Iran's Political Economy since the Revolution

Over three decades after the Iranian Revolution reconfigured the strategic landscape in the Middle East, scholars are still trying to decipher its aftereffects. Suzanne Maloney provides the first comprehensive overview of Iran's political economy since the 1979 revolution and offers detailed examinations of two aspects of the Iranian economy of direct interest to scholars and non-specialist readers of Iran: the energy sector and the role of sanctions. Based on the author's research as both a scholar and government advisor, the book also features interviews with American and Iranian government officials. Moving chronologically from the early years under Khomeini, through the economic deprivations of the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, through liberalization under Khatami to the present, Maloney offers fascinating insights into Iran's domestic politics and how economic policies have affected ideology, leadership priorities, and foreign relations.

1. Introduction; 2. The prelude: the political economy of pre-revolutionary Iran; 3. The economics of upheaval, 1977–80; 4. The cost of sacred defense, 1980–9; 5. The reconstruction jihad, 1989–97; 6. Ayatollah Gorbachev: reform within the red lines, 1997–2005; 7. Populism, version 2.0: the Ahmadinejad era, 2005–13; 8. Energy and the Islamic republic; 9. Sanctions and the sacred state; 10. Conclusion.

Suzanne Maloney is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Center for Middle East Policy.