The Sovereign Confessions: International Relations and the Iranian Post-Elections Show-Trials

Authors

  • Setareh Shohadaei University of Victoria

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18357/illumine9120107783

Abstract

Following the controversial 2009 presidential elections in Iran, a series of mass trials were conducted publicizing the confessions of key reformist figures as well as other dissidents. The confessions were widely criticized as theatrical, based on reports of human rights abuses, torture, and judicial procedural offences. This critique, however, often labelled the trials as either barbaric acts of terror, or at best as unintelligent failures of the Iranian government. In this paper, I engage with the most serious of such analyses, arguing that the show-trials are not mere strategic errors on the part of the regime; rather, a more in-depth structural analysis of the concept of sovereignty is required to understand the enabling condition of the trials.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Setareh Shohadaei, University of Victoria

Setareh Shohadaei is an M.A. student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria, specializing in cultural, social, and political thought as well as international relations. Her current project is a theoretical meditation on the Iranian post-elections confessions read through discourses on biopolitics, sovereignty, and history.

Downloads

Published

2011-07-23

How to Cite

Shohadaei, Setareh. 2011. “The Sovereign Confessions: International Relations and the Iranian Post-Elections Show-Trials”. Illumine: Journal of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society 9 (1). Victoria, British Columbia, Canada:108-32. https://doi.org/10.18357/illumine9120107783.

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2010)

Section

Articles

License

Authors contributing to ILLUMINE agree to release their articles under the Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License. This license allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.

Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.