February 2012
1 post
1789, 1979, and all that...
The French revolution in 1789 not only set the template for what a revolution is supposed to look like, it also created most categories of understanding contemporary social change. Our notions of left v. right come from it, as do our notions of reform/reaction/revolution.
A common interpretation of the Iranian revolution in 1979 is that it was the first revolution which was categorically...
September 2011
1 post
Subsidy Payments in Iran: Too Much or Not Enough?
It is still less than a year since the targeted subsidy program went into effect in Iran, replacing cheap energy and low-price basic foodstuffs at the point of consumption with cash payments to nearly everyone. In addition, the government is providing low-interest long-term loans to local industry, well below the rate of inflation, to upgrade their energy infrastructure so that they can produce...
June 2011
1 post
Iranian Sociology, Global Sociology, Peripheral...
I just returned from a short trip to Tehran, where I attended the first day of a conference hosted by the Iranian Sociological Association. The opening keynote was delivered by Professor Michael Burawoy from U of C Berkeley:
Burawoy and others spoke about a simple but often unmentioned fact in the global field of knowledge production. Social science theories are typically produced in a few...
February 2011
1 post
Thinking about Social Inequality and Waves of...
This morning I published a short piece on the structure and politics of labor in Iran at the USIP blog. There is a small section in the article about absolute vs relative poverty in Iran vis-a-vis Egypt. I want to expand on that here, because while absolute poverty is something that economists take seriously, relative poverty, or, more aptly phrased, social inequality, is something that...
January 2011
1 post
Upcoming Appearances - Bonus for German Readers
I’ll be speaking at two events in February related to the release of The Iran Primer:
2/10 in NYC at The Asia Society, 6 pm (tickets required, sorry)
2/18 in Washington DC at The Woodrow Wilson Center, noon (free and webcast)
I plan to talk about the political economy of Iran within a comparative framework, touching on issues of labor politics, the bazaar, the informal sector, and...
December 2010
1 post
Iran's Subsidy Reductions - Who Gets Targeted and...
The long awaited liberalization of energy commodities in Iran has finally begun. Over the past weekend, President Ahmadinejad stated, “At this stage, we don’t want to free prices, rather we are going to regulate and reform them.” How regulated will this new system be?
Iranians with private cars get a monthly ration of about one full Iranian tank of gas (in the newer...
November 2010
1 post
5th Development Plan in Iran Further Privatizes...
I have not seen the 5th Development Plan proposed by the Ahmadinejad administration, but judging by the outbursts of a few MPs in the majles, the plan calls for privatizing large parts of the education and health sectors. The resistance by doctors illustrates that opposition exists in the health field, and one can also take heart that none of the 5-year development plans in Iran have ever...
October 2010
1 post
Three Easy Pieces
Why write on a blog when people will publish your work elsewhere? That’s not the only driving force behind my quietude here, since I am immersed in academic mill grinding, but it is a factor. Nevertheless, here are a few pieces that, while written at various times in the past year, all came out in the last several weeks.
First, a very condensed version of a paper I presented at Cambridge...
July 2010
1 post
Iranian Sociology and its Discontents
I recently returned from Gothenburg, Sweden and the quadrennial International Sociology Association’s World Congress. It’s kind of like the World Cup of sociology. There I sat in on a session organized by the Iranian Sociology Association, where a few presenters, including its president Hossein Serajzadeh, discussed the state of social science in Iran. I have visited many sociology...
June 2010
1 post
Lawrence on Collier and Mintz on Haiti
The field of economic development has more popular books in print than was the case ten or twenty years ago. In fact, the last decade where such a volume of print existed on poorer countries and their prospects was the 1970s. That previous era, however, generated a more critical perspective on the promises of “catching up” to the wealthy Northern states. Now, within the popular...
May 2010
2 posts
Yes, We Take Dollars
If you recall, a few years ago a lot of stink was made about Iran moving the currency used in its oil transactions from the dollar to the euro. This fit neatly into the swirling conspiracies of the day. For US hawks, this was a sign that Iran was an “ideological” actor hellbent on undermining US hegemony in the global economy. For some on the political left, who also seem to equate...
Appearance at the Carnegie Endowment for... →
Last week I appeared on a panel on Iran’s economy at the Carnegie Endowment in DC which is now available to watch online. At least, it was supposed to be on Iran’s economy. But like many events in the beltway, it ended up becoming focused on US policy instead of actual events inside Iran. Still, some discussion is better than no discussion - I see that after my MERIP piece on...
March 2010
1 post
Are the Iranian Poor a Bunch of Welfare Queens?
The picture we usually get of the Iranian poor in the media is one of two extremes: the wretched of the earth, or the equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens.” (If you remember, Reagan attacked the meager US welfare system by inventing a group of people that did not even exist: pink-Cadillac driving, children producing, unwilling to work black women.)
One hears similar things about Iran,...
December 2009
1 post
My Recent Piece in Inside Iran
I have a new piece on the debate over poverty in the online analysis site Inside Iran - read it here. Most discussions of Iran’s economy make it sound like the place is falling apart. I’ve never seen a good comparison of Iran with other middle income states on basic indicators of welfare, industry, education, etc. Instead we hear a lot of catastrophic language. Critique is fine,...
October 2009
1 post
Does Iran's Urban Working Class Have a Rural...
There has been increased labor unrest in Iran during the past few years, and just in the past few weeks organized protests by workers have occurred in Ahvaz and Shiraz. Much less attention is paid to these types of protests compared to the recent student unrest within universities, yet Iran has a long history of labor activism. The Abadan oil strike of 1945 was the largest coordinated labor...
September 2009
1 post
On the Media, Kapuściński version
Time goes fast when you’re having fun, so it looks like posts here will be few and far between. But, sometimes one has to share a quote.
The departure of many foreign journalists from Iran after the election, coupled with the intensification of the media spotlight, proved to be an odd experience. I picked up a copy of Ryszard Kapuściński’s The Soccer War while I was in Copenhagen. ...
August 2009
1 post
Should We Use PPP-Adjusted Data to Discuss Global...
Most economists, even my favorite ones, use Gross Domestic Product adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) when they compare the “wealth of nations.” In my last post, I made a short case for why comparing income levels in the world economy should use national income calculated at foreign exchange rates (FX). Given that my assertion falls in the minority position in the world of social...
July 2009
3 posts
Did Iran Lose its Chance of Catching Up With the...
Does Iran’s economic trajectory over the 20th century look very different from most other countries in the Third World/South? This is an important question which is rarely asked. While comparisons between time periods within a single country can be useful - say, comparing average growth rates of the Pahlavi monarchy with the Islamic Republic - they can also be highly misleading and...
The Privatization Panacea in Iranian Politics
Some foreign analyses of the post-election events made the argument that the factions and politicians associated with the Mousavi campaign, especially Hashemi Rafsanjani, were planning to rush through a privatization of Iran’s state-owned companies and assets if they had won. The usual epithet of the left – neoliberal – was hurled at Mousavi and his circle.
A quick aside: two words are used quite...
CUMINet commentary
Last week I reiterated some of my comments here on the excellent Danish blog CUMINet, run by Rasmus Elling. This was partly me testing the e-waters. The only comment I received was understandably disconcerted. Yet I was not implying that the possibilities for a renewal of “people power” were forever gone. I was simply trying to add to a beginning critique of the reformist faction...
June 2009
2 posts
A Quick Post-Mortem, and Something Left Out of the...
Now that the demobilization of the opposition rallies has generally occurred, we can try to make sense of what was a most chaotic event. I am not implying that anything is back to normal … let’s just say it is back to quasi-normal. 2009 will be remembered as an historic year in Iranian history, whatever happens hereafter, to join 1906, 1953, 1979, and 1997 in the annals.
The social movement...
Revolution Redux?
I’m sitting here in a lower-middle class neighborhood in Tehran right now, listening to choral chants of Allah-u Akbar outside my window. It’s been the third night that I’ve had the pleasure of doing so. There’s no need to recap here all of the events of the last 9 days. The June 9 election results were evidently manipulated to such a large degree that even supporters of Mr. Ahmadinejad were...
April 2009
1 post
Some Different Ways To Think About Iran, in lieu...
Well, here we go - my initial foray into sociological myth-busting on Iran.
Much of my discussions with fellow Iranians usually come around to the reasons for the actual or perceived state of Iran’s economy, politics, and society in the world. Even when the array of grievances and complaints does not directly compare Iran with another country, a comparison is implicit (with the US often...