Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace: 26 (Cambridge Middle East Studies, Series Number 26)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 4/12/2007
EAN 9780521866187, ISBN10: 0521866189
Hardcover, 320 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
The Tehran Bazaar has always been central to the Iranian economy and indeed, to the Iranian urban experience. Arang Keshavarzian's fascinating book compares the economics and politics of the marketplace under the Pahlavis, who sought to undermine it in the drive for modernisation and under the subsequent revolutionary regime, which came to power with a mandate to preserve the bazaar as an 'Islamic' institution. The outcomes of their respective policies were completely at odds with their intentions. Despite the Shah's hostile approach, the bazaar flourished under his rule and maintained its organisational autonomy to such an extent that it played an integral role in the Islamic revolution. Conversely, the Islamic Republic implemented policies that unwittingly transformed the ways in which the bazaar operated, thus undermining its capacity for political mobilisation. Arang Keshavarizian's book affords unusual insights into the politics, economics and society of Iran across four decades.
1. The puzzle of the Tehran Bazaar under the Pahlavi monarchy and the Islamic Republic
2. Conceptualising the bazaar
3. Bazaar transformations
networks, reputations and solidarities
4. Networks in the context of transformative agendas
5. Carpets, tea and teacups
commodity types and sectoral trajectories
6. Networks of mobilisation under two regimes
7. Conclusions
Selected bibliography
Index.
'Keshavarzian casts his study within an intelligent and provocative theoretical framework, while providing the reader with rich empirical detail ... He makes new contributions to the study of the Tehran bazaar.' Ervand Abrahamian, Baruch College