The Sovereign and the Sensible

This article investigates the history of the formation of the red-light district of Tehran in 1922, to tackle larger questions about the genealogy of the constitutional Islamic state in Iran in the twentieth century. Through an engagement with the Islamic local campaign against prostitution and the state's subsequent sovereign decision to form the district, this article demonstrates how Islamic public sensibilities moved to the forefront of analytics of governance, under postconstitutional state formations (1911–). This revisionist narrative remaps the force of religion in Tehran, a city that is so often glossed as a case of state-oriented top-down secularization and subsequent Islamization in the twentieth century. The aim is not to question the process of secularization or to render it incomplete, but to demonstrate how secularism in Iran negotiated and consolidated a particular relationship between Islam and sovereign modern rule. As such, this work reads the history of the district against the grain of the grand narrative of the Islamic Revolution's (1979) moment of rupture to trace the genealogical roots of moral governance in the Islamic Republic today, within the postconstitutional state formations in the early twentieth century.

What is the 'Fight Against Corruption' in Nicaragua?

Two hundred years ago in Great Britain, the political system was dominated by electoral power exercised through rotten boroughs, a system characterized by institutionalized corruption - these electoral boroughs were owned by local elites, and voting was restricted to a handful of people. Whilst industrially she was the wonder of the world, the political system in Great Britain was restricted, corruption was the norm, and it seemed impossible to imagine that such an ancient system could be changed. By the time of the Reform Act of 1832 however, Britain had already been going through a process of constitutional change lasting for hundreds of years – it is only now, from our position of 20/20 hindsight, that we choose to interpret all of the events since the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 as if it were some seamless whole, an inevitable process that would lead to the position of superior moral governance that we appear to think we are in now.

Moral governance: politicians, ownership, and control

We investigate upon the influences exerted by politicians on the Board and on ownership structure, as an application of political power to corporations. We characterize moral governance as the joint result of these efforts on managerial turnover and ownership turnover. We comment upon two Italian clinical cases of private, listed firms in which politicians enter the scene when a major event occurs (i.e., reorganization, merger, and acquisition activity). Our model could serve as a guideline and checklist for insiders to interact with politicians. We suggest this could be of interest in countries where there is a common level ground – such as in Europe – but with different cultures on the role of the politician in the business environment. It could be an instrument to detect political intervention in the economy to be also used for cross-country comparisons of business environment and for assessing transparency of companies in developed and developing countries. Recent events from the financial crisis in 2008 have increased the urge to investigate these themes.

Moral governance and stakeholder management: are politicians too powerful?

We investigate upon the influences on the Board exerted by politicians concerning strategic management and corporate governance, an invasive activity which we characterize as moral governance. We present a list of actions through which politicians and other outside parties who intervene in the political arena show power in influencing corporate policies. We analyze three Italian clinical cases some of which can be considered reluctant forms of privatization. At crossroads between corporate governance and stakeholder management, our model could be used as a guideline and checklist for insiders to interact with politicians, for cross-country comparisons of business environment, and for assessing transparency of companies in developed and developing countries.