Peripheral Dependency in Iran

This book investigates the center-periphery relations in Iran, drawing on three years of fieldwork across regions such as Iranian Kurdistan, Gilan, and Hormozgan. It critically explores the co-constitutive triangular relationship between capitalist development, ethnicism, and state security. By challenging the ethnic-blind theory of uneven development and critiquing internal colonialism, this work introduces ‘peripheral dependency’ as a new theoretical framework to better understand the political economy of centralized authority and ethnonationalism in Iran. The theory emphasizes peripherality as a form of population control and elucidates the processes of state formation, subjugation, and the relationship between economic appropriation and ethnic management. Yousefian’s research examines free-trade zones as case studies intended to facilitate economic liberalization through administrative decentralization. However, it demonstrates that instead, these zones function as deregulated regions where predatory state mechanisms lead to the recentralization of power and, in turn, deteriorate public goods provision, working-class living conditions, socioeconomic inequalities, and ethnic marginalization. The analysis reveals that the central state’s securitization efforts against ethnic mobilization have resulted in de-development and deterritorialization in the peripheries. These processes reinforce and are reinforced by ethnicism, establishing it as a principle of political and economic dominance. Essential for anyone committed to addressing social justice issues in Iran, this book provides insights into the potential for decentralized governance as a solution. Navid Yousefian, born and raised in Iran, teaches social inequalities and decolonial sociology at the University of Cambridge. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from UC Santa Barbara. His research primarily focuses on the Middle East’s political economy and communal and environmental governance.