An Essay on Scholarship, Human Rights, and State Legitimacy: The Case of the Islamic Republic of Iran

I. Introduction

Current events in Iran provide a disturbing backdrop for ethical reflections by scholars of that country. Today, as the once ferocious script of the Islamist Revolution—that peculiar mixture of anachronism and an outdated third world radicalism—is left with only aging actors and a declining audience, almost everything and everyone is discreetly reverting back to what was most familiar before 1979. The Islamic Revolution was powerful enough to wreak havoc but not powerful enough to change the nature of the modern state or the secular habits of middle-class Iranians. The Shah’s state is reasserting itself, bulky and corrupt as never before, with its authoritarian practices and its technocratic hierarchy of purposes in making development policies. Statist rhetoric and symbols have begun to vie with those of the politically reconstructed Shi’ism. ¹ A new generation of technobureaucrats is also appearing, with a strong desire to placate secular, middle class Iranians and to make the Islamic Republic more amenable to the West. These new bureaucrats are reaching out to some Western academics who in turn desire to recreate the cordial relations their predecessors used to enjoy with the Shah’s regime. Advocating normalization with the Islamist regime, these academics have begun to extol the virtues of a dialogue with the Islamic Republic. They accept invitations from state-controlled institutions and travel to Iran, often with expenses paid. In the first ten years of the Islamic Republic, an apologist in Western academia was a rarity. Today, the state has begun to assume a traditional role as magnet for both technobureaucrats and academics. The academics, searching for a rationale for their attraction, offer sociopolitical analyses to justify their legitimation of the clerical regime. As will be discussed later, not all academics who advocate normalization are necessarily motivated by the state’s magnetic abilities. What is perturbing, however, is that this new convergence of priorities and interests again marginalizes considerations of human rights. As under the Shah, they tend to become less than an afterthought. This essay is written in part as a response to this disturbing trend.

It has been a practice for the international human rights community to outline ethical guidelines for doctors, nurses, and psychiatrists in relation to human rights violations, especially with respect to children and the victims of torture. Many creative artists, novelists, poets, and playwrights also pay close attention to human rights violations around the world. They appreciate the centrality of rights to contemporary sociopolitical realities of countries like Iran or China. The same cannot be said about many aca-demics in the social sciences and humanities, where there is no clear conception of academic responsibility with regard to human rights abuses. Even some US corporate executives have begun to debate a “reconception of corporate responsibility” with regard to investment in countries that violate human rights. ² Some scientific institutions do recognize human rights responsibilities. In 1976 the National Academy of Sciences established a Committee on Human Rights, but its mandate is limited to situations where scientists around the world fall victim to oppressive governments. ³ In 1978 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences also appointed a study group, under Professor Stanley Hoffmann, to explore the ethical issues that were created by the apparent willingness on the part of prestigious US universities to respond positively to foreign governments’ demands for institutional agreements. During the 1960s and 1970s, certain governments with notorious human rights records sought service contracts that would engage universities to set up colleges and technical institutes in their respective countries. Human rights advocates were concerned that the contracting governments’ main political aim was to create an air of legitimacy and buy international respect by having universities with great international prestige and eminence at their service. Some attempts were made to create institutional guidelines for US academia. ⁴ The Shah’s government provided one of the most disturbing and controversial cases through its contract with Harvard University. The authoritarian Iranian regime rightly assumed that the presence of a university would lend it support.

Today, foreign...