State, Oil, and Fragility of Bureaucracy in Iran (1961–1978)

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the nature and causes of fragility of bureaucracy in Iran from the perspective of political economy. Starting from the presupposition that bureaucracy crisis is first and foremost the reflection of the nature of state and its structure of capital accumulation, the present research argues that the twofold nature of Sultanist–rentier state in the second Pahlavi period gradually caused the structure–role distortion of bureaucracy, a decline both in the quality of bureaucratic elites and in the relative autonomy of bureaucrats from politics, the predominance of prebendal spirit and morality, the growth of bureaucratic bourgeoisie, and finally the emergence of a fragile bureaucracy which, in Weberian terms, intermediated between the Sultan and society. Such an intermediary position of bureaucracy exacerbated the crisis of legitimacy of power elites since bureaucracy not only lost its modernist spirit but also later turned into an obstacle to modernization. This situation eventually led to the inability of bureaucracy in performing its intermediary role and making a compromise and balance between the interests of state and social classes on the one hand and to the function of bureaucracy as a factor contributing to the dialectic of state and society, a delay in political development in society, and the facilitation of revolution on the other hand.

Keywords

• fragile bureaucracy
• sultanism
• rentier state
• administrative corruption
• legitimacy crisis
• revolution