IRAN ON THE VERGE OF RUPTURE; STRUCTURAL DIVERGENCE AND THE BALKANIZATION PUZZLE
Iran’s internal developments in the mid-2020s cannot be explained solely by economic indicators or the usual cycles of political discontent. What is gradually taking shape is a complex product of economic pressure, erosion of institutional trust, and above all the accumulated fault lines in the realm of identity security. In this framework, “structural divergence” refers to the gradual distancing of development trajectories, political representation, and cultural reproduction in peripheral regions from the decision-making center in Tehran. The process has not yet reached a breaking point, but its signals are observable at multiple levels.
