Iran protests: a quest for reforms turns into a widespread discontent

Popular protests are flaring up in the Middle East. From Lebanon to Iraq and now Iran, they show the weakening of the social contract between the population and their government. In the Islamic Republic, the post-revolutionary social contract was born on a populist promises of justice, but decades of endemic political and economic inefficiencies wiped out the implementation of the craved edalat (social justice). Today, disenchanted Iranians are no longer claiming for “justice,” but they express dissatisfaction with the political class, without distinctions of factions and without a programmatic plan of reforms.