The State and Rural Development in Post-Revolutionary Iran Ali Shakoori shakoori/94513/crc 6/3/01 4:13 pm Page 1 The State and Rural Development in Post-Revolutionary Iran This page intentionally left blank shakoori/94513/crc 6/3/01 4:13 pm Page 3 The State and Rural Development in Post-Revolutionary Iran Ali Shakoori Assistant Professor The Faculty of Social Sciences University of Tehran Iran shakoori/94513/crc 6/3/01 4:13 pm Page 4 © Ali Shakoori 2001 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0–333–77613–5 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shakoori, Ali, 1962– The state and rural development in post-revolutionary Iran / Ali Shakoori. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–333–77613–5 1. Rural development—Iran. 2. Agriculture and state—Iran. 3. Land reform—Iran. 4. Iran—Rural conditions. 5. Iran– –Politics and government. I. Title. HN670.2.Z9 C67 2000 307.1'412'0955—dc21 00–052418 10987654321 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire To Professor Haleh Afshar and Professor Ali Rahnema This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Tables ix Acknowledgements xi Glossary xii Introduction 1 1 Theoretical Debates on Rural Change 9 Introduction 9 Modernisation 9 Agricultural modernisation and modernisation of the peasantry 14 Development 17 Rural development 21 Rural development and inequality 30 The problem of access: the relationship between the bureaucracy and the peasantry 35 Conclusion 37 2 Historical Background 40 Introduction 40 Sociopolitical and economic developments from the mid nineteenth century to 1962 40 Rural society and the agrarian structure 45 Rural society after the land reform (1962) 50 3 The Revolution and Rural Society 60 Introduction 60 The revolution of 1979 60 Post-revolutionary rural policies 64 Reorganisation of the agricultural administration 70 Conclusion 95 4 Agricultural Policies and Agricultural Growth 99 Introduction 99 An overview of agriculture prior to the revolution 99 vii viii Contents Agricultural development policies after the revolution 104 Support policies 117 Conclusion 122 5 Rural Development at the Micro Level 126 Introduction 126 The socioeconomic and geographical characteristics of the province, district and villages under study 128 Participation 134 Social mobility 144 Income 151 Wealth 154 Well-being 156 The direction of rural change 158 6 Conclusion 164 Appendix 1: Socioeconomic Characteristics of Eastern Azerbaijan, Marand and Sample Households 172 Appendix 2: Correlation Coefficients for Participation and Mobility 178 Appendix 3: Statistical Results (Analysis of Variance, Muliregression and Correlation) for Variables of Income, Wealth, Expenditure and Housing Status 181 Bibliography 186 Index 211 List of Tables 4.1 Per capita GNP, 1962 and 1977 100 4.2 The share of various sectors in GNP, 1963–78 100 4.3 Distribution of the urban and rural populations, 1921–78 101 4.4 Average annual population growth rate, 1956–86 101 4.5 The share of non-oil sectors in production and employment, 1977 102 4.6 Structure of investment in the development of agriculture and natural resources, 1977–83 105 4.7 The predicted share of domestic growth components, 1980–2003 106 4.8 Planned investment growth, 1983–98 107 4.9 Government fixed investment by economic sectors, 1977–96 109 4.10 Comparison of the agricultural investment rate with the inflation rate, 1989–96 110 4.11 Domestic gross fixed capital formation, 1982–94 111 4.12 Agricultural bank loans to peasants and farmers, 1977–96 114 4.13 Arable land area, 1986–88 115 4.14 Number of tractors and combines purchased, 1981–86 117 4.15 Comparison of the price of major agricultural machinery in profiles of subsidisation (1988) and liberalisation (1992) 118 4.16 Government investment in Agricultural Research, 1983–86 119 4.17 Yields of selected crops 120 4.18 Crop production, 1977–96 123 4.19 Annual rise/fall in food consumption, 1961–86 124 5.1 Characteristics of the selected villages in terms of programme provision, developmental potential and sample size 127 5.2 Degree of participation in rural development programmes in the six villages 136 5.3 Comparison of the occupation of the respondents with that of their fathers (intergenerational mobility) 147 ix x List of Tables 5.4 Comparison of the occupational status of the respondents with their status before the revolution (intra-generational mobility) 149 5.5 The main indices of intra- and intergenerational mobility 150 5.6 Distribution of respondents in terms of housing status 157 5.7 Gini coefficients for income, wealth and expenditure 158 5.8 Decile distribution of income 159 5.9 Decile distribution of household wealth 161 5.10 Decile distribution of expenditure 162 A1.1 Number of students enrolled in Azerbaijan, 1987 172 A1.2 Fall in the rural population of Azerbaijan by township, 1976–86 172 A1.3 Number of towns and communities, Marand, 1995 173 A1.4 Sex ratio in rural areas of the province and in the sample population, 1976–84 174 A1.5 Age distribution in rural areas of the province and in the sample population, 1976–86 175 A1.6 Age distribution 175 A1.7 Distribution by size of family 176 A1.8 Educational levels 177 A1.9 Occupational distribution 177 A2.1 Correlation coefficients (Spearman) for participation characteristics 178 A2.2 Correlation coefficients (Spearman) for intragenerational mobility 179 A2.3 Correlation coefficients (Spearman) for intergenerational mobility 180 A3.1 Comparison of income 181 A3.2 Multiregression analysis: income by measures of socioeconomic background 182 A3.3 Comparison of wealth 183 A3.4 Multiregression analysis: wealth by socioeconomic background 183 A3.5 Comparison of expenditure 184 A3.6 Multiregression analysis: expenditure by socioeconomic background 184 A3.7 Correlation between housing status and socioeconomic background 185 Acknowledgements Many people were involved in the process that led to the publication of this book. I am grateful for their advice and support. Professor Haleh Afshar and Professor Ali Rahnema read the entire manuscript several times and made extensive and extremely useful comments. I appreciate all the comments received, which helped me to make substantial improvements to the volume. Thanks are also due to Dr Mostafa Azkia and Dr Mahmood Ghazi Tabatabaei, who read and made useful comments on parts of the man- uscript, particularly in respect of the empirical study. I owe a great deal to Dr Adrian Leftwich, who provided useful advice, and his guidance on the outline of the original research programme was of great value. Dr Mohammad Taghavi, Dr Bagher Naseri, Mrs Yukiko Yashitomi, Mr Majid Zourofi and Mr Mehdi Ekrami merit special mention for their help in the field. Their cooperation was instrumental in the gathering of a mass of information. However I take full responsibility for the deficiencies that remain. I am also grateful for the moral support I received from my friends, including Dr Hossein Raghfar, Dr Mahmood Shahabi, Dr Hossein Serajzadeh, Mr Seyed Ghavamoddin Mahdavi and Mr Mehdi Ganjian. I express my gratitude to the Department of Planning and Design at the Undersecretariat for Rural Development, Ministry of Reconstruc- tion (Jihad), for its help in collecting data from the field as well as permitting me to use its data, computer services and other facilities. Last but not least I thank Mr T. M. Farmiloe and Mr Peter Dent of Palgrave for their efforts and their faith in the promotion and publica- tion of the book. ALI SHAKOORI xi Glossary Behsazi (physical upgrading projects) Boneh Caliph Dehyar (village animator) Kadkhoda (village headman) Khaleseh (public land) Khordeh-Maleki (village ownership by two or more individuals) Khushnisbhin (villagers without traditional cultivation right) Mosha (cooperatives) Moshaver (adviser of mosha) Omdeh-Maleki (land and villages owned by major landlords) Qanat (traditional irrigation system) Sarmosha (director of mosha) shia Shoura (council) sunni Tuyul (benefice) Ulama (clergy) Vaqf (religious endowments) Velayat-e motlagheh-faghih (absolute rule of religious leader) xii Introduction Rural development, in terms of policy and practice, has been a matter of increasing concern in the Third World. Governments, international agencies and local organisations have attempted to raise the status of rural people through improvement and transformation strategies (Long, 1979). This concern arose because the development efforts pursued over several decades were failing to eradicate rural poverty and make meaningful improvements to the living conditions of the rural poor (Haque et al., 1975; Griffin, 1979; Lea and Chaudhri, 1983; Ferguson, 1990). Today rural people have, more than ever before, access to education, health facilities and occupational opportunities.