Abstract

This article uses a comparative historical method to look for obstacles to the transition to democracy with economic and social preconditions in the two countries of Iran and China in the late twentieth century. In the late twentieth century, both countries sought a series of economic and social reforms that to some extent led to an increase in relative gross domestic product, urbanization growth, the growth of the middle class, etc., but the transition to democracy with the economic and social preconditions desired by some theorists did not occur. The question arises: why, despite some economic and social changes, has democratization from below not occurred in the two countries?

The research findings show that the traditional Confucian culture based on a harmonious society and the Leninist institutional legacy of the Communist Party based on the monopoly of power in China and the Islamic culture based on divine sovereignty in Iran, as well as the necessity of economic development, public welfare, and political stability as the priority of the people in both countries, have weakened the possibility of democratization from below and made only democratization from above possible