This article reexamines how the Pahlavi state outsourced repression to pro-Shah armed non-state actors. Existing scholarship has largely approached these actors through three frameworks: as Tehran-based mobs during the 1953 coup, as chomaqdaran (club-wielders) in the historiography of the Islamic Republic, or as apolitical thugs whose persistence beyond the early 1960s remains unexplained. Drawing on archival documents, newspapers, memoirs, and oral testimonies, this article examines the Liberation Organization of Iran (LOI), a pro-Shah organization founded in Tabriz in 1952 and later incorporated into the National Resistance Organization and the Resistance Force. It argues that the LOI was not a spontaneous mob but a pro-government militia with a defined structure, ideological orientation, and enduring ties to state institutions. The article further suggests that such militias emerged from nationalist mobilization during the Allied occupation and the Azerbaijan Crisis of 1945-1946 and were later reinforced through state-building projects under Mohammad Reza Shah. By tracing the organizational continuity from the LOI to later pro-Shah militias, this study offers a new perspective on the relationship between the Pahlavi state and armed non-state actors and contributes to a broader understanding of the outsourcing of repression in modern Iran.
This paper investigates the pathways through which perceived discrimination and social exclusion translate into the endorsement of political violence in the Netherlands. The research concludes that extremist sentiments emerge from the psycho-social consequences of blocked social recognition and institutional exclusion, rather than from religious identity. The quantitative findings indicate that Muslim identity is not an inherent predictor of extremist attitudes; rather, its influence is fully mediated by experiences of discrimination and the subsequent cultivation of collective grievance and future pessimism. Furthermore, this psycho-social response to systemic unfairness operates consistently across both Muslim and non-Muslim cohorts. Challenging the conventional precarity thesis, the data reveal that individuals in full-time stable employment report higher levels of violent endorsement than those in part-time or non-employment, highlighting the radicalising potential of status incongruence. To test this theoretical framework of mediation, the study employs hierarchical and ordered logit models drawing upon a national survey dataset of 1,896 respondents. These statistical pathways are contextualized by a thematic analysis of a qualitative dataset of 32 semi-structured interviews with young adults in the Netherlands (aged 18-25) - comprising 21 Muslim minority youth and 11 ethnic majority youth - illustrating the diverse lived realities of stigmatisation and status anxiety.
Anti-caste discourse vis-& agrave;-vis religion identifies Brahmanical Hinduism as the source of caste and highlights Dalit movements that challenged it. While Dalit engagements vis-& agrave;-vis non-Brahmanical religions have also existed, they have received limited critical attention. Such scholarship has largely examined conversion movements in which Dalits embraced non-Brahmanical religions, often framing conversion as the acceptance or appropriation of existing religious traditions. This article contributes to debates on caste and non-Brahmanical religions, especially Christianity in India, by foregrounding the Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha (Divine Church of Visible Salvation-PRDS), a Dalit movement that emerged in early twentieth-century Kerala. Drawing on a standpoint analysis of the cultural archive of PRDS constituted through archival research and fieldwork, the article argues that PRDS constitutes a critique of the conversion paradigm itself. Rather than seeking inclusion within Christianity, PRDS reimagined religion as a political resource to confront caste domination. The article examines how PRDS sought to create a distinct anti-caste religion grounded in a rejection of dominant Christian frameworks of salvation and liberation. The analysis also shows that PRDS occupies a position distinct from existing conceptualizations of Dalit theology. Recognizing its standpoint as an epistemic break from Christianity compels a reconceptualization of Dalit resistance in relation to non-Brahmanical religions.
