ABSTRACT
During the years of the Constitutional Revolution and the Great War, Iran experienced a widespread and general reassertion of tribal power, and by 1921 much of the country was under tribal control. Riza Khan’s seizure of power, however, inaugurated a transformation in the relationship between the centre and periphery in Iran. For the new regime and for the nationalist elite which supported it, the suppression of the tribes was an indispensable element of their larger project: the construction of a modern, centralized state with a culturally homogeneous population. Their agenda was clear: the destruction of the autonomy and feudal authority of the tribal leaderships was to be closely followed by the subjection of the tribal populations to the unmediated power of the modernized state and their integration into settled society. From the very moment of seizing power in Tehran, the new regime embarked on a sustained effort to establish its military and administrative hegemony over the tribes.
