ABSTRACT
Social and economic factors often play important roles in producing revolutionary circumstances. While revolutions are caused by the structural breakdown of the political apparatus, they can be and in fact often are considerably exacerbated by social and economic developments. In most revolutionary instances, the process and the consequences of social change provide the necessary and appropriate societal background in which popular revolutionary mobilization takes place. This chapter discusses the social and economic changes that took place in Iran before the 1978-79 revolution and examines the social and economic background in which the political collapse of the regime and the activities of the revolutionaries occurred. The exploitation of such socio-economic developments by the various revolutionary groups, and the socially determinant causes for the ulema's hegemony over the revolutionary movement will be discussed in the next chapter. First it is necessary to review the process of social change in Iran before the revolution.
