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Case Analysis 03 August, 2022

Rural Reform in Modern Iran

Ali Shakoori

Ali Shakoori holds degrees from the University of Tehran (BA and MA), Iran, and University of York (PhD), Britain, and is an associate professor in the Department of Social Planning of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran. Since the early 2000s, he has written more than 40 articles in English and Persian dealing with diverse aspects of planning and developmental issues in Iran, mainly focusing on agricultural and rural development organization and policies, social policy, and welfare. He has also written three books: The State and Rural Development in Post-Revolutionary Iran (Palgrave 2001); Agricultural Development Policies in Iran, in Persian (Samt Publications, 2005); and Social Participations and Charity Para-Governmental Organisations: with an Emphasis on Iran, in Persian (Samt Publications, 2012).

Introduction

acrobat Icon In Iran, due to the historically high concentration of the country’s population in rural areas, and the resulting importance of agricultural activities, the rural sector has been a major focus of development policies by the state. In recent decades, the Iranian government has embarked on major developmental projects in rural areas. In fact, Iran is one of the few developing countries where agricultural development and solving rural problems have been considered a major developmental prerequisite and an explicit policy. Much of the literature on rural Iran has focused on reforms as a direct consequence of government initiatives and projects. By and large, rural development is seen in the literature as “a form of state intervention.”

More often, however, rural areas change as a consequence of both planned government actions and overarching developments, nationally and globally. Within this broader concept, this paper reviews major rural reforms in modern Iran, focusing on processes of change and continuity in the country’s rural sector. It first provides a brief historical background focusing on rural and agricultural change before the revolution, before reviewing the post-revolutionary rural policies. The concluding remarks discuss major policy outcomes and developmental challenges confronting the rural sector, focusing mainly on the nature of rural policies and unintended policy/macro development outcomes.