The Hughes Court

The Hughes Court: From Progressivism to Pluralism, 1930 to 1941 describes the closing of one era in constitutional jurisprudence and the opening of another. This comprehensive study of the Supreme Court from 1930 to 1941 – when Charles Evans Hughes was Chief Justice – shows how nearly all justices, even the most conservative, accepted the broad premises of a Progressive theory of government and the Constitution. The Progressive view gradually increased its hold throughout the decade, but at its end, interest group pluralism began to influence the law. By 1941, constitutional and public law was discernibly different from what it had been in 1930, but there was no sharp or instantaneous Constitutional Revolution in 1937 despite claims to the contrary. This study supports its conclusions by examining the Court's work in constitutional law, administrative law, the law of justiciability, civil rights and civil liberties, and statutory interpretation.

Understanding the Reasons for Transition from Iranian Constitutional State to Authoritarian State: an Analysis in the Framework of Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory

Throughout the history, the formation of the constitutional state has been the first experience of the modern state in Iran. The change in power relations and the restriction of authoritarian power were among the most important issues of constitutional state. The current study aims at investigating the reasons for transition from Constitutional state to an authoritarian bureaucratic state by adopting Laclau and Mouffe’s framework to political discourse analysis. Research methodology is descriptive-analytical conducted by library–based data. The results showed that the constitutional revolution transformed the power structure and traditional state, but the constitutional revolution failed to create a new order. Despite legal provisions such as the formation of the parliamentary system and the constitution, the constitutional state was unable to exercise its legal power. The co-existence of traditional and reactionary components such as the Khānins, tribal leaders, tribal populations and owners in line with modern elements, intellectuals and the heterogeneity of the ruling political elites made the constitutional revolution incapable of producing profound politico-social changes. As a result, a number of internal and external factors such as financial crisis, tribal power, the imperialist treaty of 1907,disillusionment of political elites, the formation of centrifugal forces, insecurity and global chaos and development of neighboring countries, diversity of ideological in line with geopolitical points of view have been the most important factors in the transition to the authoritarian bureaucratic state of Pahlavi and the failure of the nation – building process and the collapse of politico-constitutional system in Iran.

Divine vs. Human Law: The Quarrel between the Anti- and Pro-Constitutionalist Jurists in Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906

This study investigated the quarrel between the pro-and anti-constitutionalist jurists following the establishment of the first National Consultative Assembly (Majlis) in Iran and the drafting of the first constitution in 1906. A group of shi῾ite jurists launched an attack on Majlis, in addition to the ideas of human legislation, freedom, and equality, by considering the Islamic Sharī῾a law to be a set of perfect and impeccable laws. In response to these oppositions, the pro-constitutional jurists argued in favor of the constitutional movement. In this paper, it is argued that the quarrel could be considered as evidence for the perennial tension between the divine and human law in Islam. It appears that examining this conflict may shed light on incidents shaping the history of contemporary Iran.

Gozareshhayi az Enqelab-e Mashrutiyyat-e Iran [Reports on the Iranian Constitutional Revolution] Mohammad Amin Rasulzadeh (trans. Rahim Ra’isniya, introduction by Kaveh Bayat) (1998). Tehran, Iran: Shirazeh, 360 pages. ISBN 964-6578, 228

Mohammad Amin Rasulzadeh’s Journalism Mohammad Amin Rasulzadeh (1884-1954) was a prominent journalist and political activist from the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan who would also become the first head of the Azerbaijani National Council. He apparently got his start in journalism, contributing to Hemmat, a magazine sponsored by Muslim socialists and other progressives. In the one surviving article from that period which illustrates his political outlook, he writes, in the floral and colorful style of his early years, about four people, a nationalist, a democrat, a reactionary, and a progressive, and how it is only by them joining hands and avoiding division that anything will be accomplished. One of the first of his journalistic campaigns was healing the wounds opened by the Armenian-Muslim massacres of 1905, which he blamed on the Russian imperial bureaucracy. However, the Armenian left-nationalist Dashnaks did not escape reproach for betraying socialism by engaging in nationalist provocations. He also campaigned for European-style reading rooms to raise the level of culture among the Muslims.