Tahqiqāt-e Tārikh-e Ejtemā’i (Social History Studies)

The First Pahlavi's Narrative Mechanisms of Tribal and Nomadic Life as a Security Threat

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

hosein Molaei 1
Javad Haghgoo 2

1 PhD, Political Science, Allameh Tabataba`i University, Researcher of the Institute of Contemporary History, Tehran, Iran

2 Associate Professor of International Relations, Department of Revolution and Political Thought, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

10.30465/shc.2026.54608.2695
Abstract
The suppression of Iranian tribes and nomadic communities, together with the implementation of disarmament and forced settlement (Takhteh-Qapu) policies during the First Pahlavi period, received support from segments of society as a necessary measure for restoring order, ensuring security, and advancing the state-building agenda of the central government, despite the heavy human costs and the neglect of the tribes' military and defensive functions. This support played a significant role in undermining the tribal way of life and the traditional tribal order. The main objective of this study is to examine the policies and mechanisms that, by constructing specific cognitive and social conditions, endowed the state's coercive policies with meaning, legitimacy, and the conditions for their implementation. Employing a qualitative-interpretive approach and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study draws upon archival documents from the Ministry of Defense, the Institute for Contemporary Historical Studies, and newspapers published during the First Pahlavi period. These materials are analyzed through the concepts of discursive construction, narrative-building, and threat construction. The findings demonstrate that the First Pahlavi state, by promoting a particular narrative of the "tribal threat," not only created the cognitive and social conditions necessary for public acceptance of anti-tribal policies and practices, but also constructed an anti-tribal episteme that transformed the elimination of the tribal order into a rational, national, and seemingly inevitable necessity.

Keywords

First Pahlavi
nomads
narrative construction
discursive context
militarization and militarism
Subjects
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  • Receive Date 16 May 2026
  • Revise Date 03 August 2026
  • Accept Date 08 August 2026

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