Cultural Citizenship in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Author
epartment of Law and Political Science, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran
Abstract
Iran is a multicultural country that encompasses various ethnic, lingual and religious groups. The purpose of this article is to show how does the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran deal with the issue of cultural diversity? We used the method of conforming theory with sample. Cultural citizenship theories are also used as a theoretical framework to analyze the solution. The most important finding of this study is that the Constitution of Iran provides a two-layer solution for the issue of socio-cultural diversity. The lower layer comprises cultural politics of centralism which, in turn, is the result of domination of Islamic, Shiite, Persian, and patriarchal culture. In contrast, the upper layer comprises a combination of politics of wide recognition (especially in language and ethnicity areas) and politics of narrow recognition (especially religion, women, and vulnerable social groups). Although the constitutional solution has similarity with modern culture citizenship, some citizens (including ethnic, religious and sexual minorities) do not consider the complete autonomy.

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The Holy Quran
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