The wave of protests that erupted in Tehran in late December and rapidly spread across Iran marks not merely another episode of economic unrest, but a qualitatively distinct phase in the country’s recurring cycle of social and political contestation.

While triggered by economic collapse, the protests have quickly evolved into a broader challenge to political legitimacy, unfolding in a post-war context marked by eroding social patience, intensified elite fragmentation, and heightened sensitivity to foreign intervention.

Iran has experienced multiple protest waves over the past eight years, each leaving a lasting imprint on state-society relations.

The 2019–2020 protests, sparked by the abrupt reintroduction of fuel rationing and a sharp rise in gasoline prices, were rooted primarily in material grievance and repression. The 2022–2023 uprising following the death of Mahsa Amini, by contrast, centred on identity, civil liberties, and systemic injustice.

The current protests do not fit neatly into either category. Instead, they combine economic collapse with overt political demands in a manner that signals a deeper crisis of confidence in the governing order.

The immediate catalysts were familiar: the rapid depreciation of the national currency, structural fragilities in domestic markets, and a long-deepening cost-of-living crisis.

Yet the speed with which economic grievances became intertwined with explicit political slogans suggests that the protests have moved beyond a reactive economic reflex. What is now at stake is not merely livelihood, but legitimacy itself. 

The initial epicentre of this new protest wave was Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and its associated commercial networks—one of the key nodes of Iran’s economic system.

Historically, the Grand Bazaar has played a decisive political role, most notably during the 1979 Revolution, not simply as an economic actor but as a strategic social space in which crises of political legitimacy became publicly articulated.

Collective actions such as shop closures, strikes, and passive resistance have long signalled moments when confidence in the political system’s capacity to manage the economy was eroding.

In this respect, the first mobilising actors were merchants, small business owners, and trade networks operating in import-dependent sectors that were directly exposed to the currency shock.

By December 29, 2025, the protests expanded markedly in both spatial and discursive terms. What began as bazaar-based actions confined to arcades and commercial passages spilled onto Tehran’s main arteries and symbolic public spaces, crossing the boundaries of economic protest and reaching a threshold at which political demands became increasingly visible.

A day later, the protests reached a critical turning point as demonstrations assumed a nationwide character. On December 30, street protests were held not only in Tehran but also in major cities such as Shiraz, Kermanshah, Isfahan, Ahvaz, and Karaj.

Universities and students entered the protests as active participants, significantly broadening the movement’s social base. Their involvement enabled economic grievances to converge with demands for political freedoms and........

© TRT World