Targeted Assassinations and State-Society Relations: Analyzing the Political and Social Impacts of the Martyrdom of Revolutionary Leaders on National Cohesion in Iran

Western security doctrines assume that "decapitation strikes"-the targeted assassinations of sovereign state and military leaders-weaken ideological states and alienate the public. This study challenges this assumption by examining how the martyrdom of Iranian revolutionary leaders serves as a factor in for national resilience. Combining Edward Shils' concepts of the "Symbolic Center" and "Institutional Charisma" with the Copenhagen School's "Securitization" theory, we conduct a Qualitative Discourse Analysis (QDA) of the continuous nightly public gatherings held across Iran during the four months following the martyrdoms. By analyzing spontaneous slogans, placards, and public resolutions, the paper demonstrates how geopolitical grief is converted into symbolic social capital. The findings indicate that instead of inducing fragmentation, these external existential threats trigger a powerful societal reflex that consolidates collective allegiance to the new leadership, bridges domestic divides, and solidifies the domestic legitimacy of Iran's defensive and deterrent posture against foreign aggression.

کلیدواژه ها:

Targeted Assassinations ، Symbolic Center ، Securitization ، Discourse of Resistance ، Grassroots Mobilization ، National Resilience ، Iran