Economic Transition In Iran

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - Region: Near East, Near Orient, grade: 1,7, University of Haifa (-), course: Political Economy of the Middle East, language: English, abstract: The Shah of Persia is dethroned - the Islamic Republic proclaimed. A pre-eminent Western ally becomes an archenemy of the USA. In this setting, the paper focuses on the economic implications of the revolution. It deals with the underlying principles for an Islamic economy and their implications. However, the Iran-Iraq War throws a curve in an even economic development. The paper also provides an analysis of the impact of the war on the economy. The question of economic transition toward Islamic state capitalism is still on the agenda. In the wake of the Arab revolutions both present and history will present examples. The Islamic Republic of Iran is among them.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - Region: Near East, Near Orient, grade: 1,7, University of Haifa (-), course: Political Economy of the Middle East, language: English, abstract: The Shah of Persia is dethroned – the Islamic Republic proclaimed. A pre-eminent Western ally becomes an archenemy of the USA. In this setting, the paper focuses on the economic implications of the revolution. It deals with the underlying principles for an Islamic economy and their implications. However, the Iran-Iraq War throws a curve in an even economic development. The paper also provides an analysis of the impact of the war on the economy. The question of economic transition toward Islamic state capitalism is still on the agenda. In the wake of the Arab revolutions both present and history will present examples. The Islamic Republic of Iran is among them.

This paper takes stock of developments in the Iranian economy in recent years, reviews the key issues and policy responses, highlights the nature of the challenges ahead, and draws implications for the next phase of reforms. Iran has received much attention from a geopolitical and regional standpoint, but its economic challenges have not attracted a similar degree of interest. Yet, with a population of 69 million, considerable hydrocarbon resources, a dynamic and entrepreneurial middle class, and a relatively well-educated labor force, Iran's economic potential is considerable. Equally important is Iran's experience with economic reform, which deserves attention for several reasons: (i) Iran is in transition to a market economy, and the process has been neither been smooth nor supported by external conditions; (ii) significant advances have been made in recent years in opening up the economy to international trade and foreign direct investment, encouraging the private sector, removing exchange restrictions, reforming the tax system, and enhancing macroeconomic management; and (iii) despite the progress achieved, major challenges remain.--Publisher's description.

Amirahmadi focuses on the Iranian economy under the Islamic Republic, a subject that remains largely neglected in post-revolutionary Iranian research and analysis. Drawing from a wealth of primary sources, he uses an empirical-logical framework of analysis within a modified world-system perspective to offer a detailed and balanced picture of the macroeconomic trends, problems, and policies since 1976.

This study entails a theoretical reading of the Iranian modern history and follows an interdisciplinary agenda at the intersection of philosophy, psychoanalysis, economics, and politics and intends to offer a novel framework for the analysis of socio-economic development in Iran in the modern era. A brief review of Iranian modern history from the Constitutional Revolution to the Oil Nationalization Movement, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and the recent Reformist and Green Movements demonstrates that Iranian people travelled full circle. This historical experience of socio-economic development revolving around the bitter question of “Why are we backward?” and its manifestation in perpetual socio-political instability and violence is the subject matter of this study. Michel Foucault’s conceived relation between the production of truth and production of wealth captures the essence of hypothesis offered in this study. Foucault (1980: 93–94) maintains that “In the last analysis, we must produce truth as we must produce wealth; indeed we must produce truth in order to produce wealth in the first place.” Based on a hybrid methodology combining hermeneutics of understanding and hermeneutics of suspicion, this monograph proposes that the failure to produce wealth has had particular roots in the failure in the production of truth and trust. At the heart of the proposed theoretical model is the following formula: the Iranian subject’s confused preference structure culminates in the formation of unstable coalitions which in turn leads to institutional failure, creating a chaotic social order and a turbulent history as experienced by the Iranian nation in the modern era. As such, the society oscillates between the chaotic states of socio-political anarchy emanating from irreconcilable differences between and within social assemblages and their affiliated hybrid forms of regimes of truth in the springs of freedom and repressive states of order in the winters of discontent. Each time, after the experience of chaos, the order is restored based on the emergence of a final arbiter (Iranian leviathan) as the evolved coping strategy for achieving conflict resolution. This highly volatile truth cycle produces the experience of socio-economic backwardness and violence. The explanatory power of the theoretical framework offered in the study exploring the relation between the production of truth, trust, and wealth is demonstrated via providing historical examples from strong events of Iranian modern history. The significant policy implications of the model are explored. This monograph will appeal to researchers, scholars, graduate students, policy makers and anyone interested in the Middle Eastern politics, Iran, development studies and political economy.

This book examines economic inequality and social disparity in Iran, together with their drivers, over the past four decades. During this period, income distribution and economic welfare were affected by the 1979 Revolution, the eight-year war with Iraq, post-war privatization and economic liberalization initiatives carried out under the Rafsanjani and Khatami administrations, the ascendance of a populist economic platform under the Ahmadinejad administration, and the lifting of energy and financial sanctions under the Rouhani administration. Featuring a mix of scholars, including Iranian academics who experienced these changes and are publishing in English for the first time, this collection offers quantitative and descriptive studies of the country's post-revolutionary economic development and disparities. In most chapters, a hypothesis is developed from existing theories or observations, which is then tested using available data. This unique combination of new voices, academic as well as personal experiences, and scientific methods will be a valuable addition to the library of the scholars of modern Iran’s economy and society.

Study of the impact of ill-conceived economic policies on the 1979 revolution in Iran, Islamic Republic - discusses theoretical issues, economic development trends since 1949, development planning objectives modernization and import substitution-based industrialization, land reforms, inappropriate choice of technology and technological change; economic disparities; issues relating to increased petroleum revenue, increasing public expenditure, irrational agricultural policies, commercial policies, price policies and counter-inflationary monetary policies, etc. Bibliography.

In this comprehensive account of Iran's economic development since the 1979 revolution Professor Amuzegar examines how the Islamic economic model was established and developed in Iran. He surveys agriculture, the oil sector and industry across a wide spectrum. The book contains new information on economic trends and on the government's fiscal, monetary and exchange-rate policies, and sets overall performance in the context of initial intentions.