In her book, Suzanne Maloney provides a rich and detailed narrative of the intersection between politics and economics throughout the postrevolutionary history of Iran. As there have been relatively few scholarly works produced on the political economy of Iran in the field of Iranian studies, this book advances the literature by delving into the economic conditions and interests that drive much of Iranian politics, as well as the factors that influence how political decisions are made by the ruling elite. Iran’s Political Economy since the Revolution has three main objectives: to examine how its political economy has shaped Iranian state and society; to uncover the factors that have produced contradictory political and economic outcomes in the country; and to assess Iran’s political economy in its regional and international context, with a specific focus on the impact of sanctions on Iran and the challenges for U.S. policymakers in placing economic pressure on the Islamic Republic. Accordingly, Maloney moves beyond the stereotypical images of Iran and delves into the paradoxes and complexities of an economy that she describes as both “rich and poor, developmental and predatory, integrated and isolated” (p. 10).
Maloney argues that there are four major factors that have shaped the political economy of Iran. The first is the legacy of prerevolutionary political and economic conditions that impacted the postrevolutionary period. These include such issues as the nationalization of oil under Mohammad Mosaddeq, as well as the oil economy and land distribution policies of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The second factor is the economic dimension of factionalism and the political architecture of the Islamic Republic, particularly the bifurcated authority between elected and unelected institutions. These structural and political issues have prevented consensus around economic policy and created much infighting and competition among the elite, as well as between different types of state institutions, such as the bonyads. The third factor is Iran’s status as a “rentier state,” in which the state derives a large part of its revenue from the export of natural resources, such as oil and gas. Such revenues have in part strengthened the capacity of the elite to consolidate state institutions but also created vulnerabilities to global energy boom-and-bust cycles, alongside economic distortions that have inhibited economic progress. And finally, the fourth factor is Iran’s contentious relationship with the world. This includes both Iranian mistrust of the international community and international institutions, including global financial ones, as well as America’s treatment of Iran as a rogue state and the imposition of sanctions and other coercive measures against the country.
Maloney’s work is an impressive historical overview stretching from the Qajar dynasty to the Pahlavi period, up to the Islamic revolution and onward, including the formative stages of the Islamic Republic, the Iran–Iraq war, the reconstruction era under President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the reformist period under President Mohammad Khatami, and the populist era under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with a brief discussion of President Hassan Rouhani’s administration and prospects for the future in the conclusion. The extensive temporal coverage is quite useful as a frame, and the book also incorporates a wide variety of sources, including both primary sources in Persian and scholarly literature in English. The author thus provides a well-written narrative of the history of modern Iranian political economy, and it is this narrative that may be the work’s most important immediate legacy given the lack of comprehensive accounts in the field, especially when she discusses the nascency of the Islamic Republic when significant transformations took place in the Iranian state and society. The book also provides significant statistical information and graphical visualization on a variety of indices measuring the Iranian economy over the past three decades, including inflation rates, the consumer price index, oil and gas revenues, and imports and exports.
While the book is well researched and provides an overarching view of the political economy of contemporary Iran, there are also weaknesses that call attention to the need for future research. Importantly, the analysis is not theoretically based within political science or economics, nor does it make any significant theoretical contribution to the field—an objective not intended by the author. What do the economic conditions of Iran tell us about our understanding of policy decision making writ large? How do the regime structures and institutions impact the political economy in comparative perspective or speak to the findings of the larger field? Maloney’s narrative, in other words, is more descriptive than explanatory.
Placing the political economy of Iran within a theoretical perspective can allow us to make larger generalizations and delineate precise causal mechanisms concerning how processes unfold and politics and economics interact. Additionally, aspects of the discussions are less developed from the Khatami period onward. Here, Maloney emphasizes political developments over political economy or economics. A more thorough analysis of the economic ideas of key elites under Khatami and Ahmadinejad would have been very welcome, as well as more substantial analysis of the key economic decisions made during their presidencies. While programs such as privatization or the Mehr housing project, for example, are briefly discussed, the author does not delve deeply into any one issue as a case study and instead provides more of an overview of key events and decisions. Of course, this is in part understandable due to the breadth of the subject matter, but devoting space to such an endeavor would nevertheless have made the work more exceptional.
The wide breadth of the book and its overarching narrative framing also means at times that the author glosses over significant divergences and debates. For example, she claims that Mosaddeq was not adequately willing to compromise with the West over the nationalization of oil and that the coup was driven by fear of the Soviet threat in the United States and United Kingsom, rather than being about British control over oil. However, she omits a key text on the subject that eruditely argues otherwise, Ervand Abrahamian’s The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations (2013). Irrespective of the position promoted by Maloney on Mosaddeq, the different debates and key books written on each significant episode of Iranian history should have been highlighted, rather than to forge a single narrative based on a particular position, which in certain instances prevents the reader from gaining a more balanced sense of Iranian political and economic history.
The same can be said, in particular, of the book’s treatment of Ahmadinejad’s decision making and many of his economic policies, as well as the chapter on sanctions. A more in-depth look into the thinking and discourses of the Ahmadinejad administration would have further enriched the work, as well as including Iranian reactions and perspectives on the international sanctions regime. The Iranian perspective—or, rather, the divergent positions within the Iranian elite—are not adequately brought out and presented, or at times overly generalized.
Finally, the categorization or definition of the different factions in Iran is not fully developed in a concise manner at the beginning of the study, including factional economic positions. This makes the discussions of the internal debates on political economy vague at times, or even seemingly contradictory, such as labeling Ahmadinejad on “the right,” which mischaracterizes his factional profile.
Nevertheless, Iran’s Political Economy since the Revolution is a valuable contribution to all those interested in the subject matter and provides a larger time span of the main debates and events that have shaped the nature of the Iranian state and economy up until the present day. It is a must-read for any student of modern Iran wishing to get an expert treatment of the country’s intricate economic and political history.
