Rentier State and Developmental State in the IR of Iran (Vision 2026)

The model of developmental state in East Asia specially in relation to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, etc, once again proved the role of developmental state in the process of development and weakness of the neoclassic in terms of market as a balancer. In the model, the role of state is not discussed as the lonely administrator of development and its joint with private sector and society-centric independence is of its obvious features. Accordingly, the main hypothesis of the present study is that the IR of Iran is a rentier state and the main question that it deals with is how the rentierism of the IR of Iran impedes it as a developmental state? To answer the question, the administrations in post-Islamic revolution are reviewed and their dependence on petroleum as the rentier indicator is confirmed according to statistical data. To explain it, it is shown that a rentier state establishes its own relationship with society and the financial independence stemmed from oil revenue aggravates the gap between government and society and also deteriorates the relationship between government and social institutions. Oil rentier allows government to lessen the impact of social classes on public policies and promote its own plans. Hence, public sector plays a key role in enforcing plans, meta policies and economic development. The keyword in this paper is "No taxation-No representation" upon which the IR of Iran as a rentier state reckons itself a meta-class government; therefore, it never turns to a developmental state.