Political Economy of Populist Rentier Governments in Iran (A Case Study of Ahmadinejad's Government)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 MA in Political Science, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Administrative Science and Economic, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

10.22059/jices.2024.370363.1061

Abstract

Various studies show that rentier governments have a high potential to empower populists because they feed on oil revenues as their source of income. Economically, rentier-populist governments are mainly economically distributive and politically radical and authoritarian, and generally represent the lower classes. Although the rentier governments are generally scattered all over the world and the main axis of their populist type is especially seen in Latin America, Ahmadinejad came to power in Iran with such an approach and was able to implement his populist policies .this research is based on Dornbush and Edwards' political economy theory, and based on this theory, it aims to examine the pathology of Ahmadinejad's government based on the political economy of populism and aims to answer the question that what role have oil revenues played in the implementation of Ahmadinejad's populist policies? the hypothesis of the article is that it seems that the type of policies implemented by the Ahmadinejad government during his rule are based on populist economic policies, which could not be implemented without relying on oil revenues. Basically, Ahmadinejad, relying on the oil revenues of his government, was able to implement populist policies and redistribute oil revenues on behalf of the underprivileged and deprived classes of the society. in this way, by sharing the underclasses of the society from the oil revenues, he created a way to reduce poverty and deprivation and create justice. Ahmadinejad started his populist economic policies after taking office and despite the increase in oil revenues, his economic policies failed to strengthen the economic and institutional infrastructure of Iran's economy.

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