Iran (Institutional Design)

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter is the first empirical chapter on Iran that assess how the counter-hegemonic structural mode of WSR reproduction has been secured in Iran via strengthening the institutional mechanisms of social control. Institutional power structure is responsible for the dynamism of contender state development. The analysis focusses on three variables that constitute the institutional mechanisms of social control in Iran: (a) the role of the country’s legislation and state institutions in overall welfare coverage (de-commodification); (b) the institutionally grounded shifts in class and status disparities (wealth redistribution) and (c) legislative and institutional WSR arrangements that restored or impeded the formation of social solidarity (connection). This chapter demonstrates how the restoration of de-commodifying capabilities of the WSR was not driven by top-down state mechanisms of social control, as in Russia, but rather by factional rivalries and internal bottom-up pressures from different population groups. At the same time, state institutions and para-governmental organisations were taking the lead in responding to these pressures, therefore securing the centralisation of state and civil institutions.