Applying the Heidelberg Institute's methodological techniques to the current Iranian political reality and identifying four coalitions that have an impact on the domestic political situation, analyzing their relationships, allows us to take a new approach to the inter-elite conflict in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IR) in the period from 1989 to 2010. Key words: Iran, hidden conflict, declarative conflict, velayat-e faqih, Marja al-taqlid, Supervisory Board. The methodology developed by specialists of the Heidelberg Institute divides conflicts into nonviolent and violent ones [Conflict Barometer, 2010]. Nonviolent conflicts include: hidden conflict (hidden contradictions that are not actualized in specific actions), as well as declarative conflict (actions that sometimes precede the use of force, including verbal pressure, threats of violence or economic sanctions). Violent conflicts include crises, severe crises, and wars. The transition of a conflict from a non-violent phase to a violent one is determined by recording aggressive actions (beatings, clashes, arrests) and the use of armed force. However, such gradation is not sufficient to analyze inter-elite interaction in the context of the Iranian political system. This is due to the fact that the Heidelberg school methodology assumes a direct transition from one stage of conflict to another, without taking into account the development of the situation within each of the stages. Sometimes, for a situation to develop from a declarative form into a crisis, a certain period of time must pass, and often (although not always) the degree of confrontation must increase gradually. In this regard, there may be situations when the conflict is no longer in the declarative stage, but has not yet passed into a crisis, which the institute's methodology does not take into account. Therefore, in this study, each stage of the confrontation is divided into two sub-stages that differ in intensity. As a result, the score scale of int ... Read more