A discourse analysis of population policies in the context of politics in Iran

Abstract

All modern governments are concerned with population and its management; they pursue a variety of policies in order to deal with demographic conditions adequately. One of the countries that seriously adopted population policies—especially birth control policy—in the late 20th century is Iran. Different studies stress that the population growth policy in the first half of the 1980s and the population control policy in the late 1980s and 1990s in Iran were influenced by the predicament the country found itself in during the war with Iraq and after the war, as well as the necessity of population management to renew human resources during the war and perform development and reconstruction plans properly after the war. This study claims that adopting such policies has not been due to a full understanding of real situations, but largely has been influenced by meta-forces i.e. political and ideological discourses that governed the country. In fact governing discourses actually determine the policies and their courses, rather than changes in policy-makers’ understanding of real conditions in the society. This study indicates that since the Islamic Revolution, different discourses, including Islamic Idealism, Islamic Pragmatism, Islamic realism and Principlism, have governed Iran; consequently different population policies consistent with these discourses have been followed. In other words, this study tries to show that discursive attitudes seem to account more adequately for population policies in Iran than positivistic attitudes.