The contemporary reform movement in Iran came into being when Mohammad Khatami won the 1997 election with a landslide victory over his pro-conservative candidate, Ali Akbar Nateq Nuri. Khatami's victory created a political, social and cultural dynamic within the country, unseen since 1981. As a result, hope for political reform and greater democracy was generated within society. The politics of reform increased political participation in several elections, activated the political movements and gave Iran's weak civil society a chance to revitalise itself The latent potential for in the three areas found vigorous expression during the two terms of Khatami's presidency.

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Since the early days of 1979, the Islamic Revolution of Iran has been seen as a phenomenon unique in history, one which must be viewed as somehow separate from other political Islamic movements in the 20th century. In chapter 1, this thesis problematizes this interpretation of the Revolution by analyzing it through the lens of an earlier ideological movement, pan-Islamism, and applying methods from the study of conceptual history to draw linkages between this movement and the Islamic Revolution, rooting it more deeply in the region’s political and intellectual history, and casting light on the poorly-understood pan-Islamic aspects of Iran’s Revolutionary ideology. In chapter 2, it applies methodological innovations from the digital humanities, more specifically corpus linguistics, in carrying out a series of five case studies to examine the transformation of Iranian ideology over time, by analyzing a set of five text corpora comprised of individual leaders’ writings and speeches. It further illustrates how theoretical advances in discourse analysis and history seem to be moving towards the same point, and how the application of corpus linguistic methods advances these bodies of theory. Chapters 3 through 7 comprise the case studies, which are, in order: Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei, the two Supreme Leaders; Ali Akbar Hashemi Rasfanjani, Mohammad Khatami, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the three Presidents since 1989. These chapters illustrate through analysis of the textual data how each political leader has adapted the received political discourse to the exigencies of their times, and how pan-Islamism itself has remained a consistent, albeit dynamic, linking thread running through the period 1979-2009. By studying pan-Islamism in the Iranian context, we can explain several features of Iranian political discourse which otherwise seem incomprehensible, and better situate the Islamic Republic within the political and discursive transformations taking place at the regional level of the Middle East, and the global level of the Muslim umma.

La Révolution de 1979 a provoqué en Iran une vague de méfiance à l’égard des autres pays et l’hostilité envers les États-Unis a mis le pays dans une position conflictuelle avec le monde occidental. Avec l’affaire de la prise d’otages en novembre 1979, les relations entre l’Iran, les États-Unis et l’Europe ont été coupées. Tout cela n’a pas été sans conséquences sur la conservation du patrimoine culturel : si Persépolis a échappé à la destruction, en revanche le mausolée de Reza Shah a été complétement détruit par les révolutionnaires. Cependant des démarches effectuées par les spécialistes eurent pour résultat l’enregistrement pour la première fois de trois monuments historiques de l’Iran sur la liste du patrimoine mondial : Tchogha Zanbil près de Suse, Persépolis dans la province de Fars et la place de Naghsh-e-Jahan à Ispahan. Malheureusement, le déclenchement subit de la guerre avec l’Irak n’a pas laissé le temps de mettre en place les mesures de protection et pendant huit ans les sites et les monuments historiques de l’Iran ont subi quantité de dégâts.Après la guerre, jusqu’en 1997, le gouvernement de M. Rafsandjani entreprit de relever les ruines résultant de « la Guerre Imposée ». Mais l’inflation, qui pourtant ne fut à aucun moment supérieure à ce qu’elle avait été pendant « l’époque de la Construction », entraîna peu à peu la dépréciation de la monnaie et l’augmentation des inégalités sociales. Cette situation, qui empira jusqu’au gouvernement de M. Rohani, fit qu’on porta moins d’attention au patrimoine culturel. En fait, après la Révolution de 1979, les biens du patrimoine culturel de l’Iran ont été répartis en deux groupes : ceux qui pouvaient être considérés comme le patrimoine religieux, et ceux qui, antérieurs à la conquête musulmane de la Perse, n’avaient aucun rapport avec la spiritualité musulmane chiite. Les investissements pour la restauration et la protection des monuments du premier groupe n’ont été faits que pour propager le chiisme et dans le but d’influencer de plus en plus l’opinion publique, déjà sensible à la question de la religion et aux miracles des imams chiites. Cependant, bien qu’appartenant à ce groupe, certaines mosquées historiques et des caravansérails n’intéressent pas les organismes culturels du pays, du fait de leur faible rentabilité. En soi, la meilleure solution pour réaliser les plans de sauvegarde des monuments historiques serait la participation de la population, mais l’étude du lien entre la société et le gouvernement montre qu’une telle coopération dépasse largement le seul domaine culturel et prend aujourd’hui en Iran un sens politique. / The Revolution of 1979 in Iran leaded to a wave of distrust of the other lands and to hostility towards the United States. It put the land also into a situation of confrontation with western world. The hostage-taking in November 1979 resulted in a breakup of relations between Iran, the United States and Europe. All of this has not been without effect on the heritage conversations.If Persepolis escaped the destruction, but Reza Shah’s Mausoleum was completely demolished by revolutionists. However the employment of specialists had an outcome, that for the first time three historical monuments of Iran were put on the list of UNESCO-world heritage site: Tchogha Zanbil near Susa, Persepolis in Fars-province and Naghsh-e Jahan Square (world-image) in Esfahan. Unfortunately the sudden outbreak of war with Iraq allowed no time for protection-sanction and for 8 years the historical cities and monuments of Iran have been much more damaged.After the war, the government of Akbar Rafsanjani committed to rebuild the ruins resulted by imposed war. But never higher as “period of construction”, the inflation leaded gradually to a currency debasement, also to an increase in social inequality. Got worse till 11. government, this situation made the people pay less attention to cultural heritage.After the revolution of 1979, the cultural goods of Iran were separated into two groups, on the one hand, the ones regarded as religious heritage and on the other hand, the ones built before the Muslims’ conquest with no deal with shiitic spirituality. The investment for protection of monuments in the first group aimed to dissemination of Shiism thus the public opinion, which has already been sensitive to the religion issues and the miracle of shiitic imams, should be influenced. But a few historical mosques and caravansaries belonged to this group, due to its low profitability didn’t interest the culture-organization.The best solution to ensure the preservation of historical monuments should be the involvement of population. However the investigations of the relation between society and government showed, that such a cooperation goes far beyond the cultural field and has a political meaning in society.