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Economic Indicators and Political Violence in Iran: 1946–1968

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Farhad Kazemi
Farhad Kazemi*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics at New York University
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Extract

The relationship between economic factors and political development has received considerable attention from scholars, historians, and social scientists. The classical formulation of economic factors and political violence is to be found in the much-discussed and opposing views of Alexis deTocqueville and Karl Marx. These two views explain revolutions either through economic development or economic destitute. According to deTocqueville's analysis of the French Revolution, steady prosperity and general economic improvement were responsible for the onset of the revolution. The Marxist interpretation of revolution in capitalist societies sees it as the culmination of class warfare between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—a process in which the proletariat and the masses find themselves increasingly impoverished and degraded.

Numerous other studies of revolutions have elaborated or modified either the Marxist or the Tocquevillian hypotheses. Crane Brinton's investigation of revolutions indicates that revolutions tend to take place in societies undergoing economic growth.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 1-2 , Spring Winter 1975 , pp. 70 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1975

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Footnotes

The author wishes to express his appreciation to Ali Banuazizi, Vahid Nowshirvani, and John Waterbury for their comments on a preliminary version of this paper.

References

Notes

1. Among the more recent studies, not cited elsewhere in the article, the following may be mentioned. Adelman, Irma and Morris, Cynthia, Society, Politics, and Economic Development: A Quantitative Approach (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1967)Google Scholar. Burki, Sahid Javed, “Social and Economic Determinants of Political Violence: A Case Study of Punjab,” Middle East Journal, 25 (Autumn, 1971), pp. 465–480Google Scholar. Bwy, Douglas, “Political Instability in Latin America: The Cross-Cultural Test of a Causal Model,” Latin American Research Review, III (1968), pp. 17–66Google Scholar. Feierabend, Ivo, Feierabend, Rosalind, and Gurr, Ted (eds.), Anger, Violence, and Politics: Theories and Research (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972)Google Scholar. Flanigan, William and Fogelman, Edwin, “Patterns of Political Violence in Comparative Historical Perspective,” Comparative Politics, 3 (October, 1970), pp. 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hibbs, Douglas Jr., Mass Political Violence: A Cross-National Causal Analysis (New York: John Wiley § Sons, 1973)Google Scholar. Hudson, Michael, “Conditions of Political Violence and Instability: A Preliminary Test of Three Hypotheses,” Sage Professional Papers in Comparative Politics, I (1970), pp. 243–294Google Scholar. Mitchell, Edward, “Some Econometrics of the Huk Rebellion,” American Political Science Review, LXIII (December, 1969), pp. 1159–1171CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Muller, Edward, “A Test of a Partial Theory for Political Violence,” American Political Science Review, LXVI (September, 1972), pp. 928–959CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Parvin, Manoucher, “Economic Determinants of Political Unrest: An Econometric Approach,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, XVII (June, 1973), pp. 271–296CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. deTocqueville, Alexis, The Old Regime and the French Revolution (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), pp. 8, 175-176Google Scholar.

3. Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, The Communist Manifesto (New York: Appelton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1955), pp. 16–22Google Scholar.

4. Brinton, Crane, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1965), p. 32Google Scholar.

5. Davies, James, “Toward a Theory of Revolution,” American Sociological Review, 27 (February, 1962), p. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. William Zartman, I., Paul, James, and Entelis, John, “An Economic Indicator of Socio-Political Unrest,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2 (October, 1971), p. 295Google Scholar. See also Tanter, Raymond and Mildarsky, Manus, “A Theory of Revolution,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, XI (September, 1967), pp. 269–271Google Scholar.

7. Olson, Mancur Jr., “Rapid Growth as a Destabilizing Force,” Journal of Economic History, XXIII (December, 1965), p. 541Google Scholar.

8. Ibid., p. 541. See also Huntington, Samuel, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 49–53Google Scholar.

9. Huntington, pp. 52-53.

10. See Zartman, et al., p. 297.

11. See Tanter and Midlarsky, p. 272. Gurr, Ted with Ruttenberg, Charles, The Conditions of Civil Violence: First Tests of a Causal Model (Princeton University, Center of International Studies, 1967), p. 66Google Scholar. See also the discussion by Zartman, et al., pp. 297-298.

12. Zartman, et al., p. 298.

13. As McClelland points out, “expressing economic growth exclusively in per capita income terms also leads to some strange results such as that England showed no economic growth during the high point of the Industrial Revolution (1780-1840), since income per capita did not rise at that time.” McClelland, David, The Achieving Society (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1961), p. 80Google Scholar. See also Deane, P., “The Industrial Revolution and Economic Growth: The Evidence of Early British National Income Estimates,” Economic Development and Cultural Change (1957), pp. 159–174Google Scholar.

14. See Looney, Robert, The Economic Development of Iran: A Recent Survey with Projections to 1981 (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973), pp. 29–30Google Scholar. Looney reports a Gini coefficient of .43 for this inequality. He also mentions the existence of strong regional imbalances in per capita income in Iran. In Tehran, for example, per capita income is “45 percent higher than in the large provincial cities and 70 percent higher than in small towns.” Ibid., p. 32. Iran, Iranian Statistical Center 1969 Rural and Urban Household Budget Survey.

15. Zartman, et al., p. 299. The above discussion of the balance of payments as an indicator is based on this source.

16. Ibid., p. 301.

17. Ibid., p. 301.

18. Tilly, Charles and Rule, James, Measuring Political Upheaval (Princeton University, Center of International Studies, 1965), p. 4Google Scholar. Gurr gives a similar definition of political violence. He defines political violence as “all collective attacks within a political community against the political regime, its actors—including competing political groups as well as incumbents—or its policies.” See Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 3. See also Eckstein, Harry, “On the Etiology of Internal Wars,” in Studies in the Philosophy of History: Selected Essays from History and Theory, ed. by Nadel, George (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965), p. 117Google Scholar.

19. For further discussion of this issue see Kazemi, Farhad, “Social Mobilization and Domestic Violence in Iran: 1946-1968” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, 1973)Google Scholar, Chapter I.

20. For Gurr-Ruttenberg measures see their Conditions of Civil Violence, pp. 31-36.

21. These measures are not totally satisfactory but they give some indication of magnitude of political violence. Furthermore, problems of uneven coverage, biased reporting, and censorship are present in my primary source. It should also be noted that the sharp increase in the magnitude of political violence for 1956 is due to the 22-day armed combat of the government with the Javanrudi Tribes. For more details see Kazemi, pp. 147-155.

22. Baldwin, George, Planning and Development in Iran (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), p. 24Google Scholar.

23. Bharier, Julian, Economic Development in Iran: 1900-1970 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 121Google Scholar.

24. Ibid., p. 121.

25. Ibid., p. 121.

26. Ibid., p. 127.

27. Daftary, Farhad, “The Balance of Payments Deficit and the Problem of Inflation in Iran, 1955-1962,” Iranian Studies, V (Winter, 1972), p. 4Google Scholar.

28. Ibid., pp. 4, 11.