The Impact of Political Factors on Economic Relationships in the First Decade of the Iran's Revolution

By the 1960s, the argument was that economic phenomena were purely economic subjects. But since the 1970s, with the revival of interdisciplinary studies, a literature has emerged that argued political factors are effective on economic phenomena. Inspired by this literature and with the focus on the first decade of the Islamic Republic's political economy, this article attempts to indicate how the five political factors, including revolution, war, political instability, political fragmentations, and ultimately the social background of government have affected economic phenomena. To doing so, firstly, this article shows how the war reduced the government's oil revenues in the decade. Secondly, it explains how political instabilities led to a reduction in foreign investment in this period. Thirdly, by emphasizing political fragmentations, it reveals how this factor led to a lack of economic consensus among political elites. Finally, it becomes clear that how the social background of the revolutionary state helped to the emergence of populist economic policies in Iran that time. All these findings show how far were the economic phenomena influenced by political factors and reflected its requirements in the first decade of the revolution.