Antagonism of development in post-revolutionary States in Iran; amidst underdevelopment and deviation from the path of development

The process of development in Iran has always faced challenges during the more than four decades since the revolution. This is essentially due to the absence of a consensus on development goals, conflicts among various social forces, and the prevalence of political ideologies in the design and implementation of development policies. The economic challenges facing Iranian society, such as soaring inflation, high unemployment rates, the devaluation of the national currency, the fragility of the financial-banking system, extensive economic sanctions, the interdependence between the economy and political variables, the gap between knowledge-based systems and government capacity, and the creation of a development trap, have significantly hampered the success of development in post-revolutionary Iran. The main inquiry of this article is in what ways have shifts in the discourse of development impeded progress in Iran? Therefore, the fundamental hypothesis of this research is that the cause of this failure is the creation of development traps, lack of consensus, and the transformation of development into an antagonistic issue in post-revolutionary governments from 1989 to 2021. Within this framework, the research methodology is descriptive-analytical, with an emphasis on integrating the theories of Chambers Johnson and Ajam-Oghlo and Robinson.