Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Farzad Kalateh ¹
• Faez Dinparast ²

¹ PhD student, Department of Political Science, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran.

² Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Research problem
The performance of governments in resolving individual and collective conflicts depends on their ability; in the modern era, unlike the pre-modern era, societies, affected by various developments, including the industrial revolution in the economic sphere, the Renaissance and modernization in the cultural sphere, and urbanization in the social sphere, have undergone extensive, very complex, and specialized changes, and the amount of conflicts and demands of society from the government has expanded in quantitative and qualitative terms; therefore, governments must also develop to resolve conflicts, and one of the important requirements for the development of governments is structural separation; that is, the institution of the government should deal solely with political affairs and delegate other matters to other institutions; specialization of institutions will lead to an increase in their capacity and power; increasing the capacity of the political institution of the government will make the government more efficient, and the efficiency of the government will lead to the stabilization of the prevailing political order.
The available evidence and data confirm that despite the 1979 revolution, the state of structural differentiation during the Islamic Republic of Iran has not only not improved, but has also intensified to the point that today, some researchers use terms such as state capitalism, crony capitalism, quasi-state capitalism, and khusulati to describe the Iranian economic system (see Ghaninejad, 2017, Sattari, 2010, Pesaran, 2011). In this regard, the issue of this research is to explain the state of structural differentiation during the Islamic Republic of Iran; that is, to answer why the current situation arose; in other words, what factors have caused the widespread interference and dominance of political power over economic power during the Islamic Republic of Iran?
Research Background
Researchers have conducted many studies to explain the issue of structural differentiation during the Islamic Republic of Iran; in most studies, the rentier nature of the government institution in Iran has been introduced as the main reason for the weakening of structural differentiation (see Katouzian, 2013, Karshenas, 2003, Haji Yousefi, 2000, Heshmatzadeh, 2000, Ghaffari and others, 2019). However, oil rent has played a key role in the emergence of this situation and it cannot be denied, but the available evidence shows that some countries that enjoy oil rents are in a much better position than Iran in terms of separation of powers, or even some countries that do not enjoy oil rents are in a much lower position than Iran. Therefore, this evidence shows us that the mere existence of oil rent is not sufficient to explain the situation of structural differentiation and it seems that other factors are involved in this context. In fact, in these works, the pathology of the separation of power is referred to an external and non-political factor, namely oil; but the innovative aspect of the present research is that it tries to explain the challenges of structural differentiation during the Islamic Republic of Iran from a political perspective.
Research Objective
Describing and explaining the state of structural disintegration in Iran during the Islamic Republic.
Research Method
In this study, the documentary method was used to collect data and the process tracing method was used to judge the data; process tracing is a technique that helps the researcher to examine certain mechanisms through which an independent variable is linked to a dependent variable. Causal mechanisms mean processes or intermediary variables through which an explanatory variable has a causal effect on the dependent variable (Taliban, 2008: 96). The use of this method is because the process of the emergence of institutions is contextual and time-dependent and is affected by various factors. The unit of research analysis is Iran and the time period, the Islamic Republic period (1978 to 1991), the observation unit is political events, such as the Islamic Revolution of 1978 and the establishment of the political system of the Islamic Republic, the process of drafting and approving the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the measurement unit is the state of separation of political power from economic power.
Research findings
To determine the status of the separation of political power from economic power in Iran during the Islamic Republic, global indicators were used. The scores received during the period in question were aggregated and the average was obtained by dividing it by the number of years. The results of the calculations show that the separation of political power from economic power in the Islamic Republic is in the "unfree" state overall.
Table No. (5): Status of structural differentiation (separation of political structure from economic structure) during the Islamic Republic of Iran
                Index
                Time period        Total Scores       Average Score   Status
1              Economic Change from the Bertelsmann Foundation       16 years (from 2005 to 2020)      118         45.2                Unfree
2              Economic Freedom from the Heritage Foundation            26 years (from 1996 to 2021)      1104       46.42                Unfree
3              Free Economy from the Legatum Institute            14 years (from 2007 to 2020)      254         18           Unfree
4              Economic Freedom from the Fraser Institute       23 years (from 2000 to 2018 and 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995)                119         17.5        Relatively unfree
5              Government Ownership of the Economy               42 years (from 1979 to 2020)      5568       63.1        Relatively unfree
Source: Research findings
Conclusion
The Constitutional Revolution is considered the starting point of the modernization of the state in Iran, but the economic structure and structure of society and the authoritarian modernization approach of the Pahlavi government led to the expansion of the government's ownership, duties, and powers in the field of economy. After the victory of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, despite the widespread opposition of political forces to the previous political order and the minor and general differences that existed between them regarding the nature of the new political order, except for a small part of the political forces, the rest of the forces, considering the prevailing institutional context, and for various reasons and with varying intensity and weakness, were in favor of the stateization of the economy; In addition, the weakness of the theoretical and empirical knowledge of political forces in the field of how to regulate economic affairs, the rentier nature of the state, and the occurrence of the Eight Years' War also contributed to the cause and were effective in weakening structural differentiation; After the establishment of the new political order, the relative increase in political and economic benefits resulting from the new way of organizing economic affairs in the political order of the Islamic Republic of Iran caused the supporters of the ruling status quo not only to oppose and resist any structural reforms in the field of improving the separation of political power from economic power, but also, due to the pattern of unequal distribution of political power among the elected and appointed parts of the political structure, the economy became more and more state-owned and the majority of economic resources were taken over by the state. In fact, the non-uniformity of the state institution and the conflict and conflict between the elected and appointed parts of the government over the issue of the distribution of political power have been very effective in opposing the separation of power and the intensification of the state-owned economy; the political power tries to manage and control the citizens' bio-politics by dominating their economic and bio-economic resources. In fact, it can be said that from the second half of the seventies onwards, the role of beliefs in the state-owned economy has become less important, and economic and political benefits have become more prominent in the continuation and intensification of the existing situation. On the other hand, given the data and the economic situation of the society, it seems that the continuation of the current situation is impossible and requires fundamental reforms. However, any policy-making to overcome the current situation requires the management of conflicts of interest and the consensus of the instrumental/political elites of the society. Otherwise, the ability and capacity of the state institution to respond to the demands of the people will decrease, and, in the same proportion, the dissatisfaction of the society with the state and the conflict between this state and the society will increase, and the continuity and strength of the political system will face challenges.

Keywords

• Political development
• Structural differentiation
• Political structure
• Economic structure
• Political institutionalism
• Islamic Republic of Iran

Main Subjects

• The State