Nations in crossroad: A comparative analysis of Türkiye and Iran

Image taken from The Media Line

“Why Nation Fails” is a book familiar to most LSE students where the Nobel Prize winners Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson wrote about how institutions affect the success of nations. However, as history students, we might question how historical inequalities and injustice jeopardise the success of nations beyond institutions. Hence, I want to compare two very similar countries, Türkiye and Iran and how historical modernisation policies affect the quality of life in these nations.

In this blog, measuring “quality of life” means an improvement in physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. By associating progress with quality of life, we can directly compare and contrast the circumstances of two socially similar, but politically distinct societies. To substantiate this, the roles of Türkiye and Iran following their independence will be analysed about their standing before and after the reform.

Both of these nations' political, socioeconomic, and cultural developments were extremely alike; the predecessors of Türkiye and Iran were both absolute monarchies, with general discontent regarding their weakening rule. The regime change in both nations was also violent, with Atatürk and Khomeini having to garner popular support before taking control of the government. Islam was also the predominant religion with 99% of the population of both adhering to the respective religion. Lastly, their geographies are comparable, with Türkiye and Iran having vast territory and diverse topography. Because of this similarity, it is possible to directly deduce the role modernisation plays in the progression of a nation-state. Türkiye, with Atatürk's reforms, followed the path of modernisation, while Khomeini's conservative Iran, chartered a path back to its fundamentalist roots. 

I will first discuss the development of political rights for both nations. After the Turkish War of Independence and the Iranian Revolution, political dissidents in both nations were routinely imprisoned or executed. In Türkiye, Atatürk imposed a one-party rule to transition into a multi-party democracy after Türkiye stabilised. This promise was fulfilled, and the inaugural multi-party election was held in 1946. Conversely, in Islamic Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini became the supreme leader of Iran, having an iron fist in commanding and manipulating national policies at his discretion. This system is still in place today, with the Iranian government's incomprehensible number of organs aimed at compartmentalising centres of power to obfuscate any attempts at overthrow. Nowadays, with Türkiye concluding its 22nd presidential election in 2023, Iran continues to lack civilian participation in politics. In our evolving, self-expressive society, is an absence of democracy a sign of a society's regression? This seems to be the general consensus, as the United Nations, the global governance mediator, clearly backs political self-determination through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which most member states have signed.

Next, I will deliberate on the development of women’s rights. After Atatürk's encouragement of females scrapping their respective gender roles, education and political participation in Türkiye dramatically increased, as women gained universal suffrage in 1934, earlier than most European nations. However, critics have pointed out that his secularisation of the state may have been at the expense of religious rights, with Islamic females not being able to profess their religion publicly because Atatürk outlawed the hijab. Honour killings and discrimination still exist in Turkish society, with femicide rates occurring at alarming numbers. Nevertheless, efforts to modernise the country through policy-shaped Türkiye's culture to involve women in society have proved effective, with legislation such as the banning of polygamy and the enshrinement of gender equality in the Turkish constitution demonstrating progress. In contrast, Iran, with its draconian morality police, enforced dress codes and behavioural policies on women, to ensure their obedience and devoutness to Shia Islam. Although it should be recognised that the Islamic Republic did drastically raise levels of female students in universities from 37% in 1991 to 51% in 2005, Iran still prohibits women from studying 78 subjects due to "biological reasoning". The Mahsa Amini protests, provoking mass unrest and disapproval in Iranian youths, displayed the discontent of most Iranian women, and their lack of self-autonomy. In 2023, a young couple by the name of Astiyazh Haghighi and her fiance Ahmadi were arrested and charged by a Tehran court for "encouraging corruption and public prostitution" due to their dance in public. Such suppression of women's rights depicts the brutality and lack of progress made toward progressive ideals in a given nation. The quality of life of half of the population has been compromised, making it impossible for these actions to be justified as societal progress. 

I will move on to consider the difference in economic development for both nations. Both Türkiye and Iran retain a plethora of natural resources and are straddled strategically between Europe and Asia. I would like to start by comparing the HDI of both nations. In 1990, Türkiye was 58th (0.751) while Iran was 69th (0.660), both states having 0.091 points separating them. In 2021, this trend is exemplified, with Türkiye rising ten ranks, being placed at 48th (0.838) while Iran has dropped seven ranks to 76th (0.774). Observing that Türkiye's rank has improved substantially over the past twenty years, whilst Iran has fallen behind other nations depicts a surprising insight into their progression in quality of life. It shows the stagnating nature of the theocratic republic's economic policies and the dearth of translation of natural wealth to monetary wealth. Although Iran has attempted to harness its natural resources for the betterment of the people, such economic initiatives have caused overreliance on government intervention, paralysing government investment into other fields caused by the exorbitant opportunity costs from these subsidies. Next, I would compare the GNP data for both nations. In Türkiye, after Atatürk's death and the tumultuous years of World War Two, its adherence to republican secular policies yielded an impressive annual GNP growth of 5 per cent during the 1950s and 7 per cent from 1962-1976. In Iran, under the Shah's trial of republicanism in the White Revolution, between 1964 and 1978, GNP rose drastically with 13.2 percent annual growth occurring with the stability of oil prices. However, after the installation of the Islamic state in 1979, followed by the Iran-Iraq War in 1980, immediate repudiation of Western ideals, intense nationalisation of businesses (80%), and precipitous fall in oil production led to a dreary economic scene with an absence of progress. The mass reduction of the private sector in Iran, uncertainty regarding property rights, and limited profitability in small-scale transactions prompted pre-revolutionary foreign investors to pull out of Iran, with six of the thirteen years post-revolution exhibiting negative external investment. 

Overall, it can be concluded that Türkiye's modernisation has yielded more societal progress compared to Iran. Modernisation, being an iterative and continuous process, must be constantly undergone for society to progress further. With Türkiye's recent steps towards eroding political freedoms and strengthening religious fundamentalists, in addition to its crumbling economic state, only time will tell if Türkiye will experience the regression Iran endured.

This piece was written by Hyren Gan, and edited by Justin Lo

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