Political Field in Islamic Republic of Iran: Application of Bourdieu’s Field Theory

The present paper is an attempt to apply Bourdieu’s field theory to the political field of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The concept of field, as explained by Bourdieu, provides a suitable theoretical framework to identify and explain the complexities and intricacies of different behaviors of this system and analyze its absolutely different practices in domestic and international arenas. The main question of this paper is: What is the relationship between political field and other fields in Iranian political landscape The hypothesis formulate to answer this question is: the political field in the Islamic Republic of Iran has turned into the most preponderant field and this very field in order to survive has dominated other fields, taking away the possibility of their independence. The findings of this paper shows that the growth of political field not only has created limitations for other fields, but also has politicized other fields including the field of religion.

Keywords:

Iran , political field , Bourdieu , cultural field , field theory