Atlas / Comparisons / Khomeinism vs Institutional Revolutionary Party

Khomeinism and Institutional Revolutionary Party

Measured distance across six axes

14.5 / 49.0 possible

Different families with real common ground. They agree within three points on AU, SC. They diverge by eight points or more on CH.

Axis by axis

AxisVelayat-e faqihPRIGapReading
EC · Economic organisation−03+014DiffersReal difference, but not the dividing line.
CU · Social and cultural order+10+046DiffersReal difference, but not the dividing line.
AU · Organisation of power+09+081AgreesEffectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about.
SC · Scale of decision+08+071AgreesEffectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about.
ID · Rule of membership+09+036DiffersReal difference, but not the dividing line.
CH · Method and tempo+07−0411DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.

Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →

The evidence behind the widest gaps

A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.

Velayat-e faqih · CH +07

Coded +7: founded in revolution and sustained by an armed body outside the ordinary state.

  • Documented act or statuteThe Revolutionary Guard was created in 1979 as a parallel force answerable to the supreme leader.

PRI · CH −04

Coded −4: built specifically to institutionalise a revolution and stop the coups that followed it.

  • ScholarshipFounded in 1929 after the assassination of a president-elect, to route succession through a party rather than through the army.

What this comparison does not establish

Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.

Khomeinism

1979– · Iran

Guardianship of the jurist: sovereignty belongs to God and is exercised by a supreme clerical authority over an elected government.

Institutional Revolutionary Party

1929– · Mexico

A party built to institutionalise a revolution and end military coups, which then held the presidency for seventy-one consecutive years.

Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.

Open in the atlas