A Study of the Structure of Guilds in the Iranian BazaarCase Study: Tehran Marketplace (1800-1906 AD)

This article aims to study the structure of the guilds (vocational interest groups) as one of the most important group organizations in the cities of pre-modern Iranian society. The "embedded networks" approach borrowed from the new economic sociology has been used to study this question. It is a case study about guilds  in the marketplace of Tehran in the period of 1800-1906 AD. In order to study the "form of governance" of the structure of guilds in the Tehran bazaar in this period, three characteristics, namely durable relations, multiplex interactions, and crosscutting ties, have been considered. Studying these characteristics showed that guilds in the Tehran bazaar in the 19th century enjoyed a network structure in the form of "Cooperative hierarchies". The Guilds made the Tehran Bazaar an orderly complex of organized networks. Therefore, the Tehran Bazaar of the 19th century was not a formless and disorderly mass but a structured and orderly complex composed of organized and integrated guild networks.