modernization like technology and infrastructure versus cultural westernization, the study analyzes how the Shah reforms interacted with local society. Drawing on historical roots extending from antiquity through the Islamic era, the article demonstrates how traditional sociocentric norms met a top down model that treated modernity as an indivisible whole, which ultimately affected the regime legitimacy. Also available in a Norwegian original version