The Military and the State in Iran: The Economic Rise of the Revolutionary Guards

Abstract

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps or IRGC is a multilayered political, ideological, and security institution that has steadily acquired an increasing role in Iran’s economy in recent years. This paper analyses the increasing economic and business involvement of the IRGC in the broader context of Iranian state-society relations in general, and its civil-military dynamics in particular. More specifically, we look at the political and socio-economic processes within which the IRGC operates at the interrelated levels of the state and society. This analysis sets out the framework based on which we examine the IRGC’s increasing power in the course of its engagements and various conflicts in both political and societal arenas, and in particular its economic expansion under Ahmadinejad’s presidency. This paper concludes by discussing the implications of the IRGC’s rise on the economic policy of the new government under President Rouhani.