Iran’s Political Economy since the Revolution by Suzanne Maloney (review)

This voluminous book, with its detailed discussion of the politics and economics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is based on a rich collection of scholarly literature, official sources, and news-media material. The introduction (chapter 1) discusses the analytical framework of the book and provides a road map for subsequent chapters. The reader may be advised to spend some time contemplating the introductory chapter. Otherwise, one can easily get lost in the rich tapestry of detail in the following chapters and lose sight of the overall purpose of the book; unless of course one intends to use this book as a reference book which, keeping in mind a few caveats discussed below, may be appropriate given the encyclopedic nature of the book.

The analytical framework of Iran’s Political Economy since the Revolution is constructed around addressing what the author defines as three paradoxes of Iran’s political economy, namely, being at the same time rich and poor, predatory and developmental, and integrated and isolated. The three main objectives of the book are (1) to provide a comprehensive overview of the economic policies and debates that have taken place since the end of the Iran-Iraq War, (2) to delineate the factors that have generated the three paradoxes, and (3) to offer guideposts for understanding the future trajectory of the Islamic Republic. The second objective is pursued by examining (a) the legacy of Iran’s political and economic development prior to the Islamic Republic; (b) the persistence of factional conflict and bifurcation of authority; (c) the state’s control of massive oil resources; and (d) Iran’s tormented relationship with the world. Suzanne Maloney seeks to explore these paradoxes and objectives while also showing that, notwithstanding the conventional narrative that apparently shows the Islamic Republic to be guided by ideology alone, economic resources and political struggles for controlling such resources also matter (p. 12).

The book consists of 10 chapters including the introduction and conclusion. The second and third chapters deal with the prerevolutionary revolution. The remaining chapters cover the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) and its costs; the post-war reconstruction and economic reforms during the presidency of ‘Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989–97); the reformist era under Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005); Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s populism (2005–13); and a detailed chapter on the energy sector, and a chapter on the economic sanctions and their effects. The concluding chapter gives a brief summary of the book and offers some conjectures on the possible future trajectories under President Hassan Rouhani.

The book provides a very detailed synthesis of the existing knowledge on the politics and economics of the Islamic Republic, and to this extent succeeds in many of the tasks set by the author in the introduction. The chapter on the energy sector is one of the most informative accounts of the institutions and policies in that sector in the post-revolution period.

One may criticize this book on grounds of the adequacy of its political economy framework — its lack of engagement with alternative political economy perspectives, lack of serious analysis of the economy as a whole and the interactions between economic development and interest group formation and evolving political alliances, insufficient attention to evolving ideologies in connection with economic interest group formation rather than just in relation to economic exigencies facing the government, etc.

The lack of serious engagement with alternative political economy perspectives also spills over to the engagement with the literature consulted by the author. The book quotes the findings contained in various sources to weave an intricate narrative, without questioning the veracity of this material or the soundness of the analysis of the quoted sources. Throughout this richly weaved synthesis I cannot recall a single case where the author stops to critically engage with the literature being quoted. For example, there is ample room for such critical engagement in relation to the economic analysis of the book where copious amounts of data and graphs are provided...